SiteFab: A match made in green building heaven

Combing the best attributes of prefab and on-site home construction comes the affordable and eco-friendly SiteFab building process from Minimalist+.

Thu, Aug 12 2010 at 7:38 PM EST

Images: Minimalist+

Minimalist+ is a promising new green home building start-up out of Portland, Ore. responsible for a smart marriage of prefabricated and on-site construction techniques. It’s called SiteFab building and Preston over at Jetson Green describes it as “a potential sweet spot where homes can be built in a smart, green, approachable, and modern way.”

Essentially, the two models of homes built by Minimalist+, the Light Green home (1848 square feet at $160/sq. ft.) and the Dark Green home (1848 square feet at $180/sq. ft.), blend the best of factory construction (efficiency, minimal waste, and speed) and on-site building (affordability, versatility). The latter model contains additional eco-friendly bells and whistles like EnergyStar rated fixtures and appliances, low-e windows, dual-flush toilets, and more.

Reads the Minimalist+ hompage:

There were always compromises to be made: settle for a so-called “custom” home (built by a mega-builder using plan #1,482) in a neighborhood that they chose, not you. Maybe it was built with care and quality, maybe not. Hard to tell. What it definitely wouldn’t be was designed for your modern tastes and sustainable lifestyle.

Or you could hunt for a lot, hire an architect, wait a year or more, spend a small fortune (or maybe a large one), pull much of your hair out during construction, and end up with a great home.

Or you could explore the world of pre-fab homes, which wasn’t a terrible solution, but still cost a bunch per square foot, came from far away, and the finished product was difficult to judge.

Well, those days are done. You are back in control of where and how you live— even if you don’t have a wall street-sized bank account. You can afford sustainable architecture.

Interesting. I'm curious to see how prospective homeowners react towards Minimalist+ and the patented SiteFab building process. The firm, whose tagline is "home is where the smart is" certainly has a bang-up team — including EnergyStar homebuilder Jeff Lightfoot and AIA award-winning designer Michelle Jeresek — behind the vision. What do you think of this green hybrid building process? Would you go rather go 100 percent factory-built or 100 percent on-site built?