You know we love cross-promotion, and we know we love cross-promotion. So, leaving all shame behind, this post is on a wholly different kind of development, one that just happens to be designed by our friends over at ISA. The Modules is an apartment complex built right off of Temple’s Campus, and it is the largest LEED certified prefabricated apartment complex in this whole sweet land of liberty.
How it measures up: 60,000 square feet, 80 containers, 72 apartments, 38 parking spots, 50 spots for bikes, $650 a month, 1 block from Temple, and a late 2010 completion.
“The Deal”:
No, this isn’t dream and if you’ve spent this whole time pinching yourself, please stop. I promise, this is real. There are prefabricated apartments being built in Philadelphia right now. I know, Dwell magazine is always getting your hopes up, making you believe that modern prefab developments actually exist, only to break your heart again and again. Well, modern, green, prefabricated developments no longer belong in the world of imaginary things, like unicorns and Swedish people. They are real, and are conveniently located one block off of Temple’s campus. Seriously, I have pictures to prove it. The Modules are LEED certified and have all the cool green features you’ve come to know and love. They have a green roof, pervious concrete, lots of room for bikes, and a fiber cement rainscreen facade system. Also they’re located in walking distance to, about, everything…
Live here if:
You shop at the container store
Don’t live here if:
You say things like “Hey you kids, get off my lawn!”. With a lush roof garden lounge just blocks off Temple campus the developers shouldn’t be surprised when their building becomes the site of chill sessions, stargazing, and talking about the universe.
The Hater:
All of the units were built in Harrisburg (better than most actually – ed.) and individually driven over. Maybe Prius came out with a line of trucks? Basically, prefab isn’t always green.
Also, building developments named some variation of the word ‘modular’ is like naming your kid John Smith or your band CrystalDeer. Jus sayin!
Additional bragging rights:
Prefabricated apartments make you seem so European
Bonus Footage:
Unfortunately, no one from Postgreen has been out to the site to take footage of The Modules, I know this might disappointing for the diehard fans of “shakeyhands”. However, I am including some shots by Sam Oberter to fill that void left in your heart.
Between the rigors imposed by any good press wrangler and the demands of my virulent, terminal (and often contagious) case of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), New Orleans was an exhausting trip. It also, as you may have noticed, left little time for the actual reporting that I was supposedly down there to do. I got a couple of posts up, but they just touched the surface. Frankly, I had little energy for anything deeper.
Fortunately, time is on my side, and I can now begin to blend the information and footage I have into something better. I have some great homeowner interviews, some developing philosophical ideas and soon the rehab requirement information for Building Together New Orleans. I should be able to put this together into something engaging over the next few days. Until then we will return to a little bit of our regular programming.
While you wait, here are a couple pictures from the trip . . .
I have had the opportunity to speak with a few of the homeowners at the Fifty for Five event here in New Orleans. Most of the video needs a lot of editing which simply isn’t going to happen until I am back in Philly, but one home owner was brief enough for me to share a rough, unedited cut of her thoughts.
Sheila Hyde lost everything in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Her house was almost completely under water and by the time she returned it was covered in filth, black mold and pieces of her destroyed possessions. She managed to do a significant amount of the repair work, but eventually funds ran out and the work couldn’t finish. Rebuilding Together stepped in and helped her finish the recovery of her home, and this weekend, as part of the 50 home event, they are putting the finishing touches on by building a fence.
Sheila is an amazingly kind and extremely grateful woman. In addition to this interview we went through pictures of her destroyed home and toured the repaired one. She was very proud of her place and was excited about the prospects for her neighborhood and New Orleans as a whole. She even invited me to stay with her next time I was in New Orleans, and I could tell she actually meant it.
I want to thank Sheila for speaking with me and for her offer of hospitality which I will likely be too self-conscious to accept. There are some issues I have with these homes and the method in which they are delivered, but I don’t have it in me to bring it up after that video. It is difficult to be critical in the face of her happiness and hope, but don’t worry . . . I will manage some critique in the next post.
If you have something to say, do it in the comments.
This post is part of my coverage of the Fifty for Five event by Rebuilding Together. Sears, the events main sponsor, paid my way down here but they have no say in what I write. Disclaimer over. I stumbled into New Orleans yesterday on two hours of sleep, an inevitable condition of the early morning [...]
That’s right, I’m headed down to New Orleans bright and (too) early tomorrow morning to cover Rebuilding Together’s big event in the Big Easy. Fifty for Five is an effort to rehab 50 homes in the Gentilly neighborhood in 5 days and is a sort of celebratory construction binge to mark the more extensive work [...]
It has a kind of cheesy name, but that doesn’t make the concept any less cool. Postgreen Home’s has introduced a new model built around an existing zoning plan that called for garages. Working with ISA, we came up with some concepts for a model that incorporates the garage and creates an exciting split level [...]
Some of you have probably noticed the new handy bar of links on the top of our sites (if not, check them out . . . they’re cool) and have clicked on the Hybrid Construction link. Having done so, you came upon a mostly finished web site for a construction company with an odd logo. [...]
Suburbia. Lets be honest, it’s kind of a dirty word. We use the word ‘development’ because we live in fear of the word ‘suburbia’.But, Im going to say what everyone is thinking: most developments are suburban. And that’s okay. So, come out of the closet, be proud of the suburban dweller you are. You no longer [...]
In my last post about super-insulated wall assemblies, I referenced a future post about the superiority of Dense-pack Blown-in Cellulose insulation over other insulating products. Well, this is that post. We’ve talked about insulation in the past, but after extensive research and pitches from other insulation fanatics we’d like to put Cellulose in the spotlight [...]
As most of you know, we have allowed some of our blogging to spill over to the Postgreen Homes site, particular those posts which are specifically about PGH projects. That means that the blog over there is the place to be for pictures of the projects, new floor plans and updates on customization options. We [...]
You know we love cross-promotion, and we know we love cross-promotion. So, leaving all shame behind, this post is on a wholly different kind of development, one that just happens to be designed by our friends over at ISA. The Modules is an apartment complex built right off of Temple’s Campus, and it is the largest LEED certified prefabricated apartment complex in this whole sweet land of liberty.
