Antón García-Abril: How prefab homes can transform affordable housing

Subtitle Provided by JUFE MOOC Studio M Subtitle Provided by JUFE MOOC Studio M Good morning, I'm going to talk about architecture and prefabrication. How a house could be built? And how we could improve with the current technology, the quality of our living spaces, the affordablility, and share these with greater markets and people. We think that this is, the present and the future of architecture. And, this house that we've built in Madrid, is our manifesto, our starting point. We prefabricated towards this house, You're seeing a civilian engineering parts, that perfectly assembled and balanced, to demonstrate that how prefabrication could be, the way to create amazing, inspiring, and affordable spaces to live. This house was based in these engineering parts, balanced in consonance and in harmony, in equilibrium with this rock of granite of 20 tons that put all their parts together. This is our house in Madrid. The Hemeroscopium House that is full of air, and full of life, to enable it, the structure, that as you can see, defers very little the house and the structure that created it. This house is a space to share with our family, It's a space to share in conspiracy, in communal with outdoors. in very intimate relationship with nature. This is the space that we were living in Spain and space that we would like to have here in Boston when we came at the full of harmony. This house has been built in Madrid, and when we came to Boston, we were looking for a same space, a similar space to live. We started struggling with "0", in the search of housings around. MIT where I work, POPLab is found that everyone want to be closer with good schools like this one, and we discovered how insane the prices are, how expensive these houses become, and also how these houses were responding to a(n) old American dream. a lifestyle, a technology, and a formal unspecialized exact was not there where we understood house should be. And also when you come as an migrant to United States, you don't have financial history and this was part of the problem that we have to solve so we actually went low to high. In the sea of browser, and we found the cheapest place in the area -- I think it was a cheapest place in Massachusetts and this was how our dream house. A three base garage very... unfinished yet, but with a lot of potential. (laugh) so we thought that we could build a house of our dreams I recruited a group of young architects, and tell them "let's build the technology that could be available and fit the house in Brookline." It was the same being, but very light, that could be lifted and transported easily, and that could be estrangedly insulated to the weather in Boston. So we got hands on, and without being skilled to build a house, we crafted a prefabrication putting together their technologies from their North-Amarican tradition of building houses, with our European ones. Framing but in steel instead of in wood. creating thick walls but very light filled with forth and insulating materials that could be clad with cement boards. It's a different material plate, but what we created was a very affordable lightweight technology that could be packed in a container, because we are going to the move to United States but not only moving our staff, our furnishing, our memory, we are going to move their full house. So we packed it in containers, And we made the trip to United States, Their house in one side and our family in the other one. When we arrived to Brookline, two blocks away from this place, It was like receiving an Amazon pack, instead of a goodie where the full house that we had to and pack. Craned and assembled together. This is what we did in Madrid, but with these pieces that came with the kitchen, the bathroom, the closets, the furnishing, everything was embedded into these walls. These walls had to be assembled with total precision as a Swiss watch. And it took 7 days, of craning, and putting all these parts together in perfect balance. We think that this is the way, architecture should move on to make it really affordable, real technological, and overall, exciting. We think that architecture has to inspire and create a point of space that make our lives better. There the house was constructed above a garage, but the garage is still there. It's coated with a thin layer of vegetation that hopefully will grow next spring. But it was recycle, it wasn't turned on, we just created a big room above, where all our family could again enjoy all their activities without separating ourselves into rooms. A big room where we could have our meals, play, study, do some work, and where we could enjoy also, the light and the vistas from the neighbors, trees, and where at night, even all that activity after their dinner, could be transformed in to a fantastic bedroom. The bed comes from the wall and we still enjoy that big space, that we created above. Good night. (applause). (applause).