Nodul(ar) House: Simplicity, Efficiency + Variability

This weekend at Dwell on Design (this is a sneak peak), Jeriko House and Patrick Tighe are going to announce a watershed collaboration on a new kind of prefab, the Nodul(ar) House.  Readers of Jetson Green are familiar with Jeriko House, a Louisiana-based prefab company that we've written about here and here.  Architect Patrick Tighe is well known and highly accomplished, including two major achievements:  National AIA Young Architect (2006) and Rome Prize fellowship in architecture (2006-2007).  I've had the pleasure of speaking with both Patrick Tighe and Shawn Burst, the CEO of Jeriko House, about the Nodul(ar) House. 

Nodul(ar) House integrates new processes and manufacturing technologies with two long-established concepts - prefabrication and the modular. Prefabrication - utilized as early as 1851 with Paxton’s Crystal Palace and notably with Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion house - are but two examples of experimentation within a field that has intrigued architects, urban planners, and other modernists for decades. Nodul(ar) house takes the modular into “nodal” form driven by parameters of performance and technology. Modularization continues to gain prominence and yield insight in numerous fields including code based systems, nanotechnology, urban organization, and subatomic particle analysis amongst many other contemporary scientific fields. While Corbusier’s investigations of the modular looked to the perfection of systems found within nature, Nodul(ar) looks to the node for technical integrity, balance, circulation, and symmetry. Nodul(ar) House exploits the derivation of variability and adaptability possible from well harnessed technological systems while maintaining the efficiency and economics that uniformity yields.

The need, even the desire, for super big houses is diminishing, and with these nodes, Nodul(ar) House wants to do something different in prefab, to take prefab a little further.  People are more conscious, more practical, and more aware of their surroundings.  As you can see, these 'nodes' have a utility function.  There's a node for the kitchen, bathroom, or stairs.  Add a roof garden to your home and attach the stair node for egress to the roof.  The basic home structure is so simple and clean - reserved for living, sleeping, and interacting.  And depending on your needs, add or take away a node in the right spot ... let the home evolve and emerge with you. 

This is a rendering of the bathroom (bottom) and kitchen (top) nodes.  An actual node should be on display at Dwell on Design, and when they are placed into production, nodes will be made with durable, high-tech, eco-friendly materials.  Imagine the interchangeability, substitutability, and scalability.  The image below shows how the nodes would be put together, with piece in the center housing any wires and plumbing. 

All images are property of Tighe Architecture/Jeriko House.  Thanks to Shawn Burst and Patrick Tighe for taking time to discuss and share details of their newest project. 

Comments

[mistercontrarian]

I'm kind of baffled as to why Jeriko would launch something like this.

The appeal of the Toma system is that it's a completely modular kit of parts - you don't need to bother with room-sized "nodes" when every individual piece of wall, floor, ceiling, etc. can be changed. This seems like a step backward for them (and no different from what SU11, Quon Modular, and others have been trying to do).

Or maybe I'm missing something...

[Preston]

An extra note for those of you thinking about going to Dwell on Design.