Porsche's Floating House Is a $1.5 Million Prefab That Matches Your Car

A prefabricated home is an advantageous alternative to traditional housing because it ships in pieces that usually only require some assembly on site, which cuts down the construction time and reduces the complicated process to only a few steps. A prefab like Elon Musk's, a Casita from Boxabl, doesn't even require foundation, so once you rig it to the utilities, you're good to move in.

Prefabs are more sustainable, also because the construction time is shorter and less complicated, which reduces waste. Another advantage of prefabs is that they're cheaper than traditional houses, both to buy and to run. As long as you're willing to make do with a more compact floorplan, a prefab will probably work for you.

Things take on a whole different vibe when Porsche gets involved, though.

Indeed, F.A. Porsche, the Porsche-branded design firm, has just created its very first prefab and – color us surprised! – it's neither small nor cheap. Imagined as the perfect abode for the Porsche-loving millionaire who likes to surround himself (or herself) with only the finest Porsche-branded stuff, this prefab is the upgraded, deluxe version of prefabs. The mother of all prefabs, if you will.

It's called The Floating House, and it stands out for its sleek, masculine, and elegant design that blends wood and glass towards achieving a maximum degree of sustainability. At least this core aspect of prefabricated home construction is still unchanged.

F.A. Porsche designed the home for Griffner, a wood specialist and sustainable construction company based in Griffen, Austria. Griffner is now building the first unit at its factory, but Porsche stresses that it will serve as a guideline to what customers will be able to get. It's the fanciest type of teaser.

The Floating House isn't just prefabricated but also highly modular, so the design can be scaled up and down according to the future owner's needs – and budget.

The name of the home comes from the fact that the second level of the building appears to be floating. So no, it's not a real floating house, just one that looks as if it were. The ground floor is wrapped in black glass tile, while the second level is all transparent glass that reflects the surrounding environment. The black tiles – each one of them set by hand, by the way – "disappear" into the landscape, so the second level seems to float over the ground.

The unit showcased in the attached gallery, which is presumably the one under construction right now, is a two-bedroom layout.

The floorplan is divided in two, with the living and entertaining areas on the ground floor and sleeping upstairs, but it's made to live much bigger through the use of floor-to-ceiling windows, expansive glazing throughout (including in the bathroom wall), exceptionally high ceilings (5.8 meters/19 feet in the living room), and open-plan rooms.

The ground floor holds the living room, a formal dining room, and the open kitchen with a breakfast bar, as well as a playroom that features the 247 billiard table, another famous F.A. Porsche design. As you'd expect, the home is packed with Porsche designs, including in the bathroom and the light fixtures hanging on the walls. Obviously.

The bedrooms are accessible by means of a floating glass staircase and linked by a glass-railed walkway that offers views down into the living room and out on the landscape. They also boast large terraces, allowing you to expand available space into the outdoors.

According to Porsche, The Floating House is "an iconic masterpiece of functional home design" for the way it combines sustainable elements, healthy living, and gorgeous, art-like design. We wouldn't rush to call a home that hasn't even been completed yet "iconic," but there's no denying its beauty or its potential appeal for the right customer.

If you factor in the construction time, that appeal is even stronger. Porsche says that the shell is completed in about two weeks, but the caveat is that the home is ready to move in within five to seven months, depending on the level of customization involved.

Indeed, The Floating House is modular, which means that you can get it in whatever size you want, including two such modules attached. The smallest version is 180 square meters (1,937 square feet), but each unit will be personalized. This is, as Porsche says, an "exclusive edition," so forget everything else you might have thought to be true of prefabs before.

That includes pricing. The smallest version starts at €1.17 million ($1.24 million at the current exchange rate).

And get this: for this price, you probably won't even get the 2-vehicle carport shown in some of the renders. So, if you really want to match your home to your Porsche, you will have to dig deep into your wallet to get some kind of storage for it.