Raising the Aesthetic Bar

Why not give potential modular homebuyers something beautiful to behold? It’s not that difficult.

 

• A relationship with a good architect can help a modular company offer great aesthetics to its customers.
• Give more thought to exteriors earlier in the design process and collaborate with your design and trade partners to cost-efficiently add or change a porch, roof detail, or window reconfiguration.
• Use massing and proportion, windows, color, mixed materials and details to make the home appear unique without sacrificing the time savings inherent in offsite construction.

 

 

It goes without saying that curb appeal plays a big role in home sales, and that’s true whether it’s a modular or a site-built home. By paying attention to the basics of good design and considering elements like color, materials, window sizing and placement, and roof details, builders developers and modular manufacturers can set their offerings apart from the competition and pull in more customers.

The basics are pretty straightforward. “You have to have the right proportions, good rooflines and good massing,” says architect Deryl Patterson, AIA, President of Housing Design Matters in Jacksonville, Fla. “But other things are also important, such as shadows and color. Then the house starts to feel as if it wasn’t delivered in a container.”

A modular home, for example, can have a streamlined main body with a front porch that “adds that third dimension coming towards the street,” she says.

 

 

Mix Materials and Add Color

Porches can be used to create shadows on the façade. In coastal styles, half-Bahama shutters can achieve the same effect. “They change the front plane of the house and add that shadow,” says Patterson.

Color is an opportunity to add richness and vernacular flair. For example, Lowcountry designs, seen throughout the South, tend to feature colors that are light, breezy and fun.

For the Naples, Fla. market, Housing Design Matters puts their own twist on Lowcountry with rich terracotta colors contrasted with light yellows and warm, terracotta-tile roofs. “Those really bold saturated colors,” explains Patterson. “Modern designs often have a pop of color on the front door, such as Post-it note yellow or really red.”

Painting a house with two body colors is an easy way to make it stand out. “Instead of the entire house being one color except for the trim and front door, pop out the front gable in a different color,” she says.

 

 

Similarly, contrasting window and trim colors can add impact. The Modern Farmhouse style, though no longer new, is still popular. To set off the body of the house, which is typically white, Patterson suggests black, bronze or another color of window trim.

Mixing different siding profiles, such as vertical and horizontal, is another effective way to catch the customer’s eye. Siding can also be paired with a brick, stone, or stucco skirt. A number of products are available that make this process easier, such as scored siding panels that add dimension with the added benefit of quick installation.

“We’ve been investigating [different options, including] some corrugated metal products for the more modern [designs],” says Patterson.

 

 

Decorative polyurethane or PVC millwork adds individuality and is also durable and low maintenance. In addition to stair systems, moldings, columns and posts, products range from brackets, corbels and dentil blocks to rafter tails, trellises and gable pediments.

Mixing window sizes and configurations can work wonders in a budget-friendly way. For instance, the 3050, a commonly specified 3-by-5-ft., single- or double-hung window, can be placed side by side with a standard 8-by-5-ft., fixed window. This creates a dramatic visual effect without the added cost of a custom window.

 

 

Enhanced Modular Architecture

Patterson’s recommendations are practiced by two modular companies, Volumod in Indianapolis, Ind. and Affinity Modular in Lakeland, Ga.

Volumod differentiates its single-family homes in ways that are striking as well as cost efficient. The company has a close association with architect Billy Ponko, owner of R3B Architecture in Indianapolis.

 

 

“We wanted to develop a more contemporary massing that could still be factory built and field assembled,” says Ponko. “There are limits to the extent of significant design changes when trying to fit a three-bedroom program into these floor plans and box sizes. Thus, we elevate the curb appeal at the exterior with massing variety and material selection.”

Volumod president Ryan Scott notes, “A gable that comes out over the porch is easy to do and pretty standard. You can change the siding in the gable area or in the gable itself. So, you might have horizontal lap siding on the body of the house and a different color or contrasting color of vertical siding in the gable area, or you can do shakes or another siding type.”

Volumod offers an end-elevation design with an offset look that incorporates a porch within the modules, adding depth to the street view.

“[With this design,] we did the accenting with the siding and the colors,” says Scott. “We use a lot of 5-1/4 by 4-in. trim around the windows. Typically, the trim is white because the windows are white, but it can be black as well and work with a darker body color.”

The offset design is a more contemporary look, which has resonated with many buyers, he says.

 

 

Volumod also offers a model with a low-sloped roof, rising to a parapet at the top, which is designed for multistory homes. “The split roofline, either with a taller wall or a different pitch on the opposite side of a two-section roof, works really well,” Scott says. “You can [pair] a large center window [with] smaller flanking windows, or even put grids in the windows for a different look.”

Pay attention to roof pitch as well. “The [taller] the roof, the more site-built it looks,” he says. “People don’t want modular homes to be distinguished by how [boxy] they look; they need to fit into the neighborhood. Older houses typically have steeper roof pitches, so we do pitches of 5/12, 7/12, and 12/12.”

 

 

Customer-Influenced Design

Affinity Modular, a Vantem company based in Lakeland, Ga., does business primarily in Florida and other coastal areas throughout the South.

“We sell our homes to builders,” says Wayne Morrison, CEO. “Hard costs are approximately $170 to $175 per sq. ft., but by the time they get to the marketplace the homes cost $800,000 to $2 million, even before land cost.”

Affinity’s homes are designed in-house, using floor plans from the company’s portfolio as a springboard. Once the homebuyer selects a floor plan, Marta Hardy, Vice President of Sales, works directly with a rendering company to produce illustrations of the proposed home based on its orientation to the street and the site topography (hill, flat lot, beach, etc.).

“We make sure that customers have a variety of roof pitches, overhang dimensions, colors, porches and other [exterior elements] to choose from,” Hardy says.

The company specializes in homes for hurricane-prone areas, which are typically built on pilings. “Depending on the local market, we try to match what a site-built home would look like,” says Morrison.

 

Susan Bady is a freelance writer based in Chicago, Ill., who focuses on residential and commercial design and construction topics including sustainability and building technology.