The Modern Kit Home

Recently Brett Zamore of Brett Zamore Design LLC has been raking in the Architectural accolades, and we can't help but agree. The Houston resident and Rice alum is featured in this month's issue of Metropolis Magazine, along with this last week's very own Houston Chronicle. The buzz is about Brett's eco-twist on modernist prefab housing.

It appears that at long last, Brett has solved a significant problem to kit home design -- shipping. It used to be the case that kit homes would be ordered from a central production facility or studio where they would be assembled out of a set number of prefab pieces and according to a short stack of plans. The house would then be loaded onto a flatbed truck or train, shipped to your door (we've all see the double-wides on the highway), mounted on the plumbing studs and "ta-da!" you've got a house. But the reality is that escalating costs of transporting the house is becoming unattractive to home-owners if not down-right unaffordable. Brett's houses, he has five of them, solve the transportation problem by contracting all of the materials and fixtures for each house to national distributors. Construction supplies come from local vendors, cabinets come from Ikea; fridge, stove and washer from Sears. Each piece of the house is brought to the site and assembled according to his plans and specifications. The distance each piece has to travel is significantly reduced, as is the total budget of each house. More importantly the carbon footprint per house is dramatically reduced. But that's not all. Each home features energy efficient technology and is designed in a vernacular style to fit almost any American locale.

You can see for yourself. Brett just completed three kit homes just north of Washington, on Center near Thompson. We're not sure if they're open for public snooping, but they're definitely worth a drive-by. Just look for the clean, crisp shotguns. If you have any questions, wonder what it would be like to own one of these pioneering throw-backs, of just think they're super cool contact Brett or the builder, Mark Johnson.

More information can be found in Metropolis Magazine article and on Chron.com.

Images from Brett Zamore Design LLC.