Prefab housing goes green in Newport Beach

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Here’s something a little different on the home-building front: We took photos of a prefab home being put together this morning in Newport Beach.

We’re not talking double-wide prefab, but rather a sustainably designed modular home by LivingHomes, a developer based in Santa Monica. The house is ‘poised to become Orange County’s first LEED Platinum Certified Home, the nationally accepted third-party benchmark for the highest-performing green buildings,’ LivingHomes said in its news release.

The two-story residence came in four preconstructed modules, which were hoisted into place by a 250-ton crane. The design, intended for small, urban lots, is being offered for sale nationwide at $275 a square foot installed, not including the foundation or land. The model, called the LHKT 1.5, was designed by Philadelphia architecture firm KieranTimberlake.

The 2,200-square-foot home has two bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms and a bonus room. The features that the developer has piled on to qualify for the LEED Platinum certification include recycled steel, recycled wood and bamboo siding, recycled glass tiles, photovoltaic panels, high-performance windows with recycled frames and low-flow bathroom fixtures and gray-water plumbing.

After a few hours, the home was 95% complete. The owners are expected to move into the house in about a month, LivingHomes said.
-- Nancy Rivera Brooks