“If I decided believing all the naysayers, I would not be doing what I’m doing,” Antonio tells ANC’s “The Boss.”
The 40-year-old entrepreneur with slicked back hair says a boss should be “extremely ambitious.”
“Most successful visionaries in my mind were relatively eccentric, extremely lofty in their ambitions and very steadfast in their goal of achieving it,” said Antonio.
“You could multi-task and do a hundred tasks with specific goals. You have to have razor sharp focus. And I believe in that,” he added.
Catch The Boss on ANC at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, with replays at 11:30 p.m.; Fridays at 3:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.; Saturdays at 4:30 a.m. and 10 a.m.; Sundays at 4:30 a.m. and Mondays at 9:30 a.m.
Trump Tower Manila developer Robbie Antonio is collaborating with 48 of the world’s leading architects and designers to bring limited edition designer pre-crafted properties to Manila.
Antonio, CEO of Revolution Precrafted, is pioneering the pre-crafted home concept to simplify the process of owning a dream home by a dream designer by allowing anyone to hand-pick a design by world-renowned architects, artists, and designers – including Tom Dixon, Sou Fujimoto, Fernando Romero, David Salle and celebrities such as Daphne Guiness and Lenny Kravitz – and have it transported right on the owner’s doorstep.
The real estate developer, who himself owns a mansion in Manila designed by Rem Koolhaas, is creating designer homes and pavilions that are made to order and shipped in a span of 3 months.
The Revolution pre-crafted home features all essential space functions with complete provisions for utilities.
No two homes or pavilions are alike with the real estate developer giving a free hand to his designers.The Century Properties CEO initially instructed designers to create structures from 50 to 250 square meters with components that could fit in a shipping container, allowing the pre-crafted home or pavilion to be shipped to anywhere in the world.
The pre-crafted designs are also flexible, with structures that can be dismantled and moved from location to location.
The NorthWestern University and Stanford University graduate who has launched Manila projects such as the Trump Tower Manila and Paris Hilton’s Paris Beach Club at Azure Urban Resort Residences, also partnered with Versace for The Milano Residences and the first residential development of MissionIHome.
Revolution Precrafted, a company launched by developer and art collector Robbie Antonio in 2015, aims to democratize architecture by offering affordable designs for prefab homes and pavilions from over 40 world-renown architects including Kengo Kuma, Jean Nouvel, Kravitz Design, Zaha Hadid Architects, Sou Fujimoto and many more.
One of the company’s new collaborators is Lev Libeskind, son of the architect Daniel Libeskind, who has recently opened his own architectural and design practice in Milan, Italy.
The architect’s design for Revolution Precrafted is designed to be compatible with any location and context.
Its modern form is based on a mathematical unfolding of irregular angles around a rectangular core. In combination with rich materials such as aluminum, natural stone, glass and resin the home is adaptable to just about any site or lifestyle.
MANILA – Visionary developer Robbie Antonio hopes to become the Philippines’ first “unicorn” or billion-dollar startup with prefabricated luxury homes that he hopes will disrupt the global real estate market.
The 40-year-old CEO of Revolution Precrafted has partnered with 44 architects, including the late Pritzker Prize winner Zaha Hadid and American rock singer Lenny Kravitz, to create modern designs. A restaurant, he said, could be built in as fast as 3 weeks.
The son of Century Properties founder Jose Antonio hopes to earn his first $1 billion in 2 to 3 years. He recently secured a $1.1-billion joint venture agreement with Indonesia’s Bakrie Global Ventura.
“You have to be extremely ambitious,” Antonio told ANC’s The Boss, after arriving in a jet black BMW 7 Series.
“To be different, you have to think differently. You can’t force to think differently you just have to be inherently different,” he said.
Potential “unicorns” have to be “relatively eccentric, extremely lofty and ambitious and very steadfast in their goals of achieving it.”
Revolution Precrafted CEO Robbie Antonio speaks to Cathy Yang for ANC’s The Boss. ABS-CBN News
Antonio said he was in talks with, among others, a Victoria’s Secret model and a “major” NBA player.
“I need to curate them personally,” said Antonio, referring to his partnerships. “I shun the outside consultants for this.”
Working with the family’s Century Properties, Antonio helped seal ventures with Hollywood socialite Paris Hilton and US President Donald Trump, when he was still a reality TV and real estate mogul.
Revolution Precrafted’s first Philippine project will be an art park in the south, Antonio said, adding he is having more pre-fabricated built abroad to be closer to his clients. The company is present in Puerto Rico, Nicaragua and Indonesia.
After securing millions of dollars in funding from global tech giant 500 Startups, prominent Philippines property developer Robbie Antonio believes his one-year-old venture could soon become the country’s first unicorn — a company worth $1 billion.
Revolution Precrafted, which launched in December 2015, ships “precrafted homes” created by renowned designers like Lenny Kravtiz’s Kravitz Design to property developers and homebuyers around the world within 90 days of ordering.
