SOOD Habitat - Ecobuild 2015

Francesco Errede, Italian architect, but based in London, presented a seminar about a business network called SOOD.

SOOD means South and is a housing module consisting of external walls made of layered wooden blocks covered with natural store.

It's described as:

"An eco friendly house designed with innovative building technologies, assuring comfort, technical efficiency and aesthetic balance."

The system is described in 5 Facets:

SOOD Is History

Reinterprets ancient values of Mediterranean building culture, employing materials from tradition, such as limestone

SOOD is Beauty

Clean lines, shape balance. Natural stone and wood make ambience comfortable, where liveability rhymes with beauty

SOOD is Efficiency

A passive house able to reduce energy consumption

SOOD is Flexibility

Modules can be modified over time, flexibility in designing and building speed are SOOD's key features

SOOD is the Future

Attentive to changes, invests in research, uses the most innovative technologies and designs according to ethical criteria, having man and environment as core of its engagement

Something that caught my attention was the use of stone in the system. I asked Mr Errede about how much of the typical £75,000 modular house's cost is contributed to by the use of limestone.

The cost is much less than usual stoneworks since

1) the thickness of the stone used is the construction is only 20mm, whereas usual stoneworks use a thickness of 50mm. Material is saved because if this.

2) since the modular blocks are only one size, no extra time is spent on creating several different shapes and sizes. Labour time is saved because of this.

Thus, It was concluded that creating a luxury aesthetic modular house is possible. It has a patent that is designed and tested.

A potential issue was the expansion and contraction of timber, but joints are made of resins and the stone isnt porous.

Works have been taking place in Italy and Spain to date,