Buma Freedom ahead of the pack

Buma Freedom Polska SA (BFP) and eight other companies have been chosen out of a group of 221 in the British government's Ł60,000 (zů.357,000) home project to build 1,000 new economical houses.

The competition required houses of at least 76.5 sqm to be built for Ł60,000, excluding the cost of land. "We offer 88-sqm homes at the joint cost of Ł60,000 which is far better than expected," Jacek Michalski, executive director of Buma Systems SA, told Rzeczpospolita. "These buildings are for people who have to live in the city center," Bolesůaw Hyůa, president of the board of BFP, added. "We offer a product which does not exist anywhere in the world."

This is not the company's first foray onto the British market. In the summer of 2004, BFP along with the Hyde Housing Association and Polish architects from PCKO built 18 flat-pack homes in Stockwell in the UK. The company used special modules in a light steel framework. These prefabs were produced on an assembly line in Kraków, and were already equipped with carpets, lights, fitted bathrooms and kitchens. They were then transported to the building site in the south of England and bolted together into three-storey blocks by Polish workers. It took them just three days to complete six apartments.

BFP's homes are not without their critics, however. British banks are unwilling to give mortgages to buy them and Hank Dittmar, the chief executive of the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment, says that the actual life-cycle costs of these houses may hugely exceed the savings made at the start. "If the Buma home is 10 percent cheaper, but only lasts 50 percent as long as a traditional home, then it's not really a cost saving," he told the Guardian newspaper. Dittmar also claims that all buildings should create architecture that matches the environment, whereas Buma houses are homogenous.

BFP says its homes are guaranteed for 60 years and can be easily dismantled and moved to a different location if necessary. As with nearly all property, price is the strongest factor for wooing homebuyers, and for those on a tight budget Buma's flat-pack homes could prove an affordable and attractive solution.

Andrzej Wróbel