In 1996 Oscar Leo Kaufmann and Albert Ruf designed and built Su-Si, a small modern prefab; in 2002 Allison Arieff and Bryan Burkhart put it on the cover of their book Prefab and it became an icon, the poster boy for the modern prefab movement.

For the MoMA exhibition Home Delivery, they contribute SYSTEM3. Watch the incredible video where the house arrives in two containers at 6:00 AM and they complete assembly at 1:30 PM and are partying by 3:00.

The design is based on a principle that is becoming more common: Don’t ship a lot of air if you don’t have to. Thus the core spaces of kitchen and bath are shipped as a three dimensional unit, whereas the living spaces, which basically just contain air, are panellized and assembled on space. In this way the entire house can fit into two containers.

Description of SYSTEM3:

“The house is 53 square meters, which is around 570 square feet, and is fully equipped with a kitchen, bath, and lighting. It has a staircase to access the roof, which can serve to connect floors in the case of a vertical expansion of the units. Since the staircases (as the installation shafts) are always located at the same fixed position, you can easily stack the Serving Units.”

“In addition, we will show some specially designed furniture: a table, a chair, and a bed. This furniture’s design is also based on the idea of prefabrication. To be honest, we love this furniture so much we would happily do another exhibition with it…”