Caveat emptor.
MEKA Thor Model Fake
But the real kicker here is that TreeHugger readers have seen this house before. It is the MEKA Thor model, with that rendering shown here in 2010. It was designed in Canada; I liked the wry humor in the rendering, full of Canadian icons like checked lumber jackets, Hudson Bay blankets, and Bruce Mau doorstops. It is still for sale, but for US$170,000.
So what’s going on here? Is it real? I asked MEKA and got a quick response: “Sorry to say but that is all fake. They just stole an image off our site. Not sure why anyone would do that.”
You can’t buy it off the shelf, either, because it is made to order to fit the jurisdiction. According to MEKA, “We build your modules to your local building codes. That means that if you live in Nevada or the North West Territories your MEKA Module will have all the necessary components to pass local inspection.”
Nor is it made of shipping containers; it is, in fact, a light steel frame modular building. The brilliance of MEKA was that they made the modules the SIZE of shipping containers, so that they could take advantage of the shipping container transport infrastructure. Transport costs are one of the major limitations of traditional modular construction, but MEKA’s innovation was that they could be made anywhere, shipped anywhere. Back in 2010 I worried that this was the future of construction, that someone had finally figured out how to offshore housing to China.
Third-Party Seller
In this case, the product is fraudulent, the reviews are fraudulent (UPDATE: I thought the review here was real but a commenter thinks it is satire and I now think she is right) and the FAKE signs are so obvious as to smack you in the face, but nevertheless, here are the key issues:
See the real thing at MEKA Modular.
