Key takeaways
- The Eames Pavilion System, a new modular housing concept from Eames Office and Kettal, reimagines the iconic Eames House as a customizable prefab structure that can be ordered worldwide.
- Pricing for the Eames Pavilion System is expected to start around $260 per square foot, although the final U.S. price tag is still in the works.
- As accessory dwelling unit laws loosen across the U.S., the Eames Pavilion System could offer one option for modern prefab housing.
When you think about an Eames house, chances are you’re thinking of the Eames House, a structure synonymous with midcentury modern that fits tidily into California’s architectural landscape.
But soon enough, there could be little Eames houses popping up around the world, thanks to a modular launch from Eames Office and Spanish home goods manufacturer Kettal.
Design icons Charles and Ray Eames completed their original 1949 project in the Pacific Palisades, where it transitioned from a private residence to the seat of a nonprofit and education center established in 2004. They designed the colorful, geometric structure tucked among the eucalyptus trees as part of the 1945 Case Study Program launched by the now-defunct Arts & Architecture Magazine. Other icons include the for-sale Stahl House by American architect Pierre Koenig, listed for $25 million. In 2025, the Eames House survived the historic Los Angeles wildfires that devastated the region, but the structure did require almost six months of restoration.
While the actual Eames House is worth a “conservative” estimate of $10 million, according to a 2018 report from the Getty Conservation Institute, the Eames Office-Kettal creation, dubbed the Eames Pavilion System, is expected to be priced at around $260 per square foot, according to reporting from CNN.
For a 1,500-square-foot structure, that's about $390,000 and a bit above February's national median home sale price, which hovered around $375,885, according to Homes.com.
Although representatives from Eames Office were not able to confirm the product's U.S. pricing or availability date for Homes.com News, European pricing is available, starting at 45,000 euros for a one-story indoor structure that includes lighting and ventilation, and around 145,000 euros for a two-story pavilion. Converting those figures directly to U.S. dollars does not account for shipping fees and taxes, Eames Office said.
Launch timed for Milan Design Week
The project came from a longstanding desire to realize the prefab residential designs the architects left behind, and Eames Office found a partner in Kettal, with its “industrial capacity, distribution network, and cultural approach,” a representative added over email.
Eames Office and Kettal timed the launch for Milan Design Week, an annual arts and architecture event that takes over the Italian city. The soon-to-be-for-sale product took almost three years to develop fully, with Eames Office archivists and Kettal designers parsing the intricacies of both built and unbuilt Eames projects. One member of that team included Eames Demetrios, Eames Office director and grandson of Charles and Ray Eames.
"I have been asked time and again whether it is possible to purchase a reproduction of the Eames House," he said in a press release. "One-to-one replicas can be interesting, yet we were always holding out for something else — a true systems approach that was also international in its solution."
The design teams had to adapt the modular concepts inherent to the Eameses' design for today’s residential needs, “addressing challenges around sealing, tolerances, UV resistance, and durability, all the while preserving the spatial lightness and clarity that defined the designers’ original vision,” a press release states.
It’s an exacting process that comes with “standardization and industrialization,” Kettal creative director Antonio Navarro added in the same release.
“It is through this discipline that a system becomes more usable and the possibilities actually increase,” he said. “High-precision aluminum profiles, engineered decking, bioclimatic roofs, integrated lighting and HVAC, and digital configurators are modern layers added to their grammar. The goal is evolution, not stylistic reproduction.”
If current plans hold, customers can order a pavilion system ranging from a one-story pavilion of about 172 square feet to a two-story residence, Eames Office and Kettal said. Their modular skeletons will comprise aluminum, glass, polycarbonate and wood, materials selected for their durability and adaptability.
While the pavilion system will be available for customers around the world, it’s “best suited for climates that allow for ‘indoor-outdoor living,’” Eames Office added over email.
And even though customers around the world will be able to order the pavilions, “this is not a pure self-service e-commerce product,” Eames Office clarified to Homes.com News. Kettal provides online planning tools, but “the pavilions are approached as project-based commissions. Clients — wherever they may be located — collaborate closely with Kettal’s architectural department and technical office on planning, including structural considerations, foundations, permitting, delivery and installation to ensure the final product is up to par with Kettal's quality standards.”
In the U.S., the pavilion system also comes as legislation around accessory dwelling units loosens across the country, and as other big names get in on the high-profile ADU game.
That’s a happy accident, Eames Office told Homes.com News.
While the launch was not timed for any specific news in the ADU space, “we agree that the Pavilion System is well-suited for ADUs and similar concepts of densification; we would be happy to see it play a role in that context.”