While the idea of creating mass-produced houses has ignited the imagination of Modernist architects, engineers and inventors throughout the 20^th century, the practical application of their concepts has often met defeat. The reality is that high volume production is necessary to make mass produced homes economical.

Today however, new digital programs for designing components that can be laser-cut and assembled first as scale models, modified as needed, then produced at full size from the same digital files, are helping to keep the dream alive. Many young architects intent on creating homes for sustainable living are reinventing the design and building process to that purpose.

MoMA's new suburbia.

Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling, which opens at the Museum of Modern Art on Sunday, continues MoMA's long tradition of including full scale houses as part of its architectural exhibitions. The new show presents latest thinking on the subject of prefabricated dwellings, with five new structures erected on the vacant lot next door, as well as a historical survey inside that includes models, drawings, photographs, film and video plus a partial reconstruction of the Lustron House, which was exhibited a few blocks from MoMA in 1948.

The five new dwellings range from small and economical to large and fairly luxurious. The micro compact home is a shiny aluminum cube containing 76 square feet of space fitted out with everything needed for a student dwelling or a vacation home. Completely portable, it features a roof topped with photovoltaic panels and a wind turbine, enabling the house to function off grid. Designed by Horden Cherry Lee Architects/Haack + Hopfner Architects, the structure is commercially available in Europe.

System 3 is an austerely elegant oblong box, covered and lined in pale wood, with myriad small round windows that echo the perforated stainless steel used throughout the interior. Here at MoMA, a single unit serves as a single home; modular units can be stacked to form multiple dwellings operating off a central utility source. Each unit fits perfectly inside a shipping container for easy transport. System 3 was designed by Oskar Leo Kaufmann and Albert Ruf specifically for the exhibition.

New Orleans shotgun house and model, all photos: Peggy Roalf

Digitally Fabricated Housing for New Orleans is a project intended to help with re-housing those displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Based on the vernacular shotgun house, it consists of laser-cut plywood panels with tabs and slots that allow the pieces to be assembled without screws or nails. On display inside is a large-scale model cut and built using the same digital files that produced the house itself. Designed by Lawrence Sass, an architect, researcher and teacher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Burst*008 is designed to be assembled from pieces that have been laser cut, numbered and flat-packed for delivery to the site. Working from an automated digital formula that allows for infinite variations on a theme, the structure here is a version of one previously built in Australia, in keeping with a current trend for mass-customization of mass-producible structures. Designed by Jeremy Edmiston and Douglas Gauthier.

Cellophane House, also designed specifically for the exhibition, is the largest and most costly structure on the lot. Made entirely from off-the-shelf structural steel, it can be disassembled and reconstructed on a different site, or recycled into a smaller or larger home. Photovoltaic cells are incorporated into the transparent plastic membrane that encloses the house. Energy is collected and stored, then distributed into the house based on a system that eliminates unwanted heat gains and losses. Designed by Kieran Timberlake Associates.

While exploring the five homes on the lot, visitors may listen to commentary by the architects by dialing 646/205-7614 on their cell phones. For the indoor exhibition, an audio guide is available free of charge.

Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling runs from July 20 through October 20 at the Museum of Modern Art. Please check the website for details and for related Public Programs, including designer-led Open House Tours on select days. A website Project Journal includes weekly posting during the construction phase from the five contemporary architects, as well as the curators and collaborators. It also includes a timeline covering nearly 200 years of prefabricated homes as shown in the exhibition.