One of structure’s most well-known trendy icons will soon be obtainable to purchase as a brand new collection of made-to-order designs.
The Eames House, the previous residence and studio of commercial designers Charles and Ray Eames, was one of many few residential buildings the married couple accomplished as a part of their celebrated apply. Constructed with black beams and Mondrian-like color-blocked panels, and nestled inside a grove of eucalyptus bushes, the Los Angeles property was a jewel of the Case Study mission, which challenged architects to modernize household dwelling simply after World War II.
Now, the Eames Office has introduced a brand new enterprise, the Eames Pavilion System, that may permit anybody to construct their own Eames residence — or workplace, restaurant, retail retailer or exhibition house — primarily based on the famed architects’ ideas and visible language. The multi-year mission took form throughout a fraught time, because the Palisades Fire triggered vital smoke harm to the Eames House in 2025, although the landmark construction survived and reopened after months of restoration.
“For many years, people have thought of the Eames House as a kind of singularity,” mentioned the architects’ grandson, Eames Demetrios, in a cellphone name.
Demetrios has directed the Eames Office since Ray’s loss of life in 1988, and each he and Eckart Maise — previously chief design officer for famend Swiss furnishings firm Vitra and a long-term collaborator of the Eames household – have lengthy been interested by translating the designers’ work into prefab structure. After all, Charles and Ray had primarily based each furnishings and residential designs on a scalable grid system, with modularity and off-the-shelf parts in thoughts.
“With research, we’ve really proven that they were always thinking about this idea of a system,” Demetrios mentioned. “In a way, the Eames House is a prototype.”
One of the architects’ modular ideas that they by no means constructed was the Shelter home, a one-story open-plan timber design with a curvilinear roof, meant to function a low-cost resolution. They known as it the “supermarket house,” Maise defined on the decision with Demetrios.
“It was meant to be mass produced and shipped to different places where people would build it up with a local carpenter or with their own hands,” he mentioned.
At this yr’s Triennale di Milano, an exhibition held in Milan devoted to structure, design and craftsmanship, the Eames Office will current the brand new Eames Pavilion System that includes examples of one- and two-story builds that guests can stroll by way of. It’s half of a bigger showcase that additionally incorporates a trove of latest analysis on each celebrated and beforehand unknown Eames designs.
The one-story prefab pavilions will be obtainable for buy this fall — with two-story choices to arrive at a later date — constructed by the design model Kettal and provided in additional than 80 nations. At $2,800 per sq. meter, or simply underneath $260 per sq. foot, because the beginning value for a one-story construct, that may put an average-sized 2,000-square-foot house at $518,000.
For many years, the concept of a prefabricated Eames home was considerably of a unicorn, Eames and Demetrios defined. They struggled with discovering a associate that would deal with transport and logistics globally, native architects and engineers for foundations and permits, and being able to customise to style or mandatory constructing codes (say, for earthquakes in Japan or hurricanes in Florida). It’s removed from a DIY state of affairs, they emphasised, with Kettal’s engineers on-site to assemble every pavilion.
“Having personally built a prefab airplane hanger as a garage, (this is) much better than people sending you random pieces and saying, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out,’” Demetrios mentioned, laughing.
Though the Eames Pavilion System fashions resemble the Eames House, they don’t seem to be a copy-paste of their most well-known constructing. Instead they draw on varied designs, together with the Entenza House, positioned subsequent door, and the unrealized house they conceptualized for filmmaker Billy Wilder, amongst others.
“I think it would be almost odd to only offer replicas of the Eames House, and instead, we’re trying to offer the core idea of that system to be helpful in more ways,” Demetrios mentioned.
The pavilions function the acquainted black beams, sliding screens, and heat wooden interiors of the architects’ house, with choices to customise the outside with home windows, color-blocked or geometric panels and metal crossbars, in addition to add extensions sooner or later. The smallest construct might be a gathering room inside a big workspace, whereas the most important is extra open-ended. In Demetrios’ view, there’s no motive somebody couldn’t request a low-slung pavilion tens of 1000’s of sq. toes extensive, although it’s restricted to two tales tall. Kettal continues to be engaged on the engineering to deliver double-height variations to market, defined Antonio Navarro, inventive director of Kettal, on the identical name.
Additionally, a brand new e-book, “The Eames Houses,” which expands the pondering round their architectural frameworks past their most well-known construction, will be printed by Phaidon later this spring. For Demetrios, bringing a modular system to market has meant extending his grandparents’ legacy in a means he believes they’d all the time meant.
“They were always interested in this multiplication aspect — how can this effort be transformed?” Demetrios mentioned. “They wanted to universalize. If you look at all the Eames’ work, you keep coming across that idea. So, this is magic for us.”