A sustainable approach to the Dutch housing crisis with prefab timber houses
The housing sector is slowly but surely becoming more sustainable. Circular materials such as wood are increasingly being chosen for the construction of houses. Eemshout Prefab in Groningen produces prefab wooden building elements, such as roofs, facades, floors and walls. The rising housing shortage and the discussion on nitrogen caused the company to undergo a growth spurt in recent years. “Our portfolio has never been so well-stocked. It’s great to see that sustainable solutions are becoming increasingly popular in housing construction,” says director Pieter de Boer.
Innovative and Sustainable SME Groningen Often entrepreneurs from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have their hands full with matters surrounding the start-up and expansion of their business. They have very little time and capacity to figure out how to become more sustainable or to innovate. Entrepreneurs in Groningen are supported in this process through the provincial Innovative and Sustainable SME Groningen subsidy scheme. The company Eemshout Prefab B.V. has received a grant for the investment in a wood processing system. The use of a machine that saws according to 3D drawings makes building with wood a lot more efficient.
The housing crisis: it is a problem which has plagued the Netherlands for some time now. But for a company like Eemshout, the future is looking bright, thanks in part to the crisis. A restart was made in 2013 after a bankruptcy. Now the company’s 53 employees are working hard every day to meet the demands of the market. “We can hardly keep up with the demand,” says de Boer. “Where in 2019, we already had to deal with 125 projects per year, there are 212 now. The municipality of Groningen, for example, is working on various projects relating to sustainable living. It’s nice to see that the construction sector is becoming more sustainable this way.” In the north of the Netherlands, the company mainly supplies earthquake-proof homes. While In the west of the country, mainly roof structures for luxury villas are needed.
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Pieter de Boer
Prefab and the reduction of CO₂ emissions
Eemshout is helping to make house construction more sustainable in a number of ways. When houses are built, a lot of CO₂ and nitrogen is released during the delivery and removal of the building materials. Working with prefabricated structures partially solves that problem. “Because we assemble the entire timber frame of the houses at the workshop and then transport a truck full of them, you cut down on emissions considerably,” says De Boer. “So the emissions at the construction site – which are sometimes also located near nature reserves – are zero.”
Wood as a circular material
On top of that, the company only uses wood as a building material. “It is a light material that insulates extremely well and also absorbs CO₂ from the air,” explains De Boer. In addition to timber construction, De Boer sees that other components and products fused in housing construction are also becoming more and more sustainable. “There are plenty of developments underway. Until now, for example, a lot of glass wool was used to insulate roofs, but nowadays you see that hemp or straw is also used increasingly often.” Price-wise, this is more expensive, but this is bound to change if developments keep moving in the right direction. “If we produce these kinds of products in large quantities more and more often, the price will go down by itself,” says De Boer.
Innovative sawing machine
The new sawing machine
In order to meet the huge market demand, the company recently purchased a new woodworking machine. De Boer explains how it works. “Instructions for the machine are generated directly from a 3D drawing program. The machine recognizes the data files and automatically generates the operations that this requires. By automating this process, the chance of errors occurring is much smaller and the lead time is also shortened. We used to outsource a lot of sawing work, which meant that we had to count on a delivery time of four weeks before we could start production. Consequently, we are now saving a lot of time. It will be possible to increase production in the future. So we are extremely happy with the machine.”
100,000 houses
Tackling the housing crisis is a priority for the new Dutch cabinet in the coming years. The construction of new homes will be accelerated to 100,000 homes per year. So, there is work to be done, also for Eemshout. De Boer: “It will be quite a chore, for us too, to meet the demand. Fortunately, we can take advantage of our new sawing machine.”
Future plans
In addition to ramping up production, Eemshout has even more on its agenda. The company is in the process of setting up a project around the reuse of wood waste. “The waste then goes back to the factory in Spa, Belgium. There it is then turned into a new product, such as particle board, for example. There’s still some thought that needs to go into it before it gets to that point. We have to think about how to transport the wood – is it best to do that by water or by road? We obviously need to take emissions into account in doing that.”
