Sunday, January 3, 2010

HIVE MODULAR




Hive Modular recently unveiled a brand new pre-fabulous house chock full of eco-friendly materials and lots of high-tech home system controls. Situated in Vadnais Heights, Minnesota, the new X-Line 003 is a 4 bedroom, 3 bath home that boasts clean lines and a sleek interior. There are a lot of prefab companies out there serving up brilliant concepts, but not all of them have actually built a house. Hive Modular has — quite a few actually — and they’ve got the project gallery to show for it.
The exterior of the new X-line 003 is constructed from fiber cement, steel, and locally-harvested cedar, which keeps things eco-friendly and super low-maintenance. One really interesting feature of the landscaping is their choice of material to build a retaining wall on the side of the house. Instead of using concrete, the owners chose to go with gabion baskets, which are the big metal baskets that hold rocks typically used for large retaining walls on the sides of highways. This clever idea is not only more durable than concrete but has a lower embodied energy. Could it also be more economical?
On the inside, you’ll find contemporary and sleek wood finishes. The envy-worthy bright red kitchen is actually Ikea, and the custom tables in the kitchen are from Eastvold Custom Woodworks. There’s lots of natural light facilitated by Low-E argon filled windows and doors. The entire house’s lighting system and thermostat are controllable via an iPhone App, which is exactly what all the cool college kids featured in their prefab designs for this year’s Solar Decathlon.

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