Starting at $57,900, Plant Prefab and architecture firm Brooks & Scarpa offer modular unit designs that can be assembled with prefabricated, customizable parts-from shelters that house hundreds of people to standalone units that run off the grid. These designs, named Nest LivingHome Toolkits, seek to combat the housing crisis in many US cities by employing innovative design in situations that usually require costly construction sites and $250k down payments. "If it works, we can do it again," says Tara Barauskas, executive director of Community Corporation of Santa Monica, the first organization to use the kit. "The idea is that it's scalable, and what I liked most about the Nest concept is that it offers options for different types of sites. So ideally, it could become a template that could be reapplied." Read more at Fast Company.

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