I stole a few minutes of Casper Mork-Ulnes' time to talk about his business, Modern Cabana. A San Francisco designer and architect, he and his partner have created the ultimate anti-shed, anti-garage solution for anyone who's hungry for a bit of personal space.

How'd the idea for Modern Cabana came about?
I wish the answer to that question was a little bit sexier. And actually, we should probably come up with something! But I was working on a custom home here in the Bay Area and while we were waiting through the long approvals process, the client needed some additional space quickly. We didn’t have time to design something, get a permit for it and get it built, which typically takes months and months or even a year. I searched around and there was nothing available that looked good. You had your Home Depot sheds and those sorts of things, but there was nothing simple, well-designed, contemporary and at a reasonable price. So that's when I had the idea.

I pitched the idea to my brother-in-law who's a licensed contractor, and he thought this idea was unique. He's very mechanically inclined with an engineer's mind so it was a perfect partnership. Within weeks of talking to him about it, we decided to move forward.

We did the research and design, which took quite a while, and then eventually we built a prototype and then launched. It was natural for us.

Did you design that prototype with the original client in mind and ultimately end up giving it to them?
Actually, we didn't. I was working for another architecture firm, and that [original] project never went ahead because the planning approval took so long. I had an acquaintance who wanted something like this, and that's who it was designed for. It was a yoga retreat for his wife as well as a guest studio. So he was our first prototype.

So how long was it from this prototype until now?
We started design 2004 but we didn’t build this first prototype until 2005. We launched in the middle to end of that year. We were just getting going so it was a little difficult to sell those first units, and then all of a sudden – exponentially – the growth started happening pretty quickly.

Modern Cabanas are all self-assembly, right?
It's all self-assembly but we also offer installation. We probably do 90% of the installations ourselves, because we find that most homeowners just don't have the time to deal with it, which has been interesting. We expected it to be more of the kit that people would install themselves. But I think because of the pricepoint for installation, most people say, "well why should I spend my hard-earned spare time installing this?" when they can just hire us to do it. But some people are sort of tinkerers and weekend warriors and want to do it themselves. It's all sorts of people. People with no construction experience whatsoever to someone who's always in their garage building furniture.

So for folks ambitious enough to do it themselves, how easy is it really?
Well we have a really good, in-depth installation manual that shows step-by-step. You know, getting the structure up itself is actually the easy part because it's pretty much pre-fab so all the walls are already built with the siding on them, with the installation in, etc. So you’re basically just tilting panels up. Within a few hours, you have the whole building up.

Then what takes more of the time is the detail work – like putting in the door – and that's certainly improved since we started in 2004. The first 15 cabanas were all a little bit different until we perfected the way we manufactured and installed them. It's been an evolution to perfect the product. We're now at a stage where we're very comfortable with the way it's designed and how it's built.

We're actually in talks now with a few bigger manufactured home builders throughout the country of having them built not just here in our San Francisco facility, but in other geographic locations to save on shipping costs.

We're also launching some larger units. Our most popular unit is the 10X12 because that’s 120 sq ft which is what you can install in most jurisdictions without a permit. That's very attractive to a lot of people because of the time and bureaucracy involved in dealing with local government offices.

Do you have the desire to make Modern Cabanas available to a wider, more mainstream audience?
Absolutely. That's one thing we're working on. What we're finding with partnering with a big box retailer is that there is an incredible amount of red tape since they’re just so big. It's an arduous process. We would like to be more accessible and not just sold out of San Francisco which is primarily where most of our units have been sold, though we've shipped them as far away as Texas and New York. But that's definitely something that we're interested in, and I think that somewhere like Target would be a perfect place for people to see and purchase one.

We've also certainly thought about making full size homes [based on the same principles and concept of the cabana]. We hope to launch the dwelling within the next few months and are in talks with modular builders. So those are the next steps for us.

Do you have one personally?
I don't because I live in an old Victorian, and unfortunately, it's a pitched roof so I can't put one on my roof. And that's the perfect application for a dense, urban environment. We still haven't done a rooftop cabana. We've talked to a lot of people about it but it still hasn’t been executed. I wish I had a flat roof to have the first one.

And Nick, my partner, the co-founder, really embodies this lifestyle of living small, and he lives in a 500 sq ft bungalow in the valley. He claims he has all the space he needs. There's this movement about living small and 'anti-McMansion' that we've unconsciously been drug into since we’re about living efficiently without a lot of wasted space.

I'm also a proponent of efficient living and not having excess rooms that you never use. Let's just have a smaller space but make it more useful and mindful, right?
Yes! And better designed. And that's the key. A lot of these McMansions are big just because they're badly designed. If you see, we have some units that are 12x20 and 12x25 that have a bathroom and a kitchen, and they're just incredibly efficiently designed so that it's basically a mini house. That's definitely something we’re mindful of.

Modern Cabanas have a lot of green features, is that correct?
Yes, that's definitely correct. Being green these days to me should be the industry standard, so we don't really make a big deal out of a lot of the green things we do. Our product is pretty much as green as it could be. All our lumber is FSC-certified, we use recycled denim for our insulation, our windows are 90% recycled aluminum, there are no VOCs in any of our finishes, but what makes us the greenest is the way our cabanas are designed. We've designed them on standard lumber sizes we get from the lumber yard. We don't have to cut anything and can buy a sheet of plywood and cut it in half, and all our panels are based on a 4x8 sheet which is also the length of our studs. So we have less than 5% waste to manufacture a cabana, whereas any custom residential addition has more like 30-35% waste in materials.

That makes so much sense, especially from a cost perspective.
Exactly. It's driven by both economics as well as our quest to be as green as possible. You'd be pretty amazed if you came to our facility and saw a tiny little scrap pile of wood that we have left over from each cabana. That's sort of our biggest thing rather than what everyone else is doing now.

Last thing before you go: talk to me about the name 'Modern Cabana.' I love the imagery it conjures up…
It was a conversation between my partner and our branding and business guru who’s a very close friend of mine. For some reason, cabana just stuck with us because there’s something about leisure space and lounging space that connotes your own space in a sense. A more private space – for you. And that's really what we do – we manufacture and sell space to sell to people.  It's about being simple, relaxed and tactile.