By: Johnny Hartsfield  

 

We’ve been impatiently waiting for a quality prefab product to hit the Seattle market. It has finally arrived with a slurry of modular designs from the local design firm, HyBrid Seattle. Hybrid’s work “resurrects the viability of affordable high density, high quality housing in cities.” Unlike many other modular design firms like Michelle Kaufmann Designs or LivingHomes, both out of California, Hybrid incorporates many different prefabricated systems into their line of products. These include wood frame modular, pre-engineered steel, panelized wood, site-built wood, and cargotecture. 

The project receiving the most attention as of late is called “Inhabit” and is a modular apartment prototype designed in collaboration with Mithun for Unico Properties. Recently on public display on the rooftop park below the tower of Rainier Square, the two modern, one-bedroom apartments, rely on a stacking system that will allow them to be stacked 4-5 modules high. Over the next three years, this prototype will form the basis of 50+ unit apartment buildings projected for construction in Seattle.

 

So what else is up Hybrid’s sleeve? Started in 2007 in Seattle’s Mount Baker neighborhood, the Landry Townhouses are three single family residences and two duplexes slated to finish sometime in 2008. This project was designed using a steel system that can be engineered, shipped to the site and assembled in less than six months. Sustainable features promoting groundwater infiltration include parking within the building footprint, permeable paving and bioswales.

 

And probably the most intriguing product, in our opinion, that Hybrid has been pursuing, is a term they have coined called “Cargotecture”. Hybrid was originally formed in 2003 as a team of architects, landscape architects, artists, historians, and urban ecologists to address the potential for Seattle’s Waterfront. One of their three project components was Cargo Town - a new housing prototype that responds to the changing needs of the city, the port, and residents. Cargotecture is any “building system built entirely or partially from ISO shipping containers”. Finally, Seattle’s answer to all those empty, colorful, piles of steel boxes along the Duwamish River.

Be on the lookout for these and other Hybrid projects that are sure to turn your head.

 

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