Read more stories about innovation in Groningen here.
Villa Timmerman is a warm and clever prefab timber Swedish home
Askim is a popular residential suburb of Gothenburg, established, and elegantly mixing family homes with nature. It is here that Villa Timmerman stands tall, perched on a south-east slope overlooking the sea – a new, semi-detached house created by Andreas Lyckefors, of architecture studio Bornstein Lyckefors, and his wife, architect Josefine Wikholm. The prefab timber Swedish home was created and self-financed by the pair as their own family base.
‘It was a challenge to create a semi-detached house with equal qualities at both ends, as they naturally face different directions. We had to study the local conditions carefully and take into account weather, views, sun, evening sun, contact with the street and neighbours. In the end, the house could be arranged so that both parts of the house get morning, noon and evening sun. There is always sun on one terrace or balcony during the bright part of the day,’ says Lyckefors.
Swedish home for flexible living
Photography: Kale Sanner
Negotiating the slope was another challenge, in order to ensure all levels and directions get enough views and natural light throughout the day. Lyckefors and Wikholm responded by sculpting a flowing interior with large openings carved out of the façade and open-plan areas, such as the living and dining area (part of which extends to a dramatic, double-height ceiling) and the open timber staircase that connects all floors. This openness not only allows for comfortable and bright interiors, but also allows the residents to connect with the surrounding nature at every corner.
Designed for daily family life through the years, the structure is proudly flexible. ‘We wanted the house to be able to grow with the family and function well during all stages of life. With proximity to the children during the toddler years, more privacy for the teenage family, and with a home office or a lodger for the family with adult children. By breaking up the conventional function-separated room plan, the floor plan can be given consistent qualities. The social room runs throughout the house, bedrooms and toilets are placed on all floors. The small children can sleep close to their parents, while older children, teenagers or guests can live on their own floor with a toilet and their own living room,’ the architecture duo explain.
Photography: Kale Sanner
The home is made out of timber and was entirely prefabricated, simply and swiftly assembled on site. The wood has been kept in its natural colours inside (which includes ash and veneers, for elements such as the staircase and bespoke furniture), but treated with wood tar to produce a black and brown pigment for the exterior skin, giving it its dramatic presence – in particular, when contrasting with the winter snow.
Three grids externally (diagonal and vertical ribs) add to that effect. ‘The grid was an experiment that proved to work well as extra protection against solar radiation on the façade and as a protective layer against the drifting rain on the west coast,’ the architects add. Meanwhile, the roof combines tarred wood panels and solar panels, supporting the home’s energy consumption. §
Mystery Deepens About Whether Elon Musk Actually Lives in Prefab Box
Even by Elon’s standards, this is getting dramatic.
The more we learn about whether Elon Musk lives in either a shack or a palace, the more confusing the story becomes.
After a damning Wall Street Journal report suggested the world’s richest man may actually be living in his buddy’s multi-million-dollar Austin mansion instead of a prefabricated hovel like he claims, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO denied the claim outright when speaking to Business Insider — but his friend’s denial isn’t as clear.
“Elon does not live at my home, he lives in South Texas,” PayPal co-founder Ken Howery, allegedly known as “Kenny” to his maybe-tenant Musk, told BI. “He stayed at the house as my guest occasionally when traveling to Austin.”
That final clause — that Musk has “occasionally” been a “guest” to Howery — is remarkably ambiguous. It could mean that the world’s richest man actually is living in a little shack by SpaceX’s campus near the US-Mexico border. But it could also mean that he stays there all the time.
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Musk’s denial of WSJ‘s report, which he simply called “false,” was much less equivocating.
“I don’t live there and am not looking to buy a house anywhere,” he said, noting the chunk of the WSJ‘s anonymously-sourced article claiming that the billionaire troll is actively house hunting in Austin, to the point where he’s employed lawyers to handle real estate brokers.
