Silo Tiny Home - Architecture

1. SILO TINY HOME
Laurence Grigorov, as director of a residential property development company, looks for inspiration
from international architectural designs in order to keep abreast of development trends. This allows
Laurence Grigorov to offer products that are relevant and modern.
The SILO Tiny home by Starfield Architects is a unique design response to the shifting local (and global)
changes in property trends. The architects collaborated with engineering firm Jiraheng to create SILO
- a modular framework for a partially prefabricated structure that can be adapted to various local
conditions.
The price of land, as well as the shifting and uncertain economic circumstances arising from the
COVID19 pandemic, means that there are many opportunities for individual homeowners (and larger
developers) to build/extend their footprints on existing land. This, coupled with the fact that 100% loans
for open land for brand new developments are practically unheard off, means that people would much
rather extend/improve on land or property that they already own.
SILO is designed as a response to this need – but the designers didn’t want to design a single pre-
fabricated design that would get copied and pasted without concern for each client’s needs. They
decided to use computer-aided generative design software to create a modular framework that can
produce multitudes of design solutions to each customer’s needs, which can then be broken down into
smaller pieces, able to be pre-fabricated offsite, and then simply transported and assembled on site.
To comply to SANS 10400 XA requirements, the materials chosen were simple - zinc/corrugated sheets
as the external cladding material. This is then clad onto the pre-fabricated steel framework for the walls
and insulated. Internally, all walls are simply clad with either plywood, or gypsum plasterboards. The
same methodology can be used for the floors and ceilings, as well as for all the casework/joinery for
each SILO tiny home.

2. Words and image courtesy of Architect & Builder Magazine