Since the front door is located in the exterior wall, residents first enter a vast garden before reaching the gable roof house.
“One of the goals of Zenkaya was to create employment in a country crippled by [an unemployment rate of over 25 percent],” explains the architect, who likes to call himself a social entrepreneur.
The roofline of the Tind house prototype, designed by Claesson Koivisto Rune for prefab company Fiskarhedenvillan, has more conventional Swedish gables than the flat-roofed modernism of typical prefab units.
Heating for the unit is provided by a Spartherm fireplace, with electric heating integrated into the magnesite floor. Walls are insulated with fire-tested wool felt under plywood panels.
Photo by Patrick Barta
A Simple Plan
A Marmol Radziner–designed prefab house, trucked onto a remote Northern California site, takes the pain out of the construction process.