Hometta Launches Modern Home Plan Website
Web-based collective of renowned architects and builders offers affordably priced, modern home plans online, making great home design more accessible. Find blueprints for small, sustainable, modern home design as well as extensive resources to inform and empower consumers.
HOUSTON (July 23, 2009)—With this month's launch of Hometta.com, homebuyers gain an unprecedented opportunity to build and enjoy intelligent, architect-designed homes. Hometta, a Web-based modern home plan company, is offering modestly sized, sustainable home designs from internationally recognized architecture studios, with the goal of making great design accessible and affordable to a large cross-section of prospective homeowners. Along with an initial offering of close to 30 modern home plans, Hometta provides a complete array of educational resources that take the mystery out of building a new home.
Images of home plans available through Hometta can be viewed at www.hometta.com/design/houses.
Mark Johnson, a Houston-based green homebuilder, and his frequent collaborator Andrew McFarland, a Houston architect, founded Hometta to improve the way residential architecture is designed and delivered today.
“Hometta is offering modern home plans from sought-after designers at affordable prices,” said Johnson. “We believe great design should not be limited to a small, elite market."
Unlike traditional stock plan companies, Hometta has partnered with award-winning, progressive architects to develop home plans that emphasize affordability, sustainability, and style. Johnson and McFarland enlisted four "core" architects and designers, all known for highly innovative work, to establish the company's vision. The core group--James Evans, Dawn Finley, Brett Zamore and Blair Satterfield--in turn recruited the 20 talented studios who contributed designs at launch. Collectively, these first 24 studios represent 17 cities, 9 US states, and 4 countries (Chile, China, Germany, and the U.S.).
"Hometta is enabling us to reach a segment of homebuyers, those looking for smaller homes, who might never have considered real architecture to be an option," says Wes Jones, principal of Los Angeles-based Jones, Partners: Architects. “As someone who believes that architecture's responsibility to society begins with the dwelling, I'm very happy to be associated with this.”
An Uncompromising Vision
Hometta's plans adhere to a prescribed set of criteria, uniquely interpreted by each studio:
Modern: The homes are exquisitely modern, offering all the design, livability and ingenuity of a custom home.
Small: Capped at 2,500 square feet, which is widely cited as the average size of an American single-family home, the homes serve an unmet need for efficient, relatively affordable housing that nonetheless adheres to high architectural standards. Small homes also supplement and support, rather than compete with, the architects' core businesses.
Sustainable: By virtue of their smaller size, the homes use less energy and produce less waste. They employ sustainable design and materials, such as hydronic heating and cooling, passive ventilation, and planted or solar-paneled "sides," to boost efficiency and energy performance.
Web-based Tools
Free of charge, visitors to Hometta.com may view all home plan design renderings and floor plans, as well as original editorial content: professionally produced audio slideshows and video podcasts and a professionally edited blog with exclusive content from Hometta contributing architects.
At a cost of just $9 per month or $49 per year, Hometta subscribers can view all home plans in detail, as well as access Hometta's Construction Guide, a comprehensive guide for those interested in building a house on their lot, or for those who just want to learn more about the process. And for those who are ready to start building, the subscription up to 5 guest log-in accounts, so that builders and other local professionals may review plan sets and give bids; the ability to view, zoom in and scroll through the actual builder plan sets, and a Builder Search Tool with recommendations for vetted modern builders throughout the U.S.
The plans range in cost from $1195 for a studio-sized house to $3195 for a three-bedroom.
Architects Contributing Plans
The following architecture studios have contributed plans for Hometta's launch:
Barry Price Architecture Woodstock, NY
Borden Partnership Los Angeles
Brett Zamore Design Houston
Collaborative Designworks Houston
davidclovers Hong Kong
Dufner Heighes New York, NY
FAR frohn &rojas Los Angeles / Cologne, Germany / Santiago, Chile
Garofalo Architects Chicago
Guthrie+Buresh Architects Ann Arbor, MI
HouMinn Practice Houston / Minneapolis, MN
Interloop—Architecture Houston
Jones, Partners: Architecture Los Angeles, CA
Keith Krumwiede New York / Los Angeles
Kiel Moe Boston
KRDB Austin, TX
Manifold.ArchitectureStudio Brooklyn, NY / Mainze, Germany
Mike Jacobs Architecture Brooklyn, NY / Los Angeles
Min | Day San Francisco / Omaha, NE
over,under Boston
Project_ Brooklyn, NY
Roger Sherman Architecture Santa Monica, CA
Studio Terpeluk San Francisco
WEATHERS Chicago
Zoka Zola Chicago
Welcome Hometta Shows
In selected urban markets, prospective home plan buyers can take an in-depth look at Hometta's new design delivery model by attending Welcome Hometta, a multi-city exhibition that kicked off last week in Houston. The shows are being held over the next 9 months in Houston, New York, Boston and Chicago gallery spaces. Featured are physical, 3D resin models of all 25 home designs, assembled as a collective to suggest a neighborhood of modern houses. In addition, Hometta will have a presence at the September 2009 AIA San Francisco Home Tour, for which it is a sponsor.
About Hometta
Hometta is a Web-based modern home plan company offering small, sustainable home designs from internationally recognized architecture and design studios. Hometta is committed to making great design accessible and affordable to a large cross-section of prospective homeowners. Unlike traditional stock plan companies, Hometta partners with talented, progressive architects and provides resources to guide subscribers through teh home-building process. Go to www.hometta.com to learn more about the company, see its plans, meet its architects and founders, and stay up-to-date on the products, trends and knowledge needed to build a modern home. A gallery of images available for download is at www.hometta.com/content/image-gallery
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