The future housing industry is shaping up to be all about designers and engineers using ever more creative ideas to make houses smarter and more energy efficient than the typical suburban stick-built tract-houses now festooned over Anytown, USA.

The housing industry is also starting to look at how other mass produced products are built, and finally connecting the dots to conclude that efficiency matters.

Many times those pushing for new building methods come from another background. In the case of Rob Boydstun, that meant changing his metal works company from building car carriers to constructing precisely engineered houses out of junked cars.

His new company Miranda Homes now builds houses with recycled steel studs fastened with screws rather than nailed wood, a combination of rigid foam and blown-in foam insulation, shorter duct runs, high-efficiency furnaces, ICF foundation instead of wood forms susceptible to pests, mold, rot, and mildew, and Miranda can build a house in 45 days at a cost as low as $95 per square foot.

The houses Miranda Homes build may look like the typical suburban house but the materials and building methods share very little in common. Miranda’s houses are built in a controlled plant environment eliminating hundreds of trips to the site by numerous sub contractors. In the end, it’s not the style that makes these houses “modern,” rather the efficiency.

That’s important considering the country is made up of large swaths of people who are on-board with the “green movement” but aren’t ready to switch to a modern streamlined appearing house.

Miranda Homes could be on to something, and proof of that may be interest they’ve recently been shown from Landwaves Inc., a master plan community developer. Landwaves wants Miranda to help them build a new master community in a small Oregon town where much of the population is baby boom age or older. Landwaves Inc., apparently likes the fact that these houses are “green,” rapidly constructed, affordable, and appeal to house buyers of every age.

Going forward, we might expect to see more people like Rob Boydstun enter the housing industry, and if they’re smart, more builders who revamp their current business model to mimic the efficient practices successfully used in other industries.