Katrina Sparks a Revolution in Green Modular Housing

A few years ago modular, or prefabricated, housing was the stepchild of the homebuilding industry, just a cut above mobile homes or manufactured housing.

Now, with the offering of higher quality, green modular housing in the marketplace, consumers are beginning to view it in a fresh light.

The reason? Hurricane Katrina.

Organizations concerned with rebuilding New Orleans green aligned architects with modular housing. This, in turn, accelerated the acceptance of modular housing in the new home market, suggests New York architect Frederic Schwartz, who designed several New Orleans projects.

Modular housing was the only viable solution in the post-Katrina housing shortage because there was nowhere for temporary construction workers to live, Schwartz notes. The units are built offsite in a factory and assembled on location by semiskilled labor in just two to eight weeks, compared with eight to 12 months for conventional construction.

The homes can also be manufactured to any codes, standards or specifications, including green criteria and high-performance building standards for hurricane-prone zones, and the factory environment offers quality control and eliminates exposure to moisture associated with building defects.

Santa Monica-based Green Global USA, in collaboration with actor Brad Pitt, helped to generate architect interest in designing modular housing by launching the $1 million Global Green Competition for the best green modular housing design.

The winning design, GreeN.O.LA by New York architects Andrew Kotchen and Matthew Berman of Workshop/APD, is a collection of single-family homes and two-story multifamily product built around a central common green space. The complex includes 5 single-family homes, an 18-unit apartment building, and a community center/sustainable design and climate action center in the Holy Cross Neighborhood in the city’s Lower 9th Ward, which was completely wiped out by flooding.

The GreeN.O.LA homes integrate the newest sustainable technologies with wisdom of the past to create energy efficiency to get to carbon neutral, including structural insulated panels (SIPs) and off-the-shelf renewable building materials and products, such as bamboo flooring, Energy Star appliances, solar panels, green roofs and gray water collection. The complex includes a transit stop, small business center for homeworkers, daycare and community garden with a compost heap to provide the community fresh produce and reduce waste.

SIPs are factory-built, modular components composed of rigid foam insulation sandwiched between oriented-stand boards, which can be used to construct wall, floor and roof components. The lightweight panels' insulation is fire retardant, reduce noise and conserves energy.

Not all of the modular housing built in New Orleans is high quality or green, and architects warn buyers to do their homework. But much of it is thanks to the high-profile Global Green project and many forward-thinking organizations that hired highly acclaimed urban architects, such as Marianne Cusato and Andrés Duany, to design sustainable housing and schools throughout the city.

The New Orleans modular experience has led architects nationwide to consider modular building platforms to fill a variety of needs. EcoMOD, an education project at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville College of Architecture, for example, created a modular building system that is adaptable to various site shapes and situations.

“We’re trying to make modular urban infill friendly,” says John Quale, ecoMOD project director.

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