In recent years, fans of modern home design have been looking for ways to get the style and character often associated with an architecturally designed modern home, which can run in upwards of $400 per sq ft. on a more value engineered budget. The result has been an ever growing trend of modern modular pre-fabricated homes, designed by architectural firms.

One of the pioneers of modern modular Pre-fab housing has been Twin Cities based FlatPak. Founded by Charlie Lazor (one of the founders of Blu Dot furniture) who named the company after the term used to describe knock down self-assembled furniture, that can be shipped flat in a box. However, the The Flat pack system is really an intricate and customizable system using a standard modular 8ft wide wall system, which can be clad in variety of materials from wood, to metal to glass panels. The standardized wall system allows home owners to leverage the economies of scale (about 20-30% less expensive than a traditional architect designed home), while the interchangeable nature of the materials, exterior panels, offers them the freedom to create a uniquely styled home, often times only seen in custom designed homes.

Recognized as one of the pioneers of Modern Modular housing, FlatPak homes have received recognition from the design community in the form of magazine, TV and extensive blog coverage. However, this July a FlatPak demo house reached one of its highest honors to date, as a featured longterm installation at the Minneapolis Walker Art Center’s Sculpture Garden. The 576 sq. ft. structure had been used as a display in several other design demo applications over the past few years, but in those cases it was displayed inside, so the structure received some slight modifications (including a real roof) to make it water tight and weather ready, for its latest appearance at the Walker. The FlatPak in the garden is the first long term architectural design installation since the Walker featured the Idea House II in the summer of 1947 as an exhibition of modern living. This time the structure will be used to house works of art, host information for visitors, along with a variety of activities and special events throughout the year.

But the installation of this project at the Walker, is not an end state for FlatPak. With a list of growing projects around the country and potential interest on a global scale, don’t be surprised if you see one of these wonderful, modern, modular homes in a neighborhood near you some day.

This corner shot shows the variety of substrates that can be applied to the FlatPak exterior to give it a unique look.

The FlatPak house sits in the Walker Art Center’s sculpture Garden and will be used as a visitor center of sorts.

Even the interior of the FlatPak house features a nice mixture and variety of wall panels, from composite wood, to frosted glass, giving the interior a warm, yet modern feel.

The ChairChair, a Blu Dot classic adorns the interior space.

Rendering of the latest FlatPak project, being built in Golden Valley Minnesota.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 10:06 pm and is filed under Architecture, Design, Products, building. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.