The Best of Prefab: 7 Homes We Love

The Blue Sky prototype house was built as a desert getaway for David McAdam and his partner Scott Smith. "This house is the Prius of prefabs,” says McAdam, referring to a hybrid of another sort.

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"Prefab houses are so ubiquitous in Sweden, and most of them are crappy," says Mårten Claesson of Swedish firm Claesson Koivisto Rune. "When we found out there was a market for improving the aesthetic, we were happy to contribute.” Their "site-generic prefab design" does just that.

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This Marmol Radziner–designed prefab house is stationed in remote Ukiah, California. “We weren’t able to make lots of trips up here, so we couldn’t babysit the process,” says residence Bill Burton. “Stick-built construction requires a lot of hand-holding. Going prefab made it pretty seamless.”

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Architect Felix Oesch designed this prefab residence just outside of Zurich, Switzerland, using concrete panels by the German manufacturer Syspro core building components. "We wanted a modern, minimal concrete house," says the resident.

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“It is the culmination of everything—the digital technology, the prefabrication techniques, and more formal architecture—that I have brought to my designs,” says architect William Massie of his Bloomfield, Michigan, prefab home.

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Perched above the shores of the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Washington state, this prefab design is influenced by its architect's former boss, Louis Kahn.“The site was the most important aspect of the project for us,” explains resident Kathy Wesselman. “We positioned the house to have a spectacular view of the water, but we didn’t take down all of the trees to achieve that.”

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Rocio Romero's prefab home is located in rural Missouri and subtly reflects the regional vernacular. “When you design prefab, it’s not just having a grandiose design everyone’s going to love; it’s also stepping back and thinking about how things get built. Every little step is important and informs how [the house] gets put together and how it gets designed,” she says.

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