Modular office design has evolved at a glacial pace since enclosed cubicles became America’s standard-issue workspace in the early 1980s. Today’s cubicles bear an unsettlingly similar resemblance to the cubicles of 25 years ago.
The same cannot be said of modular home design. Sure, factories continue to churn out unimaginative, prefabricated double-wide homes. But a new generation of architects has been broadly expanding the boundaries of modular home design, creating living spaces that incorporate environmental sustainability and efficiency, as well as technical sophistication
One such modular home is currently the centerpiece of the Museum of Science and Industry’s Smart Home: Green + Wired exhibit. The three-story, 2,500-square-foot mkSolaire home, designed by Iowa native Michelle Kaufmann, has been situated squarely in the middle of the museum’s Beaver Park.
We toured the Smart Home this past weekend. The design comes across as neither prefab nor modular; rather, the bright and airy home somehow manages to feel simultaneously organic and state of the art.
In no particular order, here are our seven favorite features of the Smart Home.
1. The home’s photovoltaic solar panels, which are 15%-20% more efficient than traditional solar panels, provide enough energy to power most of the home; excess energy is sent back to the ComEd grid.
2. The beautiful Blazestone subway tile in the master bathroom is made from recycled chardonnay bottles.
3. Multiple rain barrels collect water runoff, which is then used to keep the home’s meticulous landscaping looking lush.
4. Heated radiant subfloors heat rooms from the floor up, which leads to greater energy efficiency.
5. A dual-flush toilet gives you the option of using either 0.8 or 1.6 liters of water, depending on your “needs.”
6. The NatureMill tabletop electric composter recycles its weight in waste every 10 days; plus, the composter itself is 100% recyclable.
7. The artwork of Brian Andreas, taken from his “Chalkboard” series, evokes playfulness and modernity as soon as one walks through the home’s front door and scans the living room wall.
If you’d like a Smart Home to call your own, be prepared to pay $500,000, a total that does not include the price of the land.
“The mkSolaire is designed as a healthy, green-living solution for the city,” says Kaufmann, the home’s designer. “Even in a typical city lot where two sides do not see sunlight, this home is washed with natural light.”
While we think the mkSolaire would be a fine home in an urban environment, it’s open design — with large windows on all sides and multiple decks — is better suited to a larger, less-developed swath of land.
That said, wherever we’re living, be it an urban or rural environment, we’d be thrilled to call the mkSolaire our Home Sweet Smart Home.
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For the rain barrels be sure to find rain barrels which offer mesh mosquito guards, and also look for barrels which have overflow valves-allowing the excess water to flow out of the rain barrels and away from your foundation. Hooking a drip hose to this valve is a great way to give your garden or flower bed a constant source of moisture.