Prefab

Prefabs: A June 13 article on backyard prefab structures described Bonnie and Michael Kelly as being from Agoura Hills. They live in the nearby community of Cornell. The article also says Warren and Kate Ostergard spent $25,000 on their Modern-Shed prefab. The structure cost $20,000, and they spent $5,000 more to add a deck, dog door, custom workstations, flat-panel TV and other features.

Tim Disney's prefab house will be open to the public 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 15 and 16. Admission is free, but visitors are asked to register online in advance. Shuttle service to the house will be provided from the Joshua Basin Water District, 61750 Chollita Road, Joshua Tree, Calif. More information and registration: http://www.bluhomes.com/joshuatree .

I was in Tokyo and Kyoto in July and have to stick up for the size of Japanese hotel rooms ["In London, Just the Bed and You and a Minuscule Loo," Travel Insider, Oct. 30]. Beth Reiber from Frommer's pointed out the rooms are not palatial. They were plenty roomy for an average-sized American like me. It was the one-piece, prefab bathrooms that were tough to handle. They were all plastic, and the faucet in the sink also fills the tub, so it got tricky sometimes. But the room itself was fine.

The low-slung structure tucked among the unearthly boulders of Joshua Tree looks vaguely like many other modern prefab homes from the last decade - streamlined silhouette, eco-chic materials, indoor-outdoor appeal - but with one key difference. It has Mickey Mouse in its corner. A globe-eared, white-gloved figurine sitting in the front window is the first - and during a recent sneak peek, the only - hint the owner is Tim Disney, great-nephew of Walt and a prefab believer. Disney is a board member and investor in prefab builder Blu Homes , and the Joshua Tree house, to be opened to the public for the first time next weekend, is Blu's first in Southern California.

How crazy-making to read Dan Neil's column "Feels Like End Times" (800 Words, June 12), noting Elizabeth Kolbert's excellent and frightening series in the New Yorker on climate change, the Bush administration's dismantling of environmental regulations and the "Collapse?" exhibit at the Natural History Museum, juxtaposed with the piece about "visionary Venice designer" Jennifer Siegal, who wants to build environmentally friendly prefab houses ("Unsustainable?" by Eryn Brown, June 12). The problem is a government that puts roadblocks in front of Siegal and her buyers with regulations that have no flexibility for environmental innovation.

There may be 2,500 square feet of Ray Kappe-designed sleekness in Steve Glenn's Santa Monica home, but just before festivities started on a fall evening, the chief executive of eco-friendly developer LivingHomes was still worrying about where to put his guests . . . and their yoga mats. This was the third time Glenn had hosted one of his spirited "yoga potlucks," but his cedar/steel/glass prefab pad had never held more than 25 yogis, and twice that number had RSVP'd. "I'm counting on a high L.A. flake factor," he said, rolling back the shag rugs and pushing an Eames lounger out of the way. The evening's instructor, Ted McDonald of Brentwood's MahaYoga, was setting up speakers on the roof just in case.

When Bay Area designers Kevin McElroy and Matthew Wolpe of Just Fine Design/Build unveiled their mod chicken coop Chick-in-a-Box at a 2010 Maker Faire , they thought they were on to something. Chickens had moved from the farm to the backyard, after all, and coops had become popular design fodder for architects and artisans alike. But McElroy and Wolpe found little interest in their $1,200 handmade chicken coop, regardless of its post-and-beam-style composition or striking butterfly roof that doubles as a water catchment system.

Renovation of a 1950s manufactured house sounds like code for a tear-down. But Ben Thorne and Eliza Howard think differently, perhaps because their home is Los Angeles' best-known example of the modernist prefab houses by the General Panel Corp. If that moniker doesn't ring a bell, then the name of one of its architects might: Walter Gropius, founder of the legendary German design school, the Bauhaus.

When Buster Keaton gets a build-it-yourself house in the 1920 short "One Week," he winds up spending seven days constructing a pieced-together dwelling with windows askew and a pitched roof that looks tipsy. Prefab has come a long way since then. If you have about 700 square feet and $223,000 to spare, you can order a smart guesthouse or office from L.A. architects Leo Marmol and Ron Radziner. The new Rincon 5 is a clean, rectangular box of a house with a bamboo floor, well-proportioned deck and breezeway.