Because he is a troll, however, Musk apparently couldn’t resist the urge to mock the report that, in all reality, would make far more sense than a man worth more money than the GDP of North Korea living in a rented shack.
I should probably live somewhere though 😔 — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 23, 2021
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There was no doubt that Musk was going to deny the WSJ‘s claim — which, let’s be honest, isn’t exactly Pentagon Papers material. It’s worth pointing out, by the way, that the “people familiar with the matter” who spoke to the WSJ on background about this alleged secret real estate hunt said that Musk is trying to keep it quiet on purpose. If they conjectured about what purpose that could be, the newspaper chose not to print it.
So now, we’re stuck in the fuzzy grey area of an incredibly goofy story, even by Musk standards.
Does Elon Musk actually live way, way, way below his means for some sort of minimalist reason? Or is it all a play to make him seem more relatable? The world may never know.
READ MORE: Elon Musk denies report that he’s been staying in a $12 million lavish waterfront Austin estate owned by a ‘PayPal Mafia’ member [Business Insider]
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More on Muskbrags: Elon Musk Brags That He’s Paying More Taxes Than Anyone Else in History
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A $9.3 million smart prefab home in the Bay Area is now on sale and is designed to attract local tech executives — see inside
Given the price range, Akiva says Veev’s buyers are often executives and people in their 30s to 50s working in the tech industry, often with a family. But no matter the age, Veev’s buyers are almost all looking for a modern home with integrated technology, Akiva said.
The 993 Los Robles Ave home in Palo Alto, California. Veev
Top 10 prefab architectural designs of 2021
Prefabricated architecture has been gaining a lot of popularity and momentum recently! It basically involves making buildings or building various components at a particular location, one that is better suited for construction, and then once completed, transporting it to the final site or location. Prefab architectural designs have a multitude of benefits – they keep costs down, ensure projects are more sustainable and efficient, and they also prioritize and pay attention to simplicity and modularity. And we have curated a collection of our favorite prefabricated designs for you – from a prefab cabin with a rustic personality and modern details to a micro resort made from three prefab timber cabins – these prefabricated designs are a part of an integral growing trend in modern architecture, and could be the future of it as well!
- ARCspace
Meet ARCspace, a modular architecture firm that is constantly creating innovative designs and material development to do its part in curbing the emissions for their industry using sustainable, affordable, prefabricated homes. All structures are prefabricated for highly efficient and quick builds which reduce emissions and minimizes waste. ARCspace reports the buildings are “spec-built from the ground up in 40-60% less time and cost than traditional construction.” Residents can fully customize their tiny homes or even scale up to the size of traditional homes and have a huge range of interior design details to choose from including optional elements that provide off-grid power and water. Some homes feature self-contained atmospheric water generators called Hydropanels that are grid-independent and pull a few liters of drinking water out of the air each day.
- Iniö
Iniö is a prefabricated log home from Pluspuu designed for a Switzerland-based Finnish couple who’d like a holiday retreat in their hometown of Heinola. Pluspuu knows log cabins better than we do. Based in Helsinki, the prefabricated log cabin design company constructs high-quality log houses and cabins alongside Pirkanmaa-based Ollikaisen Hirsirakenne Oy, a family-run cabin construction company with over 40 years’ worth of experience. For a Finnish couple who relocated to Switzerland, Pluspuu’s prefabricated Iniö log house came as the ideal home for holiday retreats in their hometown of Heinola.
- Exosteel
Exosteel comprises a group of modular steel homes that would be constructed using a 3D-printed construction system that supports and distributes all the functional elements of the building. Mask Architects co-founders Danilo Petta and Öznur Pınar Çer felt inspired by Costantino Nivola’s sculpture work, in particular a travertine sculpture called ‘La Madre.’ Punctuating the terrain of a sloping mountainside in Sardinia, Exosteel is comprised of heart-shaped, white homes with center ‘energy towers,’ oriented in the same way as the head on Nivola’s ‘La Madre.’
