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A couple of years ago, the tech company Cover showed off a sleek backyard dwelling designed as a studio/office. It was a simple white box of a house with big windows and minimalist interiors. It was also designed with the help of computer algorithms.
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Now, the Los Angeles-based Cover has big aims to bring Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) to the masses with computer-aided designs that can help make designing and building more efficient and cheaper. Cover’s latest project is a larger, one-bedroom, one-bathroom unit designed for homeowners who want to rent it out for added income.
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The new unit is 436 square feet—similar to the size of a two-car garage. Like Cover’s earlier design, its layout was optimized by asking the owners a litany of questions that allowed the algorithms to determine things like where to place the windows or how much room to dedicate to the kitchen versus bedroom.
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This particular home is clad in timber and has an open-plan layout that connects the kitchen to the living room. It bends into an L-shape, allowing the bedroom to feel hidden away in the backyard. Dark wood floors contrast against the bright white walls. All told, the one-bedroom home cost $193,000 to design and build.
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The prefab design is clean and inoffensive—it’s exactly what you’d get if you left things to a computer algorithm. But Cover’s biggest selling point isn’t really aesthetics; it’s the fact that the system does everything for you—Cover helps you design, build, and even research zoning and permits.
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