Home - Overall Design

The second floor—which houses a study, three bedrooms, and a bathroom—hangs over the first floor like a plus sign. This arrangement creates four wells around the living, dining, and kitchen areas on the first floor. Three of these double-height spaces feature skylights clad with mirrors to introduce direct and reflected light inside throughout the day.

“CLT House is built in a forest clearing in upstate New York. Aiming for a light touch on its natural site, the 2,150-square-foot house was built with cross-laminated-timber (CLT) panels and installed in 11 days,” nARCHITECTS tells us. “The live-edge siding and its uneven weathering with time aims to provide a rustic contrast with the contemporary nature of the prefab build and its modern environmental features: geothermal wells, a radiant floor system, and a solar panel array.”

The pilot home on Whidbey Island demonstrates the system’s potential: a 600-square-foot interior paired with nearly equal covered outdoor space, set lightly on a pin foundation that protects tree roots and cuts carbon by 77 percent. "Puzzle Prefab can be modified according to each site,

Dwell’s managing editor, Jack Balderrama Morley, tested out the company’s latest model, nicknamed the O-Frame, a wooden prefab designed by architecture firm oioioi.

A curved window in the office/guest bedroom is topped with a mirror. "Originally, it was going to be a skylight, but that became cost-prohibitive,

Warwas offset the rear of the ADU to accommodate the power lines running behind the house, and he designed a window in the office/guest room upstairs that meets the roof in the same way that the window off the dining area/kitchen meets the ground.

The common area was opened to create large, interconnected spaces.

“There’s confusion that the more expensive the design is, the more of a luxury it is. But expensive materials do not make the design,” Edna says.

A lofted drawing studio features a sawtooth roof with expansive skylights that frame the branches of a jacaranda tree overhead.

Double fir rafters align with white oak cabinetry below, creating a sense of rhythm and calm.

Double fir rafters encase steel flitch plates, allowing for long spans of open space. Hemlock ceilings layer above, bringing warmth to the inside.

Architect Oliver Lang and his partner, Cindy Wilson, created Monad, a multiunit prefab prototype in Vancouver.

The living-dining area of their own residence is lined with doors and windows from Phoenix Glass for Columbia Aluminum Products.

"Our many ideas were floating around the mountain, and we needed someone to bring them down and turn them into reality,

Floor plan of House on a Ridge by Barrett Made

The U-shaped floorplan wraps around a sunny central courtyard.