PREFAB HOMES I Today’s factory-made houses are a hot commodity in the U.S.
Mary Lamey
Sun
CREDIT: Phil Carpenter, Montreal Gazette Sketches and a scale model he prepared for last year’s Montreal fall homeshow led to the collaboration of Jean-Claude Poitras (left) and Les Industries Bonneville, Quebec’s largest manufacturer of factory-made homes — ‘… for us, the main concern was whether his designs would be affordable to the average buyer,’ Dany Bonneville recalled. ‘He should not have worried,’ Poitras said. ‘My head may be in the clouds, but my feet are on the ground.’
CREDIT: Phil Carpenter, Montreal Gazette Sketches and a scale model he prepared for last year’s Montreal fall homeshow led to the collaboration of Jean-Claude Poitras (left) and Les Industries Bonneville, Quebec’s largest manufacturer of factory-made homes — ‘… for us, the main concern was whether his designs would be affordable to the average buyer,’ Dany Bonneville recalled. ‘He should not have worried,’ Poitras said. ‘My head may be in the clouds, but my feet are on the ground.’
CREDIT: Phil Carpenter, Montreal Gazette Sketches and a scale model he prepared for last year’s Montreal fall homeshow led to the collaboration of Jean-Claude Poitras (left) and Les Industries Bonneville, Quebec’s largest manufacturer of factory-made homes — ‘… for us, the main concern was whether his designs would be affordable to the average buyer,’ Dany Bonneville recalled. ‘He should not have worried,’ Poitras said. ‘My head may be in the clouds, but my feet are on the ground.’
Jean-Claude Poitras is another member of the design fraternity who wants to change our perception of factory-built homes. Think fab, not prefab.
Poitras has teamed with Les Industries Bonneville, Quebec‘s largest manufacturer of factory-made homes, to create his first prefabricated house: Poitras Casa Bonneville recently on display at the Montreal Home & Trends Show.
The house turns any notion of cheap, cookie-cutter construction on its end. The 2,058-square-foot house is sleek and contemporary, full of windows and beautiful details like a designer kitchen by Maax, a modular fireplace and innovative use of lighting. (Pinsized LED lights create a constellation over the dining table. Recessed baseboard lighting bathes the path to and the entire master bedroom in blue.)
The house consists of two modules measuring 16 feet by 56 feet (4.9 metres by 17.1 metres), connected by a 16-by-16 (4.9-by-4.9 metre) central module that acts as entrance hall. Turn left, and you’re in the kitchen, dining room, family room and powder room. Turn right, and you’ll find two bedrooms and two en suite bathrooms. The two wings enfold a central terrace. Poitras took inspiration from the walled homes he’s visited in Morocco and Spain.
The modules are delivered by flatbed truck, with all the fixtures, including plumbing, electricity, bathrooms, kitchen and lighting installed and ready for hookup. The house with a foundation sells for about $275,000, excluding the cost of land.
“It is a very adaptable design. You can add other modules, like playing with Lego,” said Dany Bonneville, the company’s vice-president of marketing. “You can stack the two modules one on top of the other or create a duplex or a bi-generational house.”
Prefabricated homes, once thought to be a housing choice of last resort for people who had limited resources, are becoming a hot commodity in the U.S., where the economically mobile are choosing them for their ease and quickness of assembly and adaptability. They are especially appealing to people who appreciate modern architecture, but don’t have the means to buy a custom-built modernist home.
Dwell magazine, an arbiter of all that is cool and cutting edge in contemporary architecture and design, has recently launched its own line of prefab houses in conjunction with Empyrean International LLC, Resolution: 4 Architecture and Lazor Office.
In Sweden, home of the flat-packed furniture giant IKEA, prefabricated homes are common, as they are in Japan, where land resources are limited.
Innovative architects are working with shipping containers in search of inexpensive, adaptable and transportable housing. These could be especially useful in areas hit by natural disaster, like the U.S. Gulf Coast or tsunami-swept Southeast Asia. It’s also just a cool idea for people who might like to move around and take their house with them.
Canada is only beginning to tap into its potential to build interesting prefabs, according to Poitras.
“We are already known for the quality of our homes. It’s time we use our imaginations and see what we can bring to the concept,” he said as workers put the final touches on the Poitras Casa.
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The designer and the builder were brought together after last year’s fall home show. Poitras, best known as a clothing designer, has always had an interest in interior design, housewares and homes.
“All my life, I’ve doodled drawings of my dream homes,” he said. “Last year at the show, I presented some of my sketches and a scale model. The people running the show put me together with Dany and something magical happened.”
The builder and the dreamer hit it off.
“We were open to working with Jean-Claude, but for us, the main concern was whether his designs would be affordable to the average buyer,” Bonneville said.
“He should not have worried,” Poitras said. “My head may be in the clouds, but my feet are on the ground.”
They signed a contract to build their first house June 18, Poitras’s birthday.
Poitras was delighted to discover a new world of building materials through Bonneville, including the fibre cement exterior cladding by Kaycan, which looks like stone, only lighter. Taiga Forest Products provided Trex, a composite made of wood chips and recycled plastic bags, used to make the deck and guard rails of the terrace. It looks and feels like wood, but won’t rot or ever need repainting.
“We’ve had a lot of fun, sparking ideas together,” Poitras said.
He hopes the partnership will yield other creations, including something “a little more traditional.”
“I’ve got an urban side, but I’ve also got a country side. I would love a chance to rethink the log cabin. That would be a dream come true.”
© The Vancouver Sun 2005
