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All Photos/exterior/building type : prefab/building type : house

Exterior Prefab House Design Photos and Ideas

Pictured is a rendering of a 570-square-foot 2X lightHouse with a one-bedroom unit stacked atop a two-car garage.
The cedar-wrapped house, designed by BriggsKnowles A+D, is gently curved at the center.
Constructed with sustainably sourced lumber and large, double-pane windows, Studio Shed’s all-season Signature Series units are popularly used as backyard offices.
The long, low home sits unobtrusively atop the ridge. Large areas of glazing open the home to the landscape to the south.
An enclosed porch with a fireplace sits between the living wing and the services wing, providing a pivotal point from which the home fans out.
The simple, affordable material palette allows the home to sit comfortably within the natural landscape.
The home is oriented to take in views of Mount Canobolas in the Great Dividing Range. With an elevation of 4,577 feet, the extinct volcano is the highest mountain in the region.
Floor-to-ceiling glazing ensures natural light is plentiful throughout the home. The silvertop ash cladding on the exterior will develop a silver-gray patina over time.
The home is respectful to the rural site and champions the view. Thanks to the prefab construction, there was very little earthwork and minimal site impact. This approach also helped to eliminate potential weather delays—which would have been likely as, owing to the high altitude, the area frequently experiences frost and snow in winter months.
The 1,950-square-foot Koto LivingHome 2 (Piha) is organized around a central open-plan living space with a direct connection to the outdoors. The design is named after the two courtyards located on both sides of the home.
Wrapped in timber, the 1,016-square-foot Koto LivingHome 1 (Yksi) includes two bedrooms and a flex room on the first floor. The open-plan kitchen, dining, and living area is located on the floor above.
Koto and Plant Prefab will work directly with homeowners to determine optimal site placement and adhere to energy-saving passive solar principles.
Gabions and loose stone create walkable pervious surfaces.
Designed for year-round use, the Rocky Brook weeHouse features covered and exposed spaces for enjoying the outdoors.
To minimize energy use, the residence relies on natural ventilation for cooling. Heat is provided by an inflow hydronic tubing system. Note the guesthouse seen behind the bridge.
The clients encouraged the development of hemlock trees, which grow from the creek to the building site. They create a beautiful backdrop for the second story of the main building and deck overtop the master bedroom.
The home is clad in corrugated Cor-ten steel siding selected for its durability and ability to blend the home into its natural surroundings over time.
Located two hours north of Boston, the Rocky Brook weeHouse is carved out of the grade of a steep creekside lot.
Amagansett Modular House by MB Architecture
Six slabs were placed in a row on top of prefab concrete walls (inset). The architects chose the components in part for their length, which could span the width of the house, eliminating the need for columns.
The uneven edges of the elevated pine deck trace around the exposed rocks.
A view from the bridge toward the guesthouse on the left and the sauna on the right.
“The deck and living room host spaces for daytime activities,” says Berensson. “After crossing the bridge, you can enjoy the sunset over the Stockholm Archipelago from on top of the sauna house.”
Located on a remote island without roads, the Zartmann House is accessible only by private boat or a seasonal ferry ride followed by a one-third-mile walk.
In New Hampshire White Mountains, the Rocky Brook weeHouse is a loft-like home designed to embrace forest views and the sounds of rushing creek nearby.
Designed for senior design director at Apple, the ultra-minimal Sonoma weeHouse in California is a custom high-end build comprising two minimalist, open-sided boxes with nine-foot-tall sliding glass walls to open the interiors up to the outdoors.
The module ends are clad in cedar planks with a gray Swedish vitriol stain.
Oriented to face the west, the interconnected modules fan out to provide three slightly different views of the adjacent gully between two rises in the landscape.
“The name Warp House comes from the challenges of constructing these ‘warped’ modules in comparison to the standard boxes prefabricators normally construct,” note the architects.
The modules “float” above the landscape to minimize site impact.
The client told the architects that she didn’t want any stairs in her new single-story home, which is fitted with an entrance ramp.
Located on a remote and steeply sloped plot in the forest, the Warp House takes cues from Cape Cod’s low-impact, experimental midcentury houses—such as the nearby Hatch Cottage by Jack Hall.
Founded in 1958 by the Finnish Saarelainen brothers in Eastern Finland, Honka—known as Honkarakenne in Finland—was the first industrial manufacturer of log houses. Today, the pioneer brand has built almost 85,000 houses across the globe, including a quaint Scottish retreat for the Queen of England in 1969. Pictured here is an exterior view of Kide, a sauna cabin located on the west coast of Finland.
Winner of the 2011 Log House of the Year Award, the 1,206-square-meter Lokki, which was designed by as architect Kari Lappalainen and furnished by interior designer Hanni Koroma, has an inverted pitch roof that’s inspired by seagull wings.
