Don’t fly over these compact but cool prefabs in the American Heartland.

As the birthplace of the famous Lustron prefab homes of the 1940s, the Midwest has enjoyed a long history with prefabricated architecture. And, with leading designers like Charlie Lazor of Lazor/Office in Minneapolis and Jeffrey Sommers of Chicago-based Square Root Architecture singing the typology's praises, it’s little wonder that the American Heartland has become home to many inspiring factory-built houses.

From cost-effective cabins trucked into place to affordable and sustainable kit homes with minimal site impact, check out these six show-stopping, prefabricated Midwest homes pulled directly from our site. 

Completed in 2008, the rectilinear home features a roofline with a dramatic parabolic curve that creates two bulbous volumes inside the home, one of which houses a curved skylit shower.  

Photo: Henrik Knudsen
America House 08 by William Massie
A one-of-a-kind modernist marvel, the all-white prefab house that architect William Massie created for an exhibition during his residency at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan is an exercise in the power of prefab. Built with CNC machinery and SIPs in a former tool-and-die factory and trucked onto site in sections, the boxy steel-framed home—dubbed the American House 08—is more an experimental art piece than a structure meant for mass production. Crafted with mix of textures and geometry, this sculptural, Neutra-inspired prefab charms with its futuristic yet familiar design that is anything but forgettable.

Located in northern Michigan, the two-bedroom Lake House is built of metal structural insulated panels and channels Scandinavian design influences.  

Diana Liang
Lake House by Hygge Supply
Unlike Massie’s one-off creation, the Lake House in northern Michigan uses mass-produced materials with the intention to create sustainable modern homes at an affordable price. Built of prefabricated parts assembled on site, the chic lakeside home serves as the proof-of-concept house for Hygge Supply, a contemporary kit-home company founded by Kelly Sean Karcher. Carefully sited on marshy land, the rectangular 1,500-square-foot home takes advantage of panelized structural design for quick construction times, an energy-efficient envelope, and zero-waste assembly on site.

See the full story on Dwell.com: 6 Modern Midwest Prefab Homes We Love