Bjarke Ingels launches Nabr home design company

Danish architect Bjarke Ingels has co-founded a housing design company named Nabr that aims to create a range of affordable, modular homes.

Founded by Ingels, alongside former WeWork executive Roni Bahar and former Sidewalk Labs model lab head Nick Chim, Nabr aims to rethink how housing is designed and developed.

“Our homes have only gotten more and more expensive, and arguably at a lower and lower quality,” explained Ingels.

“There’s very little choice. Ninety-nine per cent of all homes are the same, but all people are actually different. There’s a huge potential to reimagine this entire process, from end to end.”

Based in Silicon Valley, the company will offer residents the opportunity to co-design spaces that are tailored to their needs.

Power of manufacturing and productisation to create homes

Nabr will develop buildings that are made from a series of modular elements that can be mass-produced and then assembled to create a variety of homes.

“What if we could unleash the powers of manufacturing and productisation on the way we build our homes,” said Ingels

“We could embrace modularity as a force to maximise diversity,” he continued. “We could create a system that can adapt to people and their environments, not the other way around. So when you’re walking into a neighbourhood, you’re not just walking into a home, you’re walking into your home.”

According to Nabr, the buildings developed by the company will prioritise the wellbeing of its residents.

“By reimagining the way we build our homes and the way we build our cities we can make healthy living the standard not just for the individual residents, but also for the communities and eventually for the entire planet,” added Ingels

Flexible path to homeownership

A video released by the company showed a modular-style highrise with large plant-filled terraces. An app will centralise technology throughout the homes, controlling light, sound and temperature across its spaces that can be upgraded and adapted to fit the needs of residents.

The company will oversee the initial development and design of the housing projects and will also manage sales, letting and the operation of the housing developments.

Nabr aims to offer residents affordable solutions to renting and buying with financial plans that provide a “flexible path to homeownership”.

Ingels is the founder of BIG, one of the world’s best-known architecture studios. In 2018 he joined co-working company WeWork as its chief architect, but stepped down from the role last year.

He recently revealed that he is drawing up a masterplan for the Earth to “prove that a sustainable human presence on planet Earth is attainable with existing technologies”.