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Take it off

Removable modules, a new approach to the empty nest.

This is the second in a series of articles that will appear in the Your Home editions of The Boston Globe Magazine this year. Each installment explores an alternative to conventional home-building techniques and architectural styles.

DESIGNING A HOUSE to reflect a family's lifestyle is nothing new. Designing one to reflect the life cycles of a family, on the other hand, is an idea ripe with potential. Or so thinks architect Tullio Inglese.

As families or incomes grow, people often add on, but Inglese, whose firm, T.I.A. Architects in Amherst, has been designing residences for 31 years, believes that new houses can also be created with future subtractions in mind. As the father of five and the grandfather of five more, Inglese knows that families expand, but he is also aware that as the nest empties, the needs of those left behind change.

The notion of a shrinking house is, for now, more an idea than a sought-after design element. Still, Inglese makes an interesting case for designing so that an entire wing of a house could be detached easily. Before the concept of "subtractables" is accepted, Inglese acknowledges, clients must overcome some psychological barriers.

A new family in formation is naturally caught up in the excitement of growth, resistant to thinking ahead to what Inglese, 62, refers to as "the end of a season." But seasons do end, and many couples, after their brood has flown the coop, find themselves wanting to scale back. One option is to sell the homestead and move. But if they had included a subtractable wing from the start, they could simply lop it off and stay put. They would save money and reduce their fuel bills and property taxes. And their removable module would likely be a prized commodity for someone else.

Inglese discovered a market for well-designed modules a year and a half ago while building a house for himself and his wife, Judith. The couple had decided to move from their longtime residence near the center of Amherst to a larger, more rural property in nearby Leverett. "We are avid gardeners, and our youngest daughter was off to college, so we had this flexibility," says Inglese.

Although he included a detachable wing in the design, the couple realized halfway through construction that they didn't need it: They were building for the previous season of their lives, when they still had five children at home.

What they did need was studio space for Judith, who creates ceramic murals. A separate studio building had already been planned - so why not simply move the wing 100 feet from the main building and turn it over to Judith?

But when word got out that they were moving the module, the couple started getting offers for the 18-by-40-foot structure, which was closed in but not finished. Two informal bids for the wing, which has a handsome gabled roof and an alcove with a bay window, were on the order of $50,000. One would-be buyer was considering using the building as a studio; the other saw it as the basis for a small house.

Finished, such a unit could fetch $150 a square foot, or more than $100,000, Inglese speculates. Even deducting preparation and moving expenses, that adds up to a tidy sum for their "subtraction." Enough, possibly, to send a child to college.

Unlike an automobile, a module - especially if it is planned to be subtractable - could be expected to maintain or even increase its value. "Look at good red wine," says Inglese. "Do you get a discount for that when it gets older? I don't think so."

As Inglese envisions it, subtractable units could be attached to the rest of the house with bolts, which would be hidden by trim. The module would have its own electric panel, its power fed by one cable. The heating system would be a zone unto itself, and plumbing would be installed with only one connection point.

Moving a module is fairly straightforward. Cables are slipped beneath the structure and then attached to a crane. The crane lifts the module onto dollies to move it a short distance or onto the bed of a specialized truck for longer hauls.

Moving their own unit cost the Ingleses $4,000 and took about four hours.

There are disadvantages in terms of construction costs and energy efficiency to the detachable approach, Inglese says. You increase the surface-to-volume ratio of the structure, because you have to build more exterior walls than if the shell of the house were, say, in the form of an elongated octagon, which, according to Inlese, is one of the most efficient shapes.

"The exterior wall of a house is expensive to build, and it's where the heat is lost," he says.

But sacrificed efficiency in the overall shape of the house can be ameliorated by taking passive solar considerations into account and by super-insulating the detachable sections. On the plus side, a separate wing is easier to heat or not heat as use dictates.

In addition to his own practice, Inglese runs the Amherst-based Center for Ecological Architecture (www.nacul.com), which takes on interns and researches sustainable building and design principles. The concept of subtractables fits in with his environmentalist outlook, since it is a form of recycling. When the needs of one family evolve, a wing of their house can easily be transferred to where it will be more fully utilized.

To optimize the aesthetics as well as the efficiency of his buildings, Inglese makes models of his projects, a practice many architects have abandoned in favor of virtual renderings using computer-assisted design. "I think a three-dimensional model makes a building much more legible for me and my clients," Inglese says.

Playing around with modules can help the architect find harmonious relationships between the structure and the land, Inglese notes. He favors buildings that integrate interior and exterior space, what Frank Lloyd Wright called "organic architecture." This stems from a Japanese tradition of creating semi-interior spaces and is well suited to modular design.

The wing Inglese removed from his own house had formed one side of a courtyard, but since the house was designed with subtractability in mind, the essential balances were maintained even when the wing was taken away. He will replace it with a greenhouse, to preserve the feel of the courtyard but give it a lighter, more airy quality.

The Ingleses' new single-story, 2,000-square-foot house - down from 2,700 square feet - has a trussed roof and sits on a ledge outcropping in the woods with a southern view of the Holyoke range 25 miles in the distance. No wonder the Ingleses are eagerly awaiting the change of the seasons.ufdot