- Uni Villa
Studio Puisto collaborated with nature tourism entrepreneur Kari Vainio and installed the first prototype in the forest of Hyvinkää, Finland. One 1,205-square-foot, U-shaped villa is the core of the layout and consists of two accompanying studio units. All three units come with a keyless check-in system and ready-made furniture. Uni means “dream” in Finnish and it alludes to the dreams that aspiring hospitality entrepreneurs will be able to fulfill their own micro-resorts that won’t require the big capital investment that hotels do. This first Uni Villa even won the title of Best in Finland in 2020! Two courses were designed by Canadian golf course architect Thomas McBroom and are set in the most pristine environment between a natural forest and a lake.
- Hüga
Developed from the Danish word Hyggee, Hüga was conceptualized, designed, and built over a span of 24 months, during which Grandio’s team of designers were able to produce a 45 m2 residence with space for a bedroom, living room, bathroom, kitchen, and dining area. The final results are these hüga units that are built with reinforced concrete and designed for minimal maintenance as well as reducing your energy costs. These compact homes can withstand all climates and adverse conditions, including earthquakes, wildfires, and hurricanes. Hüga homes are also mobile and modular so much so that you can extend your house in plan in just one day. Weighing about 55-Tn, Hüga requires a team and machinery for transportation but can be placed according to the prospective resident’s preference.
- Casa R
Think of this cabin as a safehouse for when you are facing harsh weather conditions. Casa R is perched in the Andes Mountains in Southern Chile giving views of the vast parklands and nature reserves. It is the ideal destination to be immersed in nature but the area is also known for its extreme climatic conditions and that is exactly what Casa R’s design aims to guard against – nothing can stand between you and a cozy night at your cabin in the woods! Felipe Lagos is a Chilean architect of the Santiago–based studio TuCroquis who has previously designed many local homes that take the rapidly changing weather into account. Casa R is an extension of that range, it is a modular holiday cabin residing in the middle of a lush forested site.
- The Falcon House
Partly immersed in the surrounding woodlands, the Falcon House pokes through from the nearby forest with sharp angles and a geometric silhouette. Conceived to maximize the total living space and available views of the surrounding landscape, Koto flipped the Falcon House’s layout upside down. Nicknamed the Upside Down Home, Koto’s latest home is defined by two cuboid modules stacked almost perpendicularly together.
- AUAR
AUAR comprises a modular timber building method that designs prefabricated, custom homes based on a given site’s conditions and landscape, and the buyer’s lifestyle and home preferences. Relying on robotics and custom automation methods from ABB Robotics, AUAR redefines what homebuilding can look like in the 21st century. Through AUAR, individual timber building blocks, chosen for the building materials renewability, are robotically prefabricated and stacked together to form tiny dwelling units.
- Pi House
This prefab dwelling comes flat-packed in multiple boxes and can be assembled in 45 days without the help of heavy machinery. It uses extrusion-die aluminum framing that’s anchored with rebar to the ground or a poured concrete foundation. Just like a Lego set, there is a network of steel doughnuts that spans lengths of up to 30 feet to support the structure. The aluminum studs link seamlessly to joists and the exterior cladding is clipped onto the frame. It’s a method that could be extended to 45 feet which makes it modular and easier to expand in case the home belongs to a growing family. Pi House can be shipped anywhere, the system allows it to be the perfect structure for single-family homes as well as larger projects like social housing.
- Stilt Studio
Bali-based architect Alexis Dornier has created small prefabricated homes on stilts called Stilt Studio. These homes can be set up and erected without causing any substantial damage to the surrounding landscape. Dornier says, “The reality here (in Bali) is that we often find leasehold plots with a limited amount of years. This situation calls for us to tread lightly through prefab ‘PropTech’ structures that could be packed up and re-erected someplace else.” He aims at building the homes from cross-laminated timber, hence making them environmentally friendly as well.