A|D|US

The greatest challenge to the popularization of ADUs is their costs. Especially free-standing ADUs might be typically smaller than most newly constructed residential single family homes, but their cost per square foot is often higher because they entail as much site, envelope and subcontracting labor as a standard dwelling. Therefore, ADUs are not viable unless their costs are drastically reduced. Our A|D|US design offers both a dwelling design and a reconceptualization of the entire ADU economy that will do just that. While the average 900 square foot ADU takes 4-9 months to construct, our prefabricated design can be assembled on site within just 1 week, reducing construction expenses by 30-40% while incorporating higher quality carbon negative building materials.

We call our design A|D|US precisely because it denotes an accessible option to ADU fabrication that makes it possible for more of ‘us’ to own and occupy a new and beautiful ADU. We offer one possible final design, but propose innovating the entire system of housing provision in Boston. ADUs can become and important piece of architectural arsenal in the provision of affordable housing if they are prefabricated at a sufficient scale. We propose that the city of Boston becomes a leading municipal developer of prefabricated masswood and modular strawbale insulated ADU architecture. Our design draws from Vermont and Massachusetts based fabricators of modular strawbale insulated paneling as well as CLT prefabricated building components. The City of Boston could establish a year-round industrial facility that will integrate these carbon-negative building materials into affordable and beautiful residential designs, as demonstrated in the the AD|US prototype presented here. Not only would this increase housing stock, make ADU landlordship more viable, and do so with a drastically reduced carbon footprint, the public provision of these homes will also create a prefabrication industry in Boston, provide safe year-round construction jobs within a heated facility, and reimagine in the process the increasingly beleaguered image of affordable/social housing.