We sat down with Charlie Lazor from FlatPak to discuss building modern, what makes a healthy living environment and why architects feel a responsibility to design more responsible places to live. Oh yeah, and forklifts, haircuts and Porsches.

Tell us a little about your background.
I graduated from Yale School of Architecture in '93 and practiced as an architect for about 4 years. Somewhere around that time I co-founded a design and manufacturing company called Bludot in Minneapolis where I was one of the lead designers and drove a forklift;) I'm licensed… still. About 5 years ago I left Bludot to get back into architecture and started Lazor Office. And developed FlatPak as one of our first projects.

Was the break from Bludot a gradual thing?
When I decided to move back into architecture, I still designed for Bludot at the same time. Over time though, studying architecture, working on the first projects and teaching, I wasn't really able to sustain my design duties with them anymore. Things with the new venture were just moving too quickly. But I'm still a co-owner, board member and friends with everyone.

Why did you start FlatPak?
I was looking for a new house and was unhappy with the options that were available and how much I would have to pay for something I didn't really want. So, that basically precipitated an attempt to try and design an inexpensive modern home.

How are you trying to change the way people live and exist in their residences?
We're not necessarily trying to change the way people live. But I think historically, architects have pushed modernism as a "better way to live." My approach to design is looking at where things are going and design in a way that allows those things to develop.

Clearly a segment of our population wants to live a modern lifestyle. And like all the benefits that modernism is about. Modernism is about healthy living, it's about healthy mind, it's about healthy outlook, it's about healthy psychology, it's about daylight and well proportioned space. It's about function and things that are helpful and useful to people in everyday life. Modernism is about connecting people with nature and the outdoors. I think we can all agree that we're for those things and we like those things as part of our lifestyle. We see more and more people that want to make that part of their living environment. They want to live in a house that embodies those ideas.

So that's what FlatPak does. Better design for more people at a more affordable price.

The reality is that a custom modern house is a very expensive proposition and very few people can afford to do it. And as a designer, I'm troubled by that, and I think it's up to us to figure out the answer that can allow this on a much larger scale. And FlatPak certainly was born out this idea.

What's wrong with a "normal" home? It's good enough for 99.9% of the world, for crying out loud :)
I don't think anything is wrong with a regular house. I think from an ecological point of view, it is very sound to live in a regular old house because it's already there with the exceptions of the utility bills and the carbon footprint generated by the old mechanical system. The rest of it is in place and it’s not contributing to any further use of resources.

I think the problem with living in a regular old house is just to apply that phrase, "regular old," to everything else in your life. Like, "I drive a regular old car. And I dress in regular old clothes. And my eyewear is regular old eyewear. And guess what, I've got this regular old haircut. And my friends? They're just regular. I’ve been reading some regular old books." It seems to me that it hasn't really tapped into the possibility of what it is to be a human being.

How long did it take to figure it all out?
In a lot of ways, we're still figuring out things today. We're figuring out smaller things that create incremental benefits. The basics of the system were designed in about a 6 month period. This initial house was for me as a personal residence and we used it as a learning experience.

We treat FlatPak as a product and less as a run-off house where once you build it you’re done. It is much more like a product in that we're working to improve parts and pieces, how they go together, how we can lower cost, and how we can manage the production process.

Does the original FlatPak look like the homes you're currently building?
I think to most people they would look pretty much the same. My house uses just a couple of materials that we have in our material palette… that's one big difference. The window system that we currently use for the production of FlatPaks is different from my house.

Probably the biggest differences though are the conditions and details in the prototype FlatPak. They are more inventive, maybe a little experimental and probably push the boundary a little bit further than a lot of people would necessarily want in their own home. That was the purpose of this initial effort though. See how far we could push this and maintain the intention of it.

Inevitably though we have gotten better at it and made many improvements that are not always visual. I think a good analogy would be… I really admire Porsche… they've been refining, what most of us know as the 911, for more than 40 years. The body type stayed basically the same but you can see how different materials were used as new technologies have become available. How different engines have maybe changed the body type a little bit because you need a little bit more room. So it's really about engineering and designing a product that evolved incrementally into a new product. It stays relevant and stays desirable over a long period of time.

I hope the FlatPak has the same kind of timelessness.

