There is no dispute - typical panel houses, which grew up entire microdistricts in Soviet times, and continue to cheerfully occupy the outskirts and suburbs of Russian cities today, with their high number of storeys, courtyards and streets crowded with cars, do not meet the standards of comfort and quality of modern housing. At the same time, typical housing has one clear advantage over custom-built housing. Even before the start of construction in a typical house, everything has been calculated and optimized: the amount of materials, construction technology and, ultimately, its cost. This advantage of standard apartment buildings has become the strong point of individual standard houses.
The history of the construction of serial houses began in the crisis year of 2008, when, responding to the wishes of customers to optimize construction costs, GOOD WOOD released its pilot project. Before that, country houses were built according to the author's projects, according to projects made "on the knee", or without projects at all, everything depended on the state of the wallet and the degree of customer's persistence. “We were the first on the market of individual houses to create a standard project in accordance with the principles of economics and ergonomics,” says the architect of the company Elena Dubovenko.
For the first replicable house of 150 m22, a detailed and carefully calculated project was carried out. Simple forms, traditional for Russian wooden housing construction, were preferred to complex architectural solutions requiring a large amount of material, time and expensive work, which made it possible to optimize the budget as much as possible. Further, the cost was fixed in the contract and from the moment of its signing the buyer always knew how much the construction would cost and what “product” he would receive in the end.
In 2008, it was a breakthrough, something like a revolution that overturned the "tradition", following which the customer is not given the final cost of construction, and the figure named at the beginning of the journey grows as it approaches the finish line, sometimes growing at times.
Customers quickly appreciated the opportunity to build a large, beautiful, warm house for a reasonable price, and even at the price fixed at the start. The advantages of standard houses for themselves and for the customer were seen by other companies, which began to produce their series of individual houses.
A clear, reasonable construction cost is only one of the advantages of standard houses. In fact, the choice of a serial project turns out to be many advantages for the customer, among which the speed of construction takes the first place after a reasonable and constant price of the house.
In terms of construction time, typical houses significantly outperform houses built according to individual projects. The winnings are at least two months. There is no maximum limit: identifying customer preferences, agreeing on a concept and sketching can take many months. Having chosen a standard project, the customer receives ready-made project documentation and can immediately start construction.
Together with the shortened construction time for a typical house, the customer receives a guaranteed quality of design documentation and construction work. Drawings, assemblies and technological operations have been worked out - on houses built earlier. This is not the case when building a house on an individual project. In a sense, this is an experiment with not always clear results. “Our experience in building typical houses can be compared to repeated rehearsals of actors, as a result of which everything turns out excellently at the performance,” says Elena Dubovenko.
A portfolio of houses built according to standard designs makes it easy to choose a house for new customers. You can see your future home not on a computer screen, in visualizations and plans, but in reality, looking at the same one built earlier.
Someone will definitely ask - what about the individual? "This is a typical project, and I want a house built just for me and for my family!" This is what many customers say. So that the house does not look like others, so that it reflects the family's lifestyle and its aesthetic preferences - the desire is understandable. So after all now and cars rarely leave the assembly line exactly the same: buyers order individual filling, favorite body color and upholstery material. Typical houses are the same as with cars. You can choose the color of the facade and windows, the color and material of the roof, you can add a crown so that there is more volume and air inside. You can remove or put a terrace, even adjust the layout for yourself, combining rooms and changing their purpose. That is why there are no absolutely identical projects of typical houses, they all reflect the individuality of their owners.
The architecture of serial houses is usually simple and laconic - in terms of rectangle, pitched roofs. Thoughtful details and decorative elements have been added to this time-tested scheme. So for many years the appearance of the houses will retain their expressiveness and relevance.
Typical GOOD WOOD houses are combined into lines organized according to the technological principle: houses made of glued beams, half-timbered houses, houses with a ground floor made of ceramic blocks and houses entirely made of ceramic blocks. Inside the ruler, houses vary in area, starting from 200 m2 and reach 350, differing also in planning schemes. Soon, the houses will be further divided according to their belonging to the architectural styles - classic and minimalism.
Another line of four houses is the result of a collaboration with architect Oleg Karlson that began in February 2018. A new line of houses with a brick first floor and a second floor made of timber, a laconic design, with an increased floor height, with logical, convenient layouts, is named after the author.
The architects GOOD WOOD and Oleg Karlson consider the joint work to be interesting and mutually enriching. This cooperation will continue to create new typical houses, where “typical” means modern, comfortable and beautiful.
