Planet Architect Revisited

 When I was a little girl, I played with a construction set made of interlocking red bricks. I thought that Legos, or anything that came from Europe for that matter, was meant for well to do children  and I was content with my red plastic bricks. These bricks were thin as a pencil, and came with white plastic windows, doors and green cardboard roofs. Build as I did, I was in a slump. My houses were all alike. There was no way to change or even improve on the design. The task became even more thankless when, for some reason that escapes me, I began to chew  the bricks that quickly became deformed and unusable. During winter months, my favorite construction season, my houses were becoming smaller and smaller because I was chewing my supply of bricks. Finally, when there were only a few left that I had not chewed, my mother would simply make them disappear. I would diligently wait for the next Sears Christmas catalog and cercle the play bricks construction sets with a red pen in the hope that my mother would tell Santa. that her daughter had a taste for red plastic bricks. I would have preferred an all metal Meccano set, but I was told that it was for boys. In addition, metal is harder to chew.
Later on, I began to build houses using my Mom's shoes boxes by cutting windows draped with facial tissues for curtains. When my ambitions reached their apogee, I took large cardboard boxes in which we had our groceries delivered and I designed houses for my dolls. I even designed furniture with cereal boxes. During my innocent foray in housing construction, I could see how a simple modification changed volume and light. I was never going back to the little red plastic bricks. Now I could be creative and follow my bliss. My houses had a Mid-century modern look, a style quite familiar to Baby Boomers. This architecture employed was more organic and less formal forms than the pre-World War II dwellings in our neighborhoods. Many of these homes still exist today and luckily, there are some that have not been cannibalized. When I was visiting my son in San Francisco, I saw entire neighborhoods of houses built by Architect Joseph Eichler with their avant-garde look and sleek style. That's the look I was going for. Something edgy that made you look twice because of its curb appeal and airy interiors. 

Joseph Eichler's vision of the mid-century modern house

Architecture is of special interest to my spouse and myself. When time came to design our home in St. Irénée, Charlevoix, Pierre had put hundreds of hours on the myriad of technical details. For my part, I looked at the big picture and the green innovative potential. It is a perfect synergy, a beautiful partnership. Our Ying and Yang in sustainable construction.

In the previous post, I mentioned that we had consulted plans sold in catalogs and on websites. This option was not viable for us with all the changes we wanted to make to the predesigned plans. So we looked at another option in the ready-to-wear area of ​​residential building: the manufactured home. Sales of such homes are on the rise. Even Ikea sells houses ready to be assembled in Europe. Toyota does the same in Japan. I share with you the same visual of a young upwardly mobile couple reading the Ikea house plans lying on the ground and a huge Allen key at the ready. Manufactured housing has had a bad reputation in Canada. Even today, despite the rise in the market, this is not the first choice. Nevertheless, we decided to explore that venue.

Prefab houses by Ikea

At first glance, what we liked about the concept of the prefabricated house is that you can visit actual models at franchisees or at the main plant. It was concrete. You could walk through it and see first hand if it would suit your lifestyle and personal needs. We even visited factories where we could witness the development of a house, the conditions under which it was made, the choice of materials and the design center. I must admit that some models did pull at our heart strings..We also talked with friends who were in the process of building with a prefab house. The concept seemed simple. A manufactured home is a house made in whole or in part in a factory. It is  then transported to your lot where you have to assemble it and finish the interior.

During our visits to the factories, we found they had different procedures in construction and assembly. This had an impact on the actual shipping of the house. Because the houses are transported, the structure is reinforced with thicker panels so the houses are more solid. In addition, the manufactured home is not a bargain. It can cost the same as a house built on your lot. The quality is comparable to conventional houses while having certain advantages and disadvantages. The following list is far from being exhaustive. Moreover, several elements could be added according to the personal experience of the owners of these houses.

Advantages :·

• Machined in a controlled environment with specific templates·
• Very wide selection of models and different installation modes such as self construction or turnkey.
• If the manufacturer includes some work, he becomes responsible for the work of providers of these services
• New ecological options
• Can be certified Novoclimat 2.0
• In some building plants, there is a recycling facility

Disadvantages:

• You can save money by doing some of the building steps yourself but are you really equiped for it?
• Move-in time into a manufactured house resembles that of a traditional house so no time was gained by the fact that the house had been built elsewhere. 
• There is a risk of unpleasant surprises if you did the work yourself·
• The assembly of the house is the greatest hurdle.
• We have to plan soil analysis, pouring of foundations, drilling of wells, septic tanks, carpenters, electricians, plumbers and plasterers among others in addition to the permit.
• More complex architectural concepts are a challenge to achieve and increase costs.·
• Difficult to do delivery in some places.
•  In self-construction, the house is not covered by Québec's New Home Warrantee unless you have a general contractor to coordinate the work, especially the foundation, framing and roofing.
• It is necessary to check the exclusions and especially installation surcharges.
• Some manufacturers have a clause in their contract that releases them from the responsibility for delays
• After-sales service is a must especially when the manufacturer uses subcontractors

After visiting factories and models, we realized that in our case, with the changes, it was not for us. Moreover, a prefabricated house is a shell and someone has to do the rest. It was also more difficult for us to have a green building because we could not control the phases of construction that took place in the factory. Consequently, we quietly retreated from the showrooms and plants and tidied our collection of catalogs. The ready-to-wear in housing was not for us.
 

When imagination mingles with dreams and when you can touch that dream with your own hands, it becomes a reality. Planet Architect was a huge unknown  for us. Our previous experience had become a new consciousness and a new beginning. The only constant was the change that was brought to Pierre's plans because now we had accumulated a wealth of experience and training with professionals. We wanted our new home to be certified according to international benchmarks for design, construction and sustainability. The bar was now higher. Better to set your aim high than the opposite by aiming too low and reach it. Now all we he had to do was choose the architect, but that is another story.