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After more than 15 years spent in construction, high school friends Simon Fyall and Richard Egli started to imagine an architecture that blended in with the landscape of British Columbia better than industry-standard buildings. Soon after, the pair founded Blend Projects to build their vision: crisp gabled homes strung together from eight-foot-long cedar-sided glulam sections.

Natalie and Lauren wanted to replicate the feel of a Zen garden with their home’s central courtyard. The garden features a Japanese maple that pops against the charred timber cladding, while structurally, the U-shape design ushers light right through to the back of the house.

Base models of Dvele homes start at $250 per square foot, and range in size — the company wants its sustainable structures to be flexible to either small or large footprints.

“The morning light is amazing. From our kitchen window we can see the sun rising over the poplars along the Amsterdam-Rijnkanaal,” says architect and resident Farah Agarwal.

This prefab also has a wraparound deck with a shaded dining area.

Why Now, More Than Ever, the ADU Is the Future of Home: Whether it serves as an investment, backyard office, or intergenerational housing, the accessory dwelling unit (ADU) has never made more sense.

EcoCraft Homes is a Pittsburgh area resource-efficient Smart Home builder of super energy-efficient homes. Founded in 2012, EcoCraft Homes is a family-owned organization with a unique building philosophy in the Pittsburgh area that emphasizes energy efficient homes that can be built in as little as 90 days. Their mission is to build smarter, greener homes that are 100% Energy Star-compliant, and their manufacturing process is so advanced that our homes can be built to achieve net zero energy consumption for all of their heating, cooling and electricity needs.

"Radical sustainability

Situated on a small-footprint site on the banks of the Westport River, Mark Lawton Architecture constructed a high-functioning home for a total of $851,000.

The overall home is constructed with larch timber, a British wood, and features a central ridge beam that gives it a butterfly-shaped roof. Shou sugi ban was done on the wood to give it a charred finish.

Madison points out that the pod concept would make it easy to add an extension if necessary. “We see it as a house that can grow with us—and that we can pay for as we go along.”

NanaWall folding glass walls are engineered to perform in harsh climates, including the snowy winters of the Methow Valley.

MASS Design Group cofounder Alan Ricks upgrades his “not structurally sound” bungalow with innovative materials and enough solar panels to produce more energy than it consumes.

The 900-square-foot prefabricated backyard ADU in Los Angeles, California, that Cover designed to bring a family closer together features bright white composite exterior siding and a deck made from thermally treated ash.

Los Angeles company Cover builds customizable prefab ADUs.

A Seattle couple built their own backyard house with a city-sponsored design—and then rented out their old home on the property to friends.