Loblolly House

"If prefabs are assembly-line Fords, Loblolly is a custom hot rod, begging for mass production." —Andrew Blum for WIRED magazine

Known for their in-depth research and innovative, inventive, and meticulously constructed architecture, KieranTimberlake Assoicates put its ideas about streamlining the making of architecture to the test. The results took the form of a fully modular and award-winning house, featuring an active and adjustable double-skin facade so advanced that no client would consider it. KieranTimberlake Assoicates boldly took the project upon themselves, using partner Stephen Kieran's own summer house as a laboratory.

Situated on idyllic Taylors Island, off the coast of Maryland's Chesapeake Bay, Loblolly House inaugurates a truly new, more efficient way of building. Through the use of state-of-the-art building information modeling (BIM), the architects were able to streamline the design-build process. Thousands of parts were collapsed and integrated into a few dozen panels and blocks that slid into an aluminum frame set on wooden pylons. Consisting of 70 percent prefabricated components, the kit-of-parts house was assembled (mostly with a wrench) and lifted into place on-site in less than six weeks.

Unlike most houses, even those built with sustainability in mind, Loblolly disassembles as easily as it assembles, making it an ecologically sound structure with a manageable environmental footprint. Focusing on a single built project andillustrated with extensive photographic documentation and numerous detailed drawings, Loblolly House is the manual for componentized prefab. The book includes a DVD of the film "A House in the Trees" by producers Rick Deppe andKathleen Blake, a real-time documentary of the design, fabrication, and assembly of Loblolly House.