[Music]
the home of the future it's been a dream
for decades but can we build wood right
here in Austin Texas the Virgin kirb
have partnered to bring this dream of
the home of the future to life
I'm Grant Imahara and our goal is to
construct a house that combines cutting
edge technology with innovative design
we want to see if some of the latest
smart home systems and high efficiency
design can create a more secure and
convenient environment and actually
improve our daily living how do we build
this home of the future well it all
begins in a factory in East Texas
construction company evolution builds
roughly 85% of its houses inside this
265 thousand square foot warehouse each
year they complete about 50 homes these
fully constructed modular units can be
finished in one-third of the time it
takes to build a house on-site the power
of prefabs or prefabricated homes is
that they can be mass-produced without
compromising quality design and
structural stability the assembly line
construction begins with pouring the
concrete floor and once the slabs have
been laid down cranes and hoists pick
them up and take them to the line but
the scale of this assembly line is
bigger than most instead of cars its
houses how long does it take from when a
slab comes in to the finish line
we have 17 stations if we were doing one
box a day you could have a complete box
and anywhere from five to six days haha
the house is assembled as it rolls down
the line on a track the walls are
installed on top then wiring and
plumbing it goes from station to station
just sheetrock the top is placed on
until there you have it a complete unit
technically luna house is a
prefabricated home for me at least when
I first heard about prefabricated homes
I have this idea that they're cheap or
low quality or do you think that that
comes from I think a lot of it comes
from certainly post-world War two ERA
and the Association as well with prefab
with modular housing which we also
associate with the mobile home so you
have that kind of connection in many
people's minds even in so far as a lot
of prefab construction is actually quite
high-end this is Michelle Addington the
Dean of the University of Texas at
Austin's school of architecture the
opportunity to have much more precise
control over manufacturing in particular
is what enables the greater quality and
so by going factory built you have an
opportunity not only for higher quality
control but the opportunity to use much
higher end materials because they can be
protected in the factory in a way that
they're not going to be as protected on
a home building side the downside is
that you can't deviate from the design
once you begin so you better be sure
this is what you want our Luna house has
three bedrooms and a 60 feet long and
that's not changing and because the
factory is a giant assembly line a
problem with one house can delay all the
other projects behind it in fact our
original house was delayed so long that
we needed to switch to a house further
along the line but even with delays like
these the total amount of time from
blueprint approval to completion is
around six months an average whereas a
typical on-site construction could have
taken up to a year
Architects have actually been trying to
accomplish some level of factory built
housing for a hundred years and so it's
gained some traction and some popularity
in the last decade with the increasing
popularity of design I think in a
general level that happens with Apple
that happens in the popular press and in
everyday life in everyday life and so I
think that that's kind of transmitted
over to architecture as well
architect Chris Craig ER is the founder
ma modular and as the designer of the
house we're building we're here at his
home our business was founded with a
primary goal of making modern that kind
of architecture financially accessible
the design we're building is called the
Luna house floor plan made of three
modular pieces modular design means
these units can be configured in
multiple arrangements they can even be
stacked to create multiple floors you
can think them like big Lego blocks that
an architect can use to create the best
design for the needs of the homeowner
our house is composed of three main
pieces one large module that includes
one bedroom kitchen and living room and
a smaller module that has two bedrooms
connected by a bathroom and a third
module for the entryway that acts as a
connection for the other two we're
working with a framework that is a Mina
bowl to open floor plans lots of windows
and so I think it is very modern
friendly but you also get to choose all
of your fixtures and finishes flooring
there's definitely adequate room for
customization with the finish in the
house I got to say I knew that it was
modular construction but it really
didn't feel like it that is our goal
with a design for it to feel not just
like not a modular house but to feel
like an architect design house if you
were to drive on this block you'd say oh
I think an architect designed that so it
automatically ups its cachet
but there's still a lot of hurdles
before you can really think of this kind
of construction as being the future of
homebuilding when you deal with
something that's pre manufactured
there's a tremendous amount of upfront
costs in setting up that type of
manufacturing particularly if you want
to get the economies of scale of
building large if we think about
single-family homes there is very little
upfront investment you can basically
build in real time in terms of
procurement of materials so the costs
are incremental from that standpoint
while we wait to see what the future
will hold for factory built homes our
home has already been placed on the
ground right now though it's still just
a shell over the next few months we'll
work to finish off everything inside of
the home create our own power generation
and storage and fill it with the latest
connected technology for comfort and
convenience it'll be hard work but in
the end we'll get a glimpse into what it
means to actually live inside the home
of the future
[Music]
thank you so much for watching now I'm
sitting here in our home of the future
but I'm curious to know what you think
you need in your home in the future let
us know in the comments below and we'll
see you next week with a new episode