“We’re changing the landscape of home building,” Antonio told Tech in Asia.
“Now you have the world’s best architects at your fingertips for an affordable price.
“We’re applying the home as an art concept as well. They’re collectibles.”
According to Tech in Asia, Antonio’s startup wasn’t even raising capital when global tech giant 500 Startups invested $US15.4 million ($20 million) in it earlier this month.
And why would it need investors, considering the business has generated over $US110 million ($143.3 million) in sales already?
Revolution Precrafted homes cost an average of $US120,000 ($156,331) a pop, and Antonio believes the global market opportunity for this is $US100 billion ($130.3 billion).
With the company now valued at US$256 million, Antonio said venture capital investors were super keen to get involved.
“I wanted to have a cross-border transaction business,” says Antonio.
“That’s what makes it really geared towards being, I believe, the first Philippine unicorn.”
500 Startup managing partner Khailee Ng said the deal, which also involved some angel investors, saw the investors fighting for a ‘yes’ instead of the founder.
“Our seed companies rarely have US$100 million [$130 million] product bookings and enough finances,” Ng tells Tech in Asia.
“[Revolution Precrafted] didn’t need to raise. I had to convince them to take my money for value-add, not cash.”
Antonio is also the managing director of Philippines-based family real estate group Century Properties and he ranks among the world’s top 100 art collectors, next to Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio and Sheikha Al-Mayassa, a member of Qatar’s ruling family.
“I’m almost obsessed with design and architecture,” Antonio said.
“I believe in design democratisation. It should not just be the upper echelons who should be able to afford great architecture.”
A new concept of living. Light, mobile, sustainable, designer. These are micro prefabricated houses signed by stars of architecture and design. Ready for use, they can be ordered and delivered, at home, to any destination on the planet.
The idea comes from Robbie Antonio, a forty-year-old from Manila with a family fortune in the real estate world. And a dream: “accessible architecture”, and very signed, for everyone. “With my Revolution Precrafted I want to bring a Pritzker Prize into everyone’s life,” he explains. “My prefabricated houses are a small revolution: the pret-a-porter of great architecture”.
Using sophisticated technologies and optimizing production costs, Revolution Precrafted manages to make the architecture of the great masters democratic. For now, Antonio has enlisted 40 personalities, including archistars and designers. The latest project, Simple by Jean Nouvel, was presented in Paris, at the Tuileries. But the legend Zaha Hadid, Ron Arad, Jurgen H. Mayer, Daniel Libeskind, Kengo Kuma, the Campana brothers, Marcel Wanders and Tom Dixon also participated.
Among the most interesting examples is the Modular Living Unit by Paulo Mendez Da Rocha + METRO, a flexible system that can be used in a variety of contexts and environments: urban and rural, tropical and temperate. Composed of living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and verandas, it allows you to create different spatial combinations through multiple units. And it can also be extended over several floors. The structural elements that compose it are sized to allow ease of transport and to minimize the equipment during installation.
Matilda Home by Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas is a mobile prefabricated housedesigned for any location in the world. The unit’s design allows multiple modules to form a large cloud, with no size limitations: it can be a city, a landscape or simply a house.
Philip Johnson/Alan Ritchie Architects’ Modular Glass House, inspired by the American architect’s masterpiece, has been redesigned as a series of modular components that can be pre-manufactured and shipped. The design follows the principles of the original architecture with greater lightness and flexibility.
In 2016, glamping , where you can spend an elegant time in nature , was a big hit. The momentum is likely to continue in 2017, but maybe you can enjoy gorgeous camping in a tent like this? ・The “Ohm” type wooden tent “Armadillo Tea Canopy” is an armadillo type tent designed by industrial designer Ron Arad . For Japanese people, the shape is more reminiscent of Om from “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind” rather than Armadillo. It looks great in nature ♡ – Not only can it be used outdoors like a single roof, but it can also be used by dividing it into parts. It looks comfortable when used for afternoon tea or outdoors! “Armadillo Tea Canopy” is a concept design exhibited at “Revolution Precrafted Properties” , which collects excellently designed houses and tents, but it seems that fun will spread if it is sold to the general public. Revolution Precrafted Properties (Armadillo Tea Canopy)
If you’re looking to hole up in the middle of nowhere, there’s a hut in a box for that.
Back in the days of gloom post World War Two, prefab homes — structures prefabricated in sections in a factory and then assembled on site — were built en masse as temporary solutions for those who had been “bombed out”.
Just over 70 years later, prefab houses are still considered affordable alternatives to building homes from scratch.
Prefab pioneer Jean Prouvé designed his “demountable house” in the 1940s as a potential solution for the housing crisis in France. These inexpensive homes were rapidly built from steel and wood, assembled by hand, and supported by a two-legged load-bearing structure.
Today prefabricated buildings are used as temporary relief for those who have lost their homes to natural disasters, refugees, as well as a quick fix for housing crises.
