Prefabricated

As we continue to see, prefab homes can be quite easy on the eye, with the latest example an elegant rectangular-shaped home built into the slopes of the Austrian alps.

Canadian construction firm JD Composites has completed its first concept home, made from about 612,000 recycled plastic bottles. Beach House is located in Nova Scotia, Canada, and is not only a great example of how recycled plastic can be put to good use, but it's also hurricane resistant.​

Haus Gables from award-winning architect Jennifer Bonner is a contemporary two story home built with 87 cross-laminated timber panels and measuring just 18 feet wide, a similar dimension to single-wide mobile homes.​

MAPA Architects has been producing its Minimod line of prefabricated homes for several years now. The firm's latest project involved it overcoming difficult conditions in southern Brazil to install an appealing green-roofed retreat in the forest.

Located in the beautiful forest setting in Chile, Yellow House from architect Alejandro Soffia is a treehouse-inspired prefab home that proposes a comfortable and economic housing model for the future.

Spanish architectural studio In Tenta has created a prefabricated tiny house that can be placed in almost any location or setting. Dubbed DROP Box N-240, the modular dwelling is easily transportable and comes ready to provide a quick and easy pop-up tiny house or hotel suite.

The Fuselage, by Tree Tents, is a pipe-shaped dwelling that can be suspended above ground using trees or even a cliffside, or installed on stilts on the ground. It measures just 5.3 m (17 ft)-long and can run off-the-grid with a solar power setup.

In 2016, People's Architecture Office (PAO) designed a novel modular home that could be built within a day using just a hex key called the Plugin House. The firm is still developing the design and recently installed two new models of the Plugin House into dilapidated old houses in a Chinese village.

​When cruise ships are being built, the cabins are just slotted in as prefabricated modules – it's faster and easier than building each one from scratch. Well, Philadelphia-based EIR Healthcare is taking the same approach to hospital-building, with its MedModular prefab patient rooms.

​​Homes that come in easy-to-assemble flat-packed components are gaining in popularity, and a new SysHaus to pop up in São Paulo, Brazil is undoubtedly one of the more impressive we’ve seen. It was designed with sustainability in mind, right down to its tasteful, low-maintenance garden surrounds.

​There’s little doubt that the neatly packaged nature of a certain Swedish furniture-maker’s products are a big reason for its success, and lately we’re seeing how flatpack kits have a certain allure for those looking for alternative housing solutions. Here are five of our favorites.

London's expensive housing market means owning an architect-designed home is out of reach for many. A new firm aims to offer prefab houses by top architects at a reasonable price by squeezing them into underused plots, like disused alleyways, wasteland, and even the roofs of other buildings.