Kit Houses Best-Looking Kit Houses

Date Published:

13/06/2008

In Britain when it comes to prefabs we've been pretty slow on the uptake, but as the German Huf House Grand Design shows, it's a very different story in other countries. Nowhere is that more so than in California. In LA they've been pushing the boundaries of kit house design since the 1940s.

Pictured here is the Stahl House, one of 36 prototype homes designed as part of The Case Study House Programme. Built after the Second World War, these kit homes have been an inspiration ever since.

After the war a pioneering group of architects and their clients in California set about trying to work out how they could make modern, up-to-date accommodation using the latest types of technology that really engaged with nature. They were looking at how a house could be reinvented for its specific landscape and the Stahl House epitomizes this approach.

What was revolutionary about these designs was the use of commercial building materials and techniques, an ethos taken up by the owners of the Bristol Modernist Grand Design. It made it possible to build beautiful homes on a budget. It also gave birth to some of the most iconic houses of the twentieth century. But what makes this kit house design so iconic?

'I think just the difference of the way looks, the dramatic entry, the corner of the house hanging over the mountain - these aren't normal construction traits that you see on a normal house', says Bruce Stahl, owner of the famous Stahl House. 'And because of its iconic status it's still inspiring that people perceive it as very contemporary, cutting edge architecture.'

50 years on, we crave many of the techniques these houses championed. Who doesn't love the expanses of glass, simple open plan living, and good design?

LA is a town of celebrity and the Stahl House is an undoubted star. The utter simplicity of construction, the modest materials and the dramatic site make this house as exciting now as it was when it was when first built way back in the 1950s.