
Designers can create projects ranging all across the style spectrum with prefabricated construction.
citizenM Hotel, London
With a chain of prefabricated hotels around Europe, citizenM has recently announced plans to expand its experimentative approach to hospitality overseas. They built the 192 rooms for their Bankside hotel in London almost entirely in-factory. “We have way less waste, and we know the number of hotels we’re planning to open so can build rooms in huge numbers,” said architect Rob Wagemann in an interview with Wired Magazine. “That allows us to keep the price of production low.”


Habitat 67, Montreal
2017 will mark 50 years since one of Canada’s best-known architectural landmarks, Habitat 67, was unveiled. First designed as Israeli-Canadian architect Moshe Safdie’s thesis project, it was constructed as a pavilion for Montreal’s Expo 67. Currently a residential building, it consists of 354 identical, prefabricated concrete blocks. Learn more about one of the world’s coolest modular buildings and the man behind it.
Mountaineer Hall, North Carolina
Mountaineer Hall, made with 234 container units, accommodates roughly 450 students at Appalachian State University. Construction on the 118,434 square-foot residence began in 2010 and cost 16.5 million USD. It took less than a year to build and is LEED Gold certified.

Residence Jean Prouve, Reims
This stylish university residence, which consists of 131 studio apartments, was constructed in 6 months and used 152 containers. They cost just over $1,038 each, came with an R-value six times higher than traditional 2×4 wood framing, and a 50+ year lifetime guarantee from their Guangdong-based manufacturer.

Bonus: Color Box Shopping Center, Dongguan
Here’s how a modular project looks while being built. In Dongguan, a city in the south of China, builders assembled a 3-storey, 88-container shopping center in just 60 days. In Baidu’s street view, you can see the 3000 square meter complex – one of the coolest modular buildings in Asia – under construction. It cost 1.4 million USD. The completed project is below.