“Architecture School,” which begins tonight on the Sundance Channel, is a rich and satisfying documentary series that incidentally rings some of the same bells as reality shows like "Project Runway" and "Top Chef" (talented folk design houses in competition) and "Flipping Out" and "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" (they build the winner). There's a little of "The Real World" in it as well -- the designers are all young, and sometimes they go to bars where music is played.

Your Thanksgiving turkey has arrived on schedule and it's called "The Nutcracker in 3D. " Director Andrei Konchalovsky's gassy spectacle, inspired by Tchaikovsky's classic ballet score and its fairy tale source material (E.T.A. Hoffmann's short story), comes off like a wan mash-up of "The Wizard of Oz," "Alice in Wonderland," "Toy Story" and, frankly, "Willard," but with a manufactured sense of wonder and tension. Worse, trying to hip up this retro-tinged package with post-produced 3-D proves pointless and merely undermines the film's otherwise OK special effects.

Prefabs: A June 13 article on backyard prefab structures described Bonnie and Michael Kelly as being from Agoura Hills. They live in the nearby community of Cornell. The article also says Warren and Kate Ostergard spent $25,000 on their Modern-Shed prefab. The structure cost $20,000, and they spent $5,000 more to add a deck, dog door, custom workstations, flat-panel TV and other features.

The national economic crisis may be causing turmoil in the prefab industry, but our blog looks at new designs still emerging across Southern California. The Hollywood Hybrid house, the latest project of Marmol Radziner Prefab, is scheduled to be installed June 30. We have more pictures of L.A.-based KAA Design Group's HOM prefab, as well as an early glimpse of Blue Sky Homes' just-finished prototype in Yucca Valley.

Renovation of a 1950s manufactured house sounds like code for a tear-down. But Ben Thorne and Eliza Howard think differently, perhaps because their home is Los Angeles' best-known example of the modernist prefab houses by the General Panel Corp. If that moniker doesn't ring a bell, then the name of one of its architects might: Walter Gropius, founder of the legendary German design school, the Bauhaus.

It's always a little risky to see in one headline about the architecture business, or in the fate of a single firm, a parable for the profession as a whole. But news that the prefab specialist Michelle Kaufmann has suddenly closed her Oakland office and laid off all 17 of her employees does seem to have Larger Symbolism written all over it. Kaufmann's is hardly the only prefab firm to face trouble in recent months.

The situation: Bonnie and Michael Kelly needed extra space for their son and daughter to do homework and hang out with friends. The problem: To hire an architect and build the kind of addition that the Agoura Hills couple wanted would have cost six figures. The solution: The couple bought two 9- by 13-foot prefabricated buildings, which were assembled days after being delivered on flatbed trucks.

It's always a little risky to see in one headline about the architecture business, or in the fate of a single firm, a parable for the profession as a whole. But news that the prefab specialist Michelle Kaufmann has suddenly closed her Oakland office and laid off all 17 of her employees does seem to have Larger Symbolism written all over it. Kaufmann's is hardly the only prefab firm to face trouble in recent months.

Dennis and Annie Reed's house, set among tall oak trees in a part of Glendale called Chevy Chase Canyon, floats almost 35 feet above a running stream. But what's most noteworthy about the 1,500-square-foot residence isn't what flows below but what rises above: The structure is supported by 10 ponderosa pine poles, a kit of parts based on a Japanese building technique from the 16th century. At a time when interest in contemporary prefab and kit housing continues to grow, the Reeds' 1979 home stands as an intriguing precursor.

“Architecture School,” which begins tonight on the Sundance Channel, is a rich and satisfying documentary series that incidentally rings some of the same bells as reality shows like "Project Runway" and "Top Chef" (talented folk design houses in competition) and "Flipping Out" and "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" (they build the winner). There's a little of "The Real World" in it as well -- the designers are all young, and sometimes they go to bars where music is played.

When Buster Keaton gets a build-it-yourself house in the 1920 short "One Week," he winds up spending seven days constructing a pieced-together dwelling with windows askew and a pitched roof that looks tipsy. Prefab has come a long way since then. If you have about 700 square feet and $223,000 to spare, you can order a smart guesthouse or office from L.A. architects Leo Marmol and Ron Radziner. The new Rincon 5 is a clean, rectangular box of a house with a bamboo floor, well-proportioned deck and breezeway.