VELUX Atika is a modular housing structure that can be pre-fabricated and assembled easily as a detached house or on the top of an existing building with the minimum of disturbance to its dwellers. The demo version of Atika was designed to travel around different countries for the next few years. It has been therefore built to be assembled and disassembled 10 to 20 times without decreasing the quality of its construction.

This type of modular construction, assembled in a factory, has considerable advantages over conventional building methods: it cuts building time to about a third, the structure is more stable and precise, it accepts the use of highquality products and techniques for better thermal and acoustic insulation and it enhances the quality and the control of the building due to the indoor nature of its building process.

As a very important factor for the future of housing, it is almost entirely recyclable.

Atika will be transported to the site by road. So both the structures of the exhibition basement and the dwelling need to be self-bearing and able to resist the stress of crane lifting. A special transport system of four trucks will be necessary due to the large dimensions of the elements of 10 x 3,5 x 3,6 metres. Nevertheless, these big dimensions help speed up assembly and reduce critical constructional weak points on site.

Atika was designed as a finished element and will not require previous basement works. The undefined basement floor conditions of the future sites lead to a conservative structural solution with very low weight per surface area (1 kg/cm2) to be absorbed by the building site grounds.

The supporting structure of Atika consists of a perimeter steel frame of UPN steel profiles for the floor and UPN or IPE profiles for the roof surfaces. Steel columns with square section and diagonal braces stabilise the structure vertically.

The whole structure has been treated against corrosion. The floor is a reinforced concrete slab over a corrugated galvanised sheet.

 

It is not only Atika’s construction that has to be durable during its journey of several years; as it has been built with long-lifetime materials, Atika has been also designed to survive trends. The interior of the house is sober and easy to maintain. Special interest has been given to the quality of the interior materials and colours, the furniture, the integration of bathroom and kitchen to the interior concept and, of course, the electrical illumination when the sun has set.