The Pop-Up House makes passive construction easy with a Lego-like assembly.
The Passive House movement has been gaining ground as a way to reduce the energy consumption of buildings by 90 percent. Unfortunately, not everyone who is interested in a Passive House can afford to live in one—homes that achieve the strict Passive House standards require an upfront investment of about 10 percent of the construction budget, and retrofits can cost up to 80 percent of the cost of new construction.
French design and architecture firm MultiPod Studio has introduced the Pop-Up House, an affordable alternative to conventional Passive House building that only costs about $350/m² to construct and insulate. The house can be mounted with nothing but an electric screwdriver and no special skills are needed to assemble its Lego-like insulation blocks and wooden boards. The building requires almost no additional heating and is designed to reduce the reported 48 percent of greenhouse gas emissions produced annually by buildings in the United States. Although the Pop-Up House is not yet commercially available, two prototypes have been created to validate its feasibility and an international patent for its manufacture has been filed.
In this video, MultiPod Studio shows a Pop-Up House construction that spans only four days. The house can be dissembled just as quickly to recycle or reuse materials.
Photo by MultiPod Studio.
