Turkish newspaper Hürriyet reports on Turkey's first eco-friendly prefab homes by Orca Yapı Sistemleri:

Orca Yapı began work on the design in 2006. A project request from Sudan required the company to design a steel-structured prefabricated home unit, with a two-year guarantee, that could endure temperatures ranging from plus 50 degrees to minus 50 degrees Celsius. The company added their own requirement of earthquake durability, making it more attractive in the domestic market. The design's first thumbs-up came from the Ministry of Public Works whose tests revealed the house to be durable in earthquakes reaching 7.5 on the Richter scale.

Sustainability and earthquake durability aside, the real draw for the unit is the cost.... The baseline cost for a unit, which does not include any alternative energy production methods like the active solar power water heating system that is installed on the show model in Kocaeli, is $295 per square meter.

That comes out to about $27.50 a square foot. That's in Turkey; I wonder how much it would cost to build the same home here.

The company website is in Turkish, but they do have a video page that's worth a look.

(Hat tip: Treehugger)