What measures or standards are you putting in place to "green" the building process? Are clients asking for this or are you educating them?
A house is a very complicated thing with lots of different parts and pieces. One thing we're drilling down on more deeply is mechanical systems and how to optimize and make them run as efficiently as possible. We're always looking at making gains in the area of "greening" the living environment. Through environmentally conscious materials and minimizing carbon footprints. It might be a counter top material, maybe how we’re sourcing things to reduce carbon footprints or a new jig that helps us set the window in the opening in the shop more effectively. There's always room for improvement.

We're looking to do our purchasing from local buyers and manufacturers in and around Minnesota and Wisconsin to reduce the amount of shipping that is involved in putting together a FlatPak kit.

I think with clients it's both ways. They are always asking us if the houses are green or how green they are. Obviously as designers and architects we are interested in these issues. They're too important and architects are responsible for a large amount of what gets made and what's going to go into a landfill someday. The advancements in this field are coming so quickly that our clients often bring new things to our attention.

I think the two greatest aspects of FlatPaks are inherently green. First, you wouldn’t demolish a FlatPak house. You would unbolt it, unscrew it and sell it or move it to another site. The second thing is because of the way it's put together… if you were to make changes to it, you're not doing demolition, you're not throwing things into a landfill. You're unbolting specific parts and pieces which can be recycled in the appropriate material recycling bin or sold and reused in another way.

Have these things made the building process more expensive?
Yeah, material costs are rising for everyone. We're constantly trying to figure out incremental improvements and better ways to decrease the time it takes to make and build the houses. They're most effective when you’re doing more than one. For example, multi-family housing or a development of FlatPaks could be a pretty powerful proposition. You get a really carefully designed house that is very well made, but the time it takes to get that together on the jobsite, as well as all the design and documentation time, is significantly less than if you tried to do the same thing on a one house only site.

How does FlatPak assembly work?
Well a lot of the home is built offsite – the walls are framed, the siding is put on, the window frames are set, the beams and wood panels are pre-made and pre-finished…. And the primary means to achieving these efficiencies in assembly is that we have one crew of assemblers. These guys are trained and do all FlatPak assembly. They show up at a jobsite and know exactly what they are going to be doing. They can get to the task right away and constantly use their time to assemble the structure. This is really key because the construction industry tends to be a little bit more conservative and there’s a risk with things that are new and haven't been done before and that usually comes at a premium. So that's something that happens with modern houses a lot and it's something that could happen with something like FlatPak if you don't have the right kind of builder. The specialized FlatPak crew does eliminate these possibilities.

How is interest translating into people actually living in FlatPak houses?
We have about a dozen houses that are being lived in or are being finished up as we speak. We also have a handful on the boards. I hear a lot of wonderful feedback. I got an e-mail from one of our first clients in Massachusetts, just a glowing review from a friend of hers who is an art dealer who said it’s the best house she's ever been in. And every time I talk to that client about this or that they always talk about how much they love living in that house. We have very, very happy clients.

We're going to be putting an audience section on our site in a few months and it's going to have people who live in FlatPak houses talking about what it's like to live in one.

Do you do all the designing, or have the pressures of a growing business forced you to choose between executive and designer?
As the business grows, I envision FlatPak LLC taking on someone who can handle the business aspect on a day to day basis rather than giving up my role in design. I think it would be more important for me to find someone who can run the business end of it.

In the end, I am a designer, not a business person as my primary skill. I do enjoy the business side of it, I find it challenging and like the idea of growing the viability of FlatPak. But it's the pleasure of designing and building great houses that get me excited. So, one thing I really want to hold on to is designing. With every FlatPak house… I make a site visit personally to the client's property and to the client.

How do the FlatPak homes price out?
Pricing is so tricky. I would say that we can do a well designed, well crafted modern house, dollar for dollar, pound for pound, for significantly less than if we did as a conventional build.

Cost is always a function of scale. FlatPak would be most cost effective when it's done in multiples. So, multi-family developments, even a cluster of a half dozen houses. The value is very good and I think developers can certainly have a positive business experience working like this.

What's next?
We're looking at doing a larger scale projects. We're in the initial stages of designing projects that are not residential and deal in exhibition space. A large project in Dubai that has to do with creating places of worship for transient populations. Most importantly, we're talking to a number of developers on the east and the west coast that are interested in taking FlatPak to a village type of level. Stay tuned.