Moreover, Plant Prefab believes "everyone deserves to live in a well-designed, beautiful, functional, and healthy home. We believe that you should never have to sacrifice form for function, aesthetics for efficiency, or style for sustainability." In partnership with architects, including Douglas W. Burdge, Brooks + Scarpa, Ray Kappe, and Geoffrey Warner at Alchemy Architects, Plant Prefab manufactures an array of modern sustainable prefabs, including Alchemy's lightHouse ADU (accessory dwelling unit).

In February 2020, the company debuted its own ADU, LivingHome 10, during Modernism Week in Palm Springs, CA., designed and built according to Plant Prefab's Z6 environmental health and sustainability framework. The company also offers larger homes through its LivingHome series, such as this one in rural Sonoma County. The home includes many sustainable features including:

• High-performance heating and cooling systems
• Energy Star appliances
• Smart energy monitoring
• LED lighting
• Recycled high-performance insulation
• Drywall with a high recycled content that's also mold-resistant and non-combustible
• Low-flow water fixtures
• Solar-ready or net-zero design

Ahead of the curve, Deltec won a US Department of Energy's DOE Housing Innovation Award in 2019. We featured one of Deltec's non-circular, net-zero panelized homes from the Renew Collection, which uses two-thirds less energy than a non-sustainable home. The homeowners upped the ante by powering their all-electric home with 18 solar panels.

Phoenix Haus 

We recently found out about Phoenix Haus, which has its own plant in Grand Junction, CO, where the company fabricates its net-zero, Passive House prefabs. That's quite a combination—and it works. On your next trip to the Rockies, you can experience one of the projects, H19, which is now on Airbnb.

After working through numerous iterations, Phoenix Haus came up with Passive House design and construction underscored by its certified Alpha building system. H19's super-insulated roof and wall panels, triple-pane doors and windows, heat pump, and 12 solar panels powering the electric house are quite the winning combination.

Bamboo Living

Based in Pahoa, HI, this fascinating prefab company creates the "only internationally certified, permit-ready bamboo homes and buildings in the world," according to Bamboo Living's website. Durable, low-maintenance, pest- and insect-resistant, and able to withstand hurricanes with winds more than 200 mph, these prefabs are built for resilience.

The sustainability key here is bamboo, which the company uses in its prefab construction instead of wood. Bamboo is a fast-growing natural material and provides options for building practices that save forests and natural resources. Bamboo, the company says, is a renewable resource that requires less energy and creates less pollution and waste. The tiny-home model, delightfully named Bonsai, is an excellent option for off-grid living.