Builder’s annual show home will be hard to miss at the International Builders’ Show (IBS), and not just because it will be built inside the convention center’s main hall. LivingHome, the 11th in the magazine’s show home series, will allow attendees to once again engage with a wealth of ideas and visionary thinking, this time packaged in an efficient yet surprisingly spacious 2,426-square-foot, two-story modular home.
The contemporary house, designed by KieranTimberlake Associates of Philadelphia, satisfies a trio of modern-day housing goals: a financially affordable, green-built, well-designed home that both the architect and LivingHomes, the Santa Monica, Calif., builder, anticipate will be replicated, with some customization, for the masses.
“There’s no doubt that compact development, urban infill, green building, and contemporary design are all converging to create a popular and profitable market niche for housing,” says Boyce Thompson, Builder’s editorial director, who brought the team together. “The demographics of aging baby boomers moving down and echo-boomers looking for their first house in vibrant, urban neighborhoods only add to that dynamic.”
A few weeks prior to the IBS, the home will emerge near-complete from a Southern California factory and shipped to the convention center for final assembly and finishing touches at booth #C5288. It will feature a pair of stacked, 500-square-foot modules to create the home’s main living areas, while a panelized wall, floor, and roof system will demonstrate the flexibility of the factory-built concept as the framework for a third upstairs bedroom supported by a carport below. “This hybrid approach to home building [combining modular and panelized systems] foreshadows the future of the industry,” says Steve Glenn, president of LivingHomes. “The time and materials efficiencies, design flexibility, quality control, and affordability of this house will play an important role in the industry’s recovery.”
Several leading building products manufacturers, led by Andersen Windows and Whirlpool Corp., sponsored the show home and will display their latest offerings to the industry—all of them fully vetted as eco-friendly to support one of the primary goals of the project: enhancing and leveraging the resource efficiencies attained by its small footprint and construction methods. That being said, the home will not be eligible for green building certification until it is sold and placed on an actual lot and foundation, allowing the elements of the parcel to factor into the home’s total rating score.
LivingHome will be open for free guided tours during the exhibit hours of IBS and featured in the April 2009 issue of Builder. In the meantime, the home’s construction progress, project team, and sponsors (highlighted in a virtual tour of the house), as well as videos, webinars, and blog entries about the concept and the project, can be viewed online at http://builderlivinghome.com.
Project Details
Project: LivingHome, Las Vegas Convention Center
Unit size: 2,426 square feet (two levels)
Bedrooms/Bathrooms: 3/2.5
Builder: LivingHomes, Santa Monica, Calif.
Architect: KieranTimberlake Associates, Philadelphia
Interior designer: Color Design Art, Culver City, Calif.
Manufacturer: Profile Structures, Santa Fe Springs, Calif.
Web site: http://builderlivinghome.com
Directions (from convention center): The LivingHome show home is located at Booth #C5288 in the Central Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. The booth is located against the south wall of the hall.
Learn more about markets featured in this article: Las Vegas, NV, Los Angeles, CA.
