Filipino real estate developer Robbie Antonio discusses his vision for the one-of-a-kind project.

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by The Monocle Minute

As developed cities in Asia grapple with ageing populations, savvy entrepreneurs are spotting opportunities to tap the silver dollar. Later this year Batulao Artscapes will complete its first phase: a retirement village to the south of Metro Manila that aims to attract overseas residents. South Korean and Japanese senior citizens are drawn to the Philippines and Batulao Artscapes assists with retirement visas as part of the package. The company behind the project, Revolution Precrafted, was set up two years ago by Jose Roberto “Robbie” Antonio and offers prefabricated homes designed by international architects. When finished, Batulao Artscapes will feature more than 6,000 properties alongside four museums – one of which will be designed by the Pritzker prize-winner Jean Nouvel, French architect of the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Revolution Precrafted is working with Philippine property developer Century Properties, which was set up by Antonio’s father and recently completed another landmark associated with a gilded senior citizen: Trump Tower Manila.

 

 

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by Oscar Holland, CNN

On a building site about 50 miles outside the Philippine capital of Manila, construction is underway on a completely new 346-acre town.
But much of the work is taking place elsewhere. In fact, most of the 6,000 homes in the development, called Batulao Artscapes, will be prefabricated — built in factories and then transported to the site.

Expected to complete by 2020, the masterplan comprises 12 different styles of home set across four “villages.” Prospective residents can choose from prefabs designed by notable creatives, from artist David Salle to the musician-turned-interior-designer Lenny Kravitz.

But given that modular homes were initially created to deliver affordable housing — quickly and at volume –what can an entire town of designer prefabs offer that conventional settlement can’t.

A different model

For Dutch designer Marcel Wanders — whose “Eden” house is being made available in Batulao Artscapes — a large-scale approach makes prefabs more viable for both designers and buyers.

“The problem with prefab housing is that while you can buy the house and build it quickly, you have a lot on your plate,” he said in a phone interview.

“You still need electricity, water, sewage — it needs a lot of stuff. We’d basically be creating half a product. So I thought, ‘Why wouldn’t we make a prototype for a developer (who can) build and sell the houses?’

“Now you can have a prefab house that has everything you want — electricity and so on — that is organized by the developer.” 

Renowned as an interior and product designer, Wanders was initially approached to work on the garden design at Batulao Artscapes. The Eden houses marks his first venture into prefab design.

The Dutchman’s glass-walled houses come in three distinct styles. Inhabitants are able to customize their purchase with different color schemes and finishing materials. And while the homes will be constructed in a factory, they were designed with the Philippine climate in mind.  

“They have these two big colonnades which are there to keep the roof up — but they also turn the outdoor space into an indoor space,” Wanders said. “In the Philippines, the outside is great, but you want to be protected from the sun. So (the houses have) shading and roofing that makes them livable, with a big tree on the inside too.  

“Behind the glass you’ll have your bedroom, a small living room and your inside kitchen. But as soon as you open the glass walls, the kitchen suddenly has an outdoor area. 

“Then you have a really big home for the price of a small one.” 

The economics of prefabs 

This rationale may apply at the lower end of the development’s offerings — the cheapest homes are being sold for 2.5 million Philippine pesos (approximately $50,000). But with the most expensive units expected to go for 26 million pesos (over $1 million), the project also reflects a growing market for luxury prefabs.

Attitudes towards this once utilitarian form of housing are changing, according to Sheri Koones, a journalist and author of six books on prefabricated housing.

“It’s just a much better way of building,” she said in a phone interview. “Now, people are building not only inexpensive homes, but designer houses. The most important thing is that you can have your house more quickly. You don’t have mold and a lot of the problems that you would have with wood that has been exposed to the elements.   

“When they first started building modular houses, they were very simple. But they’ve just become much more intricate. Years ago, there were things that they couldn’t do, and today they can do almost anything.”

But if customers fork out for high-end units, one of the primary benefits of prefab housing — namely lower costs — may be undermined, explained Ryan E. Smith, an Associate Professor and Director of the Integrated Technology & Architecture Center (ITAC) at the University of Utah.

“The whole game is about value creation,” he said in a phone interview. 

“Whether it’s one house or thousands of units, the question is, ‘If I do more in a factory does it add value to the overarching proposition?’ If it doesn’t, then you don’t do it, rather than chasing some kind of idealism or the novelty that comes from (having a house that was) made in a factory. 

“Modular construction takes about 30 to 60 percent more material to put into the building in order to stabilize it — we’ve done that research. But the money you save in lifecycle costs — time and labor — is how you’re able to compete,” said Smith, who is also a trained architect and author of the book “Offsite Architecture: Constructing the Future.”

Nonetheless, Smith said that prefab developments on the scale of Batulao Artscapes have not been attempted “in recent times” — meaning that the sums may yet add up.

“The volume that they’re showing presents a real opportunity,” he said of the Philippine development. “This kind of (project) is rare, therefore it’s hard to tell whether they can capitalize on it and deliver on their promise.”

