Joel and Meelena Turkel, owners of Turkel Design, have produced dozens of prefab houses for other people since starting their company more than a decade ago. But when the couple decided to relocate from the East Coast to Palm Springs around two years ago, they found themselves in the unusual position of experiencing the design process from the perspective of the client.

“We put ourselves under this microscope in a way,” says Joel. “How would we build a home appropriate for us using the methods we developed at Turkel Design? And what do we, in turn, learn and share with all of our clients and would-be clients as a result of doing this?”

The Turkels’ new residence, which they describe as a “living lab,” has been, in fact, a kind of litmus test for the systems they espouse. Their approach to design has been years in the making, starting when the two met as students at MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning, where they focused their studies primarily on energy efficiency and building systems.

As business owners they saw potential in prefab, and they set out to address those same issues by developing a program that streamlines the entire building process, from assessing a project’s overall feasibility to assuring efficient delivery and assembly, to providing fixed pricing for various budgets. They applied many of these building strategies to their own 2,080-square-foot prefab home, which was showcased as a featured property during Palm Springs Modernism Week last February.

“It was a wonderful, emotional thing to be able to put ourselves in the shoes of our clients.”
—Meelena Turkel, designer and resident

Before even deciding on the site, the Turkels asked themselves the standard question for clients: What type of home were they seeking? They wanted it to reflect the city’s midcentury aesthetic and provide the year-round indoor/outdoor living that was impossible in the Northeast.

They found a corner lot they liked in the Racquet Club West neighborhood. Zoning laws, however, limited the building to one story, which meant the designers would have to be creative about maximizing space that could readily adapt to the needs of their daughters as they got older.

From regulatory research to the delivery of the house’s shell, they followed each familiar step in their firm’s process. The actual assembly was done in 32 working days, but it took more than a year for the desert sand to be transformed into a contemporary oasis. The three-bedroom home is anchored by an airy living area that connects to the primary suite to the west and an office to the north.

A second volume to the east houses the children’s bedroom, two baths, and a guest room/den. To get the most out of the footprint, the couple designed transformable furniture and “spaces that perform multiple duties,” says Joel. The girls, for instance, can play on a daybed in the living room that becomes part of the outdoor furnishings when the custom lift-and-slide doors are open, or get homework done on a desk that pulls out from under their bunk beds. The adults, meanwhile, can recline on a patio shaded by a custom pergola that serves as a second living area near the pool and herb garden.

The designers achieved their goal of making the house net-zero energy and fossil fuel free thanks to such features as carefully sized roof overhangs, double-paned windows, photovoltaic panels, and heat-absorbing concrete floors. “What we’ve done here is use a lot of passive strategies that don’t involve a lot of systems,” says Meelena.

“We’ve worked to develop systems that can transfer to almost anywhere. To us, this is how you democratize design.”
—Joel Turkel, designer and resident

The Turkels are hoping that their compact, energy-efficient house sets a new standard for living. “I want people to rethink what a modern American home can be, and not think that it has to be big, but that it can be quite modest and absolutely lovely,” says Joel.

Project Credits:

Architect: Turkel Design / @turkeldesign

Builder: Paris Construction

Engineer: Innovative Structural Engineering & Lea & Braze Engineering

Lighting Designer: Tirschwell & Co, Inc.

Landscaper: Randy G. Myers and Nurseries

Solar Panels: Hot Purple Energy

Other: The Modern Fan Co.; Thermalwood Canada; British Columbia Timberframe Company

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This Palm Springs Prefab Is a “Living Lab” for Its Designer Residents