A manifesto for a new age of architecture, Plugin House presents innovative, sustainable, and community-driven solutions to the global housing crisis. Challenging conventional architectural practices, the book champions the prefabricated house as an affordable and practical way to address homelessness, housing scarcity, or gentrification. An empowering model for small studios and self-builders worldwide, Plugin House proposes an architectural revolution using houses that can be built quickly with limited tools and experience.

The book presents a diverse array of Plugin House projects by international architecture studio People’s Architecture Office (PAO), brought to life by photography of these structures in situ. Located primarily in China and the United States, the projects shine a spotlight on the shared issues underlying the global housing crisis and the transformative ideas that can be replicated or adapted to different contexts around the world.

Essays address varied aspects of the housing crisis and are interspersed with contributions from leading figures in the world of art and architecture. Personal stories—each a mini graphic novel—shed light on barriers to accessible housing and potential ways to overcome them.

Illustrated assembly manuals demonstrate how Plugin Houses are put together, and a comprehensive atlas of each Plugin House to date details their design and construction. A visually striking and inspiring handbook, Plugin House boldly paints a vivid picture of a new architectural paradigm, igniting a call to action for architects and urban planners worldwide.

A prefab is a mass-produced house, constructed in a factory and assembled on–site in a few days or weeks. Once regarded as a cheap, easy solution for urgent housing problems, the prefab has evolved to become a synonym for ambitious design and sophisticated detailing solutions.

The amazing history of prefabricated houses started in England in the 1830s with a building kit for emigrants moving to Australia. Even today, prefabricated houses provide a high percentage of living spaces in many countries of the world.

This book covers prefabs from the USA via Europe to Asia and Africa, giving insight into the various industrially prefabricated components, the difficulties of delivery to the building site, and the intricacies of assembly and completion. As well as tracing the link between modernism and industrialization that evolved to produce the latest prefabricated solutions, it also features a unique compilation of one-off prefabricated houses by well-known international architects, as well as successful dwellings manufactured off-site for everyday modern living.

Efficient and inexpensive to produce, pre-fabricated homes are an ideal solution to the financial and environmental costs facing the modern homeowner. Their extremely versatile format also makes them adaptable to all kinds of locations, be it a secluded off-the-grid setting or a dense urban area.

This survey of the world’s most innovative pre-fab houses explores the full range of possibilities, suitable for anyone interested in clever and creative home-building solutions—no architectural degree required. From carbon-neutral houses to plug-and-play dwellings and converted shipping containers, each chapter explores the varied and exciting ways that people are using pre-fabricated technology to address contemporary challenges.

Richly illustrated with photographs and drawings, featuring projects selected by a longtime expert in pre-fab architecture, Pre-Fab Living presents factory-made houses in a new light. Whether designing on a tight budget, crafting something self-sustaining, or simply looking for new spatial ideas, architects, designers, and home builders alike will find it to be an essential source of inspiration.

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