The Top 10 Prefab Homes of 2023
From a collapsible canvas-wrapped cabin to an A-frame built in less than a month in the Galápagos Islands, these are the year’s best prefabs.
From a collapsible canvas-wrapped cabin to an A-frame built in less than a month in the Galápagos Islands, these are the year’s best prefabs.
Prefab homes are starting to sizzle. If the umbrella term for a host of building styles was once shorthand for "cheap," the ideas we featured this year shrug off that perception by proving how well-designed residences can come as a kit of parts, an arrangement of modules, or a panelized system, and can be made of everything from CNC-milled engineered lumber to corrugated steel. Often, they are cheaper than stick-built homes, but not for a lack of quality—or personal touch. Here are the best prefabs of 2023.
The Tide Turns for a Trio of Prefab Pod Houses in the San Juan Islands
Having bought and restored several quirky properties in Washington over the years, including a five-story tree house and a 100-year-old barracks, architect Jason F. McLennan and his wife, artist Tracy McLennan, bought the camp-like retreat in 2020—even though it had no power or running water at the time and is on a secluded island with no ferry service.
Photo by Kyle Johnson
Designed by a Boeing engineer named Hugh Pape in the late 1970s, the pods were prefabricated using aeronautical engineering techniques and airlifted by helicopter onto Pape’s property, where they were finished with modular panels and joined into a single retreat. "He built it like an aircraft," says Jason. "Nothing can rot. We haven’t repainted the exterior because I don’t know what kind of airplane paint he used—but it’s still going strong."
Photo by Kyle Johnson
This Iwi prefab was designed by architects Juan Ruiz and Amelia Tapia for anyone looking to add a flexible space to their property. With a timber frame clad in cork and waterproof canvas stitched into wood ribbing, it expands like an accordion to a total of roughly 92 square feet. When compressed, it becomes a 26-square-foot roofed hutch.
Photo: JAG Studio
See the full story on Dwell.com: The Top 10 Prefab Homes of 2023
