When San Francisco-based architect Michelle Kaufmann and her husband couldn't find an affordable house they liked in the Bay Area, they decided to build one. What Kaufmann ended up designing-a 1,560-square-foot home built with energy-efficient, long-lasting materials and eco-friendly systems-was a hit with her friends, many of whom wanted one just like it. And so she started wondering whether she could produce this home, which she called the Glidehouse, on an assembly line. The answer, apparently, was yes. Last fall, she bought her own factory, and her firm, Michelle Kaufmann Designs, now specializes in architect-designed, sustainable, prefab houses.

Blue Egg contributor Janet Bennett recently spoke to Kaufmann about her company's mission.

You're on a crusade to create prefab houses that more people will find affordable. What's your motivation?
It all came about from thinking not like an architect but like a client. Looking for and not being able to find an affordable place to live was a painful process that gave me the impetus to do something to change things. At the same time, I was committed to sustainable design, and I realized modular technology made it easier to go green.

Now that green is such a hot topic, do you find clients come to you better informed and/or more demanding? Do you sense a commitment to change on their part?
People are becoming more knowledgeable about environmental issues. The building industry is a big participant in global warming; buildings cause even more greenhouse emissions than cars. Plus, there's so much waste. I think more and more people are beginning to understand that. They're learning paint can be toxic, certain types of carpet emit gas, and a new-house smell is not something desirable. They're saying, "Why can't we have a healthy house for our family?"

Prefab housing may be the new darling of shelter magazines, but for many people there's a stigma attached to modular homes. How do you cope with this preconception? Do you see it changing?
Prefab is an umbrella term for something that is built off-site and then shipped to the site. It covers manufactured or mobile homes that are built to the not very high-quality standards of HUD code, and it also includes modular homes that have permanent foundations and are built to the same stringent code as homes built on-site. In countries such as Japan, they prefer modular homes that are constructed in factories because of precision cutting, the amount of quality control, and because there's less waste.

The idea that prefab means tacky is changing because of media exposure. Mainstream publications, not just shelter magazines, are writing about it, and museums are putting on exhibits. "New Directions in Sustainable Architecture and Design" at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., recently featured a full-size replica of a portion of the Glidehouse, my first modular-home model. My designs are now currently on view in the exhibition "Some Assembly Required: Contemporary Prefabricated Houses" at the Virginia Center for Architecture in Richmond, VA.

Affordable design for the masses is an idealistic concept that sounds like what Charles and Ray Eames wanted to accomplish at the end of World War II. They were in favor of mass production of housing components and furniture, but ended up building very few houses. How do you see yourself as different?
I'm a great admirer of the Eameses, and often wonder what they would be doing if they were alive today. The reason they couldn't accomplish what they set out to do was because, although the manufacturing technology was there, the infrastructure wasn't. Instead of having endless physical meetings with a client working out all the details, I communicate with them via email and a website. Meetings slow down the process and make mass production impossible to achieve.

You worked as an associate for Frank Gehry, one of the country's premier architects. What did you take away from that experience that applies to your work today?
I worked with him on designing museums, where the idea was to simplify the space and at the same time maximize the experience. The standard procedure in projects like these is to do the design and hand it over to the contractor to finish the job. But what Frank does that others don't is to get involved with both the construction and what it takes to produce it. Which is exactly what we do now-we're involved in the planning and the execution of our houses.

American homes have been steadily growing bigger, yet you're an advocate for smaller homes that emphasize quality over quantity. How do you reconcile this with the public's appetite for big?
My clients don't believe that bigger is better; rather, they believe better is better. With energy costs continually on the rise, I think that how energy-efficient a house is, will be a much more important issue in the days to come than it is now. And that is going to change people's minds about the kinds of homes they'll build.

Are there any new materials or new technologies out there that you're excited about?
It's our ability to find sustainable solutions-like tankless water heaters, recycled-paper countertops, low-flow faucets, and, most recently, solar panels-and then package them into our production process.

How many homes have you built so far, and where?
We've built 18, mostly in the Bay Area and in the Pacific Northwest. But we've got 40 in the queue!

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