Sure, the economic housing downtown is by most estimates expected to continue well into 2009, but on the bright side newer modern house designs are redefining the living space we call home, and making the most advanced building materials and techniques affordable to the average consumer.

Modern House Magazine picked five houses by new companies who share a commitment to building sustainable modern houses that are affordable too. Each of the houses employ prefab construction, built in varying degrees by a factory, and then shipped to the site for assembly.

Although it’s too early for a study to confirm it, new modern modular or prefab houses can pay off as a resell when the glut of conventional houses glom together and newer more modern ones stand out. Better, with their sustainable features these houses can return the savings over the long haul.

Here are five to watch in 2009.

The weeHouse by Alchemy Architects
“Thinking inside the box” is one of the slogans used by Alchemy, the architects behind the weeHouse, and it perfectly describes their design.

Introduced in 2003, the weeHouse is pre-fabbed as a studio with a little less than 400 square feet, and as a two, three, or four bedroom module(s) configured in a variety of designs.

The weeHouse sports floor-to-ceiling glass doors, bamboo flooring, gypsum ceilings and walls, and comes complete with electrical and plumbing systems, cabinets, fixtures, and appliances. Pricing can run from $65,000 for the studio to $225,000 for the largest four bedroom plan, but like most prefab homes you must supply the land.

Take Home by OMD
Jennifer Siegal with her company Office of Mobile Design is a highly vaunted young architect with a vision for the future of sustainable houses.

Siegal’s latest prefab project is Take Home which comes in one to four bedroom designs. The one bedroom is 840 square feet, while the four bedroom plan is two stories and 2880 square feet of living space.

If you decide on an OMD house, the move-in time savings compared to a traditional house can mean your new house will be ready in as little as 7 months. OMD walks you through the process and helps you find resources for available land and financing. Costs for Take Home start at $240 per square foot.

CHMINI by Clever Homes
CHMMINI is Clever Homes‘ simplest design from a whole portfolio that includes much larger prefab choices. At just 480 square feet you get a bedroom separate from the living space, and features a bi-fold front door to expand the living area to the outdoors.

Siding for the Mini can be concrete, reclaimed wood, metal, or stucco allowing you to make it fit your surroundings. At around $200 per square foot and construction time of about 4 months, the Mini is a simple sustainable house that is affordable to boot.

C640H HyBrid Seattle
When you start with two shipping containers and end up with a one bedroom house consisting of 640 square feet of living space and an even larger covered deck you know you have something not likely to be found elsewhere on your block.

That’s what HyBrid Seattle, a multi-disciplined design team offers, and their unique experience with shipping containers as a housing medium is making them forerunners to a trend that hasn’t yet hit mainstream. HyBrid Seattle even has a name for turning ordinary shipping containers into houses. Called “Cargotecture,” the firm produces designs based on one or more containers placed next to or on top of one another.

Reuse or recycling is where sustainability begins, so there are all sorts of advantages to converting containers into affordable houses starting with the availability of product. There are thousands of shipping containers just waiting for conversion, and for every container recycled it means traditional materials normally used for housing shells don’t get used.

LV Series by Rocio Romero
Architect Rocio Romero hasn’t yet received some of the same attention as some other designers of the latest prefab houses, but it may have more to do with her unconventional remote location in Missouri than with her designs.

The LV Series is an exuberantly modern sustainable prefab design whose exterior appearance comes in an array of colors from the standard silver to shades of blue, green, red, and earth tones. The design is very versatile enabling the owner to opt for many different interior layouts, and you can also change up the standard placement of windows and doors. Further, you can place the LV on slab, a basement, or elevate for a crawl space.

In case you’re still thinking prefab houses can’t stand up to the quality of a conventional built house – think again. The LV150 for example has R-values greater than most stick-built houses, and can stand up to winds of 150 mph. The LVM 625 square foot studio starts at just under $25,000.

2009 Plus
In 2009 the expectation is that new architects will introduce even more designs that expand choices and help redefine the basic living space. As that happens we should all benefit from the competition which in theory should also reduce production costs and introduce new amenities.

The modular industry still has a ways to go before it can convince most Americans “this is not your father’s mobile home,” but these new young architects are appealing to those willing to keep an open mind, and also to a new generation too young to remember the stigma of the old manufactured house.

The combining force of these new buyers and more product inventions, along with a prolonged economic downturn, may make modular housing options an inevitable success in the years to come. Plus, we can’t overlook the fun factor of these designs – step into one and you’ll be transformed.

Media: Five In Zero Nine designs