Prefab Green
by Michelle Kaufmann and Catherine Remick
(Gibbs Smith, 2009)

Modern prefabricated house designs are not for the faint of heart, nor are they for the untidy. The sleek and minimalist houses featured in Prefab Green by Michelle Kaufmann and Catherine Remick, aren’t for everyone. Like modern art, chances are you will either love or hate the aesthetics. The good news is that even if the houses aren’t your style, the book is an interesting read and has good information about why and how to build sustainably.

The tale of Prefab Green began when Michelle Kaufmann, a young architect, and her husband, a furniture and stair builder, could not find “an affordable, well-designed, sustainable home.” Instead of giving up, they decided to design and build one themselves.

Called the Glidehouse for the sliding panels of glass and cedar used inside and outside the building, the home started getting noticed. It was not just “green,” but also simple, elegant, and filled with light. Even before her house was finished, Michelle began to figure out how to prefabricate Glidehouse.

The original Glidehouse was built entirely onsite and took 14 months to complete. The first identical prefabricated Glidehouse was built in only four months, and the cost was 30 percent less.

The book shows how the Glidehouse design evolved and has been customized for several different locations. Despite a title that might lead you to believe that this is a survey of available prefab green homes, it features only the work of Michele Kaufmann.

Prefab Green is about how an architect views her own work. It is also about a very particular way of building houses and how a philosophy of green design informs the choices of site, materials, and other issues of sustainability that can change how we think about our homes.

Reviewed by Kerry Michaels