A glassed-in walkway connects the open-plan living areas to a separate bedroom wing.
The architecture follows the natural contours of the wedge-shaped site: the building is placed on higher ground on the site’s wider east end, while exterior decking steps down to the pool to the west.
“The structural design of the 10' pop-out on the second floor is unique. There are no beams under it—it looks afloat,” explains Behrooz, who notes that the pop-out was originally cut down from a 20-foot container. “Technically it is not a cantilever—but it is structured from the top (roof) and held back in tension, down to the foundation on the opposite side. It’s kind of a structural breakthrough—we used the inherent structural strength of the containers to our advantage.”
The architects applied BM marine-grade paint to the containers’ corrugated metal walls. The home is deliberately compact to match the scale of the neighborhood homes
A glimpse into one of two bedrooms housed in the single, 40-foot container placed on the north side of the site.
The container house is designed to wrap around an existing oak tree.
Missouri-based architect Rocio Romero designs ADUs that serve as studios, backyard offices, guest cottages, and short-term getaways. She’s sold over 50 prefab units in 17 different states, and she recently launched a line of more modestly sized, construct-it-yourself structures dubbed the Camp series. Here, Romero and product manager Julie Schaefer review plans together at a Base Camp prototype in Missouri.
Los Angeles–based writer Leslie Longworth knew she’d found the perfect retreat when she spotted a five-acre lot in Pioneertown. Immersed in the rugged beauty of Joshua Tree with a dirt road for access, it was an ideal creative space. Seeking a low-impact build, she hired prefab company Cover to draft, construct, and install a custom home. The prefab came complete with fixtures, finishes, Wolf Sub-Zero appliances, and a state-of-the-art radiant heating and cooling system. In order to design around endangered Joshua trees, boulders, and the view, Cover used a combination of 3D mapping via drone imagery and handheld photos.
In thinking about the worldwide lack of reliable water, sanitation, food, and electricity—and the fact that housing sector contributes more than a third of global greenhouse gas emissions—the Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture and the New Haven, Connecticut–based architecture firm Gray Organschi Architecture designed and constructed a 230-square-foot home called the Ecological Living Module (ELM). The construction is a fully off-grid housing prototype that was designed to take advantage of sustainable materials, green technology, and simple construction methods. There's a a rainwater harvesting system, a solar system that provides 100 percent of the building’s energy needs, and a graywater system that irrigates food-producing plants that mark the building’s west facade.
Conceived as an escape from city living, this 2,580-square-foot prefab comprises two primary and 11 secondary modules, while the 290-square-foot guest cabins consist of single modules craned into place atop concrete piers.
Japanese cedar wraps around the prefab Yō no Ie House, which is topped with a Galvalume steel roof.
The one-bedroom VMD unit will be relocated to Avandaro, Valle de Bravo, a popular weekend destination near Mexico City. The show model will reopen to the public at its new location starting December 18.
The unit is wrapped in black Hunter Douglass Quadroline aluminum and gray Valchromat Viroc cement-bonded particle board, which is water- and fire-resistant, non-toxic, sound dampening, and thermally insulating.
Constructed from a single repurposed shipping container, the one-bedroom VMD model includes an open-plan kitchenette, a dining area, and living space on one end. A bathroom and storage space are located in the middle, and the bedroom is on the opposite side.
This one-bedroom NODE prefab slots perfectly into a Seattle backyard and produces all of its own energy—with enough leftover to power the neighboring house.
Soon after purchasing a picturesque lakeside property an hour and a half north of Manhattan, a couple with school-age children found themselves facing a new question: how would they build a bespoke vacation home in time for their kids’ next summer break?
In 2003, Resolution: 4 Architecture was one of 16 firms who participated in the Dwell Home Design Invitational—a competition to design a modern prefab home for $200,000. Their winning design, constructed in Pittsboro, North Carolina, is a groundbreaking case study that combines prefabricated construction with contemporary, modern design.
To shield the residence from the harsh southern sun—and to provide privacy from the main road—the architects minimized openings along the south facade, aside from the entrance door.
The minimalist facade is composed of floor-to-ceiling windows and light gray fiber cement panels secured with a proprietary blind mounting system.
The ranch-style Casita 850 by MA Modular houses two bedrooms and one bathroom in a finely laid out 850 square feet.
The untreated wood will develop a silvery gray patina over time.
The shutters can be opened to allow views and cross breezes through the building.
At the north facade, a series of lapocho wood shutters mitigate solar heat gain in the summer.
The guest houses were prefabricated in a factory, trucked onto the site, and then set on concrete foundations.
The independent modular guest houses give the client the flexibility to expand in the future.
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