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“Every family deserves to live in a home designed by an architect.”
In 1966, BSB Design’s founding vision first took shape. Since then, the award-winning firm of architects and planners has developed innovative breakthroughs in design to help bring architecture to the homes of millions of Americans. It is one reason why BSB Design was chosen by Newsweek to design the “Home of the Future”. In addition, BSB Design is the only architectural firm awarded the design of The New American Home on three separate occasions, most recently in 2007.
And now that vision reaches out to South Africa and beyond.
BSB Design’s patent-pending Abōd® homes provide a wide range of new options for lowest-cost, low-income starter homes and inspiring community design in areas that presently are squatter’s camps, informal settlements or where large numbers of families lack homes of any kind.
BSB Design challenged a team of architects and planners to develop a series of breakthroughs in unique value-engineered lowest-cost housing structures, with an extensive array of add-on options to personalize each home. The pioneering challenge was to make this structure:
- Quick and simple to assemble: The assembly of the entire Abōd single unit structure can be completed in one day by 4 people, using only two hand tools (a screwdriver and an awl included in the original “home in a box”).
- High-quality yet affordable and enduring structure (20-30 year durability) with a projected low cost via mass manufacturing: This will enable micro-finance home loans for first-time low-income home buyers in economically depressed settings.
- Easily personalized: Abōd is available with a wide range of readily installed upgrade/add-on options, including multiple colors and finishes (some can be painted). The Abōd layouts can accommodate kitchen units, toilet/shower/bath units, cooking units, loft expansions, end walls, window-walls, small-business walls, unique door designs, overhangs, flooring choices, closet units, and much more.
- Community design: Abōd is not just about a structure but about the BSB Design concept for addressing the social need for organized community design - including community center/school, safe play areas, central water source, open cooking and gathering areas, communal toilets (permanent or temporary) if no plumbing is available in home sites, soccer field, market center, and more.
- Easily expanded: Connect two or more Abōd units together in various shapes to create a larger home structure. The basic structure can be expanded in length for a larger structure. Also, the arch can be expanded in size to increase the footprint of enclosed space.
- Secure and permanent yet easily and quickly disassembled and moved with a special security tool by the owner: This is especially vital where land can only be leased, not owned. The Abōd is designed in such a way that if the owner doesn’t like where they first placed the home, they can quickly disassemble, relocate, and reassemble the home with relative ease. Portability is achieved through ease of disassembly. The structure can be quickly taken apart and moved.
- Distinctive, nature-based, engineered shape: The Catenary Arch appears often in nature. It is simple and structurally sound but also aesthetically pleasing. The curved shape of the arch has a far less rigid feel than a typical box-like structure, and even the basic 10’ wide x 12’ (3.048m x 3.6576m) long starter-shape brings a greater sense of open and inspiring roominess, per square foot/meter, to the home. The addition of add-on features, color, etc. creates a structure that is as warm, inviting and personalized as it is functional. The Catenary Arch-shaped struts, in combination with the flexible corrugated metal panels, form a rigid structure that is lightweight and very efficient structurally in enclosing a large space. Arches are made from stock steel material 24’ (7.3152m) in length. The cross strut is made from a stock 6’ (1.8288m) piece. All corrugated panels are stock sizes with no cutting.
- Compact (cost-effective) to deliver: By truck, ship or plane, the “home in a box” includes the entire structure (unassembled) that fits into a box 4’ x 12’ x 2’ (1.2193m x 3.6576m x 0.6096m) and can be delivered on site for quick and easy assembly. The Abōd is also exceedingly lightweight, and therefore a large number of “home packages” can be more readily shipped to a single location.
- Readily manufactured in large quantities: All components are made from stock materials, readily acquired locally wherever possible, in most regions of the world.
- Low fire risk: The Abōd is comprised of primarily non-combustible materials, so the risk of fire is minimal. This will be important in areas where these homes will be placed very close together, and cooking, often by open fire, will take place inside.
- Integrated cross ties for the arches become support for loft spaces.
- All connectors are one-size security-type screws.
- Exceptional load-bearing despite light weight.
- Exceptional weather-shielding: Despite light weight, integrated rain gutters direct site water away from structure.
- Abōd units can be built on slabs but no elaborate supporting foundation is required. There are extensions to the corner arches that lock the structure into the ground. The Abōd can be adapted to any variety of flooring systems.
- Interchangeable end panels: Allows for diversity, customization, and varied functions.
- Natural lighting is accomplished by using a Plexiglas panel (with the same wave shape as the corrugated metal). These Plexiglas panels can be used anywhere in the construction to allow for more natural light.