A ‘livable art park’ 

There are certainly plenty of promises being made. 

In addition to high-end prefabs, Batulao Artscapes is offering extensive public art facilities designed by the likes of Pritzker Prize-winning architects Christian de Portzamparc and Jean Nouvel, the man behind the Copenhagen Concert Hall and the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

The firm responsible for the project, Revolution Precrafted, claims that it is offering people a rare chance to live in a home designed by a leading architect.

It also hopes to create a community of likeminded people, according to Robbie Antonio, the CEO of Revolution Precrafted and managing director of Century Properties, the Philippine real estate giant bankrolling the $1.1 billion project.

“(The residents will all share) the same DNA of people wanting to live in beautiful homes and beautiful structures,” he said in a phone interview. 

A keen art collector who once commissioned Dutch ‘starchitect’ Rem Koolhas to design his Manila mansion, Antonio says that he was inspired by public art spaces like Naoshima, Japan’s “art island.”

“There was no real master plan for the world’s first livable art park,” he said. “To be surrounded by this (art) and beautiful homes is not present anywhere in the world. 

“I’m going to personally curate everything, so that’s an integral part of the business plan.” 

 

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Source:  https://www.cnn.com/style/article/prefabricated-homes-batulaoartscapes/index.html

by Amor Maclang, Business Mirror

WITH the advent of green building and opting for better sustainable materials in our business districts, the landscape of home building begs to follow suit. This brings about the question: What kind of homes and structures should we be building today?

According to The Cities Alliance, the Philippines has been building and modernizing so rapidly that it now ranks among the highest in urbanization in the world. This is quite obvious, what with towering infrastructures, endless constructions and worsening traffic all becoming “parts of the norm” nowadays.

Filipinos in the Metro are constantly looking for residences within the urban areas, opting for condominium units and, thus, prompting even more vertical developments to be built as we speak. This leaning toward the “vertical lifestyle” is evidenced in the Residential Real Estate Price Index (RREPI) showing that majority of home loans were used to acquire condominium units. However, these structures are built in such redundant succession that the quality of building suffers along with sustainability, while rent and sale prices continue to increase.

As residential congestion rises and calamity and pollution continue to ravage the urban areas, there has been a slow resurgence in the advocacy of prefabricated homes. Revived in the local and international scene, the quickly built, durable, completely indoor-manufactured modular home has now made a welcome return.

Modular homes, created in “modules” of prefabricated materials to create quick and sustainable structures, are stereotypically pegged as square blocks that are functional, yet aesthetically, inferior to more complicated built houses and premium units. That led to a lack of interest in the market and modular homes were put in the real-estate backburner.

The mention of modular homes oft brings to mind either images of simple block-like houses or Minecraft, but in reality, these “square homes” can be the industrial innovation that our country needs to continue progressing in an economically and ecologically sustainable setting.

Recently, the prefab trend has begun to trickle back into the mainstream, with designers finding ways to make gorgeous modular homes that feel premium yet maintain their affordable and sustainably effective nature. With the quicker building time (you can have a finished home in less than 60 days), affordable building, sustainable materials and their strong resistance to various natural disasters, it’s not a hard decision to opt for modular.

A testament to the creative beauty that can be generated off this structure, Filipino real-estate developer Robbie Antonio launched “Revolution Pre-crafted Properties,” a project that gathered 39 architects from different countries to create premium modular homes (at a fraction of the usual high-end mansion prices). These were designed to look like customized art pieces that are liveable and ready to be shipped anywhere in the world within three months.

Many designers across the market are also using green materials that help preserve the environment around them, while also maximizing the space they occupy. Popular firms, like Hoek, Pugh + Scarpa Architects and Workshop/apd, have already used the recyclable platforms to create sturdy and beautiful homes that are LEED-approved.

Not only are these cost-efficient modules noted to be more energy efficient once built, they are also built to withstand floods, typhoons, hurricanes and earthquakes. These are the factors that make modular homes an even more enticing trend to jump into for the Philippines.

Mods in the PHL market

Not to be left behind, the Philippines is also beginning to make strides toward modular living spaces. With companies like Smarthouse Prefab, VAZBuilt and Revolution Properties, the Philippines is already equipped with the ability to choose modular homes now.

A standout project that made headlines is the “Waffle House,” engineered by Filipino company Solid and Insulated Poured Concrete Construction Corp. (Solidcon Construction). A modular home made with reinforced concrete and grade-40 metal, the P200,000 structure is said to have the ability to hold its ground against rough calamities while also being easily disassembled for easy relocation.

According to Solidcon, “this technology was conceptualized as a practical solution to address the growing concerns on mass housing, over-population and land-value appreciation, to name a few, at the most cost and time efficient way possible.”

As the modular home trend makes its way into the Philippine market, we may finally have the solution to our nation’s housing problems right before us. A quick and durable solution to our polluted and calamity-stricken areas has presented itself through the real-estate innovations of late, and like most gifts we receive, it seems to all come in a “box.”

 

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