But prefab is increasingly becoming an attractive option for constructing everything from cabins in the wilderness to high-end designer homes for city slickers.
One Canadian company has even gone as far as creating DIY cabins which come straight out of the box, complete with step-by-step instructions on how to assemble them.
Hut-in-a-box
This Cabin is made from 3D printed bio-plastic Credit: Courtesy Ossip van Duivenbode/DUS Architects
Backcountry Hut Company grew from a need for recreational refuge points for outdoorsy folk in remote locations.
Avid backcountry adventurer, Wilson Edgar, dreamt up the idea of customizable huts that could be easily pieced together on-site by a group of people.
“When someone takes a house project today they basically give up control as soon as they start the project,” Edgar tells CNN. “This is putting that control back in their hands.”
The huts come in two distinct styles — backcountry and frontcountry — each with multiple configurations.
The base model is a studio loft measuring 191 square feet, with a kitchen and living area on the ground level and sleeping quarters for two to four people on the top floor.
However, modules can be combined and the hut can be extended to fit up to 30 people.
Backcountry Hut Company scalability Courtesy: Leckie Studio Architecture + Design
“One of the values in the system is that it is scalable and mass customizable,” explains Leckie, referring to various interior fitout options and exterior finishes.
This, according to Leckie, is one of the key differences between their huts and other “more rigid” cabins. Another is the ease with which it can be assembled.
“The building components are designed to such a size that they can be lifted by two people and put into place similar to almost like lego blocks,” says Leckie.
This is not to say the “kit of parts” can be slung over your shoulder like a sack of tent poles. In fact, the pre-module shell, timber frame skeleton, window system, doors, cladding, and interior fitouts arrive in a 40-foot shipping container and need to be lifted by helicopter to locations inaccessible by roads.
While the hut’s structural components cost $150 dollars a square foot, the interior fitouts can add a significant amount, depending on the client’s taste.
A rendering of a backcountry hut Courtesy: Leckie Studio Architecture + Design
Is prefab the answer?
Prefab homes are often considered to cut the spiralling costs of building a home, as well as the time it takes to build.
“For the average person building a custom home there are so many unknowns, and I think that a lot of people really struggle with the perceived lack of control through the process,” says Leckie.
“What we have here is a product that comes ultimately delivered, it’s a fixed-price solution.”
However, architect Charlie Lazor of Lazor Office — a design firm that specializes in the design and prefabrication of dwellings — is of the opinion that prefab isn’t always the answer.
“There is a perception that prefab will solve the problem of the cost of a home,” Lazor tells CNN.
“There are benefits to be had, and more benefits if the stars align, but it’s not a silver bullet, and it’s not going to solve a budget deficit.”
In 2005 the Minneapolis-based architect first introduced his panelized FlatPak house — a pre-fabricated, configurable house system.
Having designed and built many modular, FlatPak and stick built homes over the years, Lazor explains that there are multiple ways to do prefabrication. It all depends on the circumstances.
“For very remote work, the modular method is better as labour doesn’t exist, or has to come from very far away. So you have to get as much as you possibly can get done off site, and send it as complete as possible.”
One of the biggest challenges Lazor faces, however, is misconceived ideas about the benefits of prefabrication.
“The time advantage can be there but I wouldn’t say it’s a significant enough reason why someone should do a prefabricated house,” he says.
A prefab-ulous future
Revolution Precrafted’s “Sails” by Christian Portzamparc Credit: Courtesy Duccio/Revolution Precrafted
“As the market for prefabricated structures grow, so does the market for high-end precrafted work,” Robbie Antonio, CEO of Revolution Precrafted, tells CNN.
Revolution Precrafted commissions “starchitects” such as Zaha Hadid, Jean Nouvel, Philip Johnson, Ron Arad, Marcel Wanders, and Christian de Portzamparc, to design luxury prefab homes, pavilions, and even furniture.
“Prefabrication no longer means cookie-cutter construction, or one-size fits all design,” says Antonio. “It is moving towards a space where traditional construction methods give way to high-precision, and high-quality architecture.”
‘Matilda’ – this is the name that the architect and designer duo Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas (Studio Fuksas) have given the house they have developed for Wallpaper as part of the “Revolution” project. Like all the dwellings in the series, the Matilda Home is based on pre-fabricated elements and is thus quick and easy to erect.
As the designers state, “The idea to bring design also in common life attracted us. This is a new concept of habitat of house. It’s a mobile home it can be everywhere around the world; everybody can be a client. It’s a modular unit so many of them can be added together like a cloud. It can even be a city .This is not an object, it is a concept; it can be a city, a landscape or simply a home. Easy to build, it can be done in different materials more or less expensive. ‘Matilda’ is a completely different space since nowadays we don’t need so much storage space, you just need to have a screen. The only important thing is to have a nice place to eat, to seat and to sleep.” And naturally a piece of property on which to locate your own personal part of the cloud. Further houses in the limited edition can be seen here.
