Innovation on Display: HUD's 2026 Innovative Housing Showcase

From chassis-free "frameless" manufactured homes and two-story HUD Code designs to 3D-printed modular shells, robotics-driven construction, vertically integrated business models, AI, and moisture-absorbing paint — the technology on display at HUD’s 6^th Annual Innovative Housing Showcase on the National Mall in Washington, DC (September 22–24, 2026) made one thing clear: factory-built housing is innovating faster than the codes built to regulate it.

Cavco’s Grand Arbor, a chassis-free, two-suite manufactured home built for multi-generational or multi-person households, sat at ground level because its steel chassis has been removed entirely — a preview of what Section 301 of the 21^st Century ROAD to Housing Act could unlock once HUD completes the rulemaking needed to remove the permanent-chassis requirement for manufactured homes. Cavco™ co-displayed the home with UMH Properties, noting it will sell for $139,900 at a development in Carlisle, PA — a price that excludes the covered porch, deck, driveway, and storage shed shown alongside the home in Washington but not included in the base package.

Champion® Homes’ New Horizon, a two-story manufactured home or HUD Code Home as they call it, points to the same regulatory opening. It is possible under a HUD proposed rule that would let the upper floor of a manufactured home be transported or built without a permanent chassis. Champion is marketing the design — still pending the rule’s finalization — for “urban infill contexts and suburban subdivisions,” so its actual market timing depends on HUD’s final rule. Champion homes carry a standard 1-year full warranty, with optional structural coverage extending 2 to 10 years.

Chassis-free manufactured housing wasn’t the only story on the Mall. Azure’s 3D-printed modular home stood out as the most novel build on display: a fire-resistant, UV-coated, recycled-plastic shell printed in a single day, cutting both labor time and material waste. Built to International Code Council (ICC) code, its x model is fully electric and solar-ready — evidence that additive construction is moving from pilot project to code-compliant product. Azure’s lineup spans the full range of factory-built scale: Backyard Studios and accessory dwelling units (ADUs); wheel-based tiny homes and Park Models built to go anywhere; and larger one- to two-bedroom, 1.5-bath homes it’s printing now for families rebuilding after the wildfires in Altadena, CA.

American Housing Corporation is applying that same industrialized logic through a vertically integrated modular housing model built to “increase quality and lower cost.” The company is refining the rowhome — “the original American urban home” — to make it attainable again: its proprietary, componentized building system, sized to fit inside a standard shipping container, is designed to adapt across sites, floorplans, facades, and neighborhood conditions, a direct answer to the long-standing criticism that factory building can’t handle infill variety. Its factory in Austin, TX has planned capacity for up to 1,200 homes a year.

Reframe Systems, founded by former Amazon executives, is applying that same operational discipline to homebuilding — robotics-driven micro-factories, vertical integration, and a design-build partnership model for developers — to deliver resilient, energy-efficient homes without the capital intensity of “traditional industrial systems.” The approach is already in production: fire-resilient homes in Southern California and a varied Massachusetts pipeline spanning a 68-unit hospitality project, ADUs, a two-story condominium development, and triple-decker infill homes.

Innovation wasn’t confined to structure. Lilypad™ showed a moisture-absorbent paint engineered to buffer humidity swings, improve drywall durability, and ease the load on HVAC systems — letting “your walls do more so your HVAC system can do less.” The paint absorbs excess moisture and releases it gradually, reducing the condensation cycles that drive most moisture-related building problems.

Taken together, these products point to the same conclusion: manufactured and modular builders are pairing technological efficiency with a friendlier regulatory environment — recent HUD Code updates and the 21^st Century ROAD to Housing Act among them — to add housing supply faster, more efficiently, and more affordably than site-built construction can match. The homes on display were, in finish and structure, difficult to distinguish from site-built product.

Over the six years HUD has hosted the Innovative Housing Showcase on the National Mall, the pace of change has visibly accelerated: code updates have grown more consequential, and engineering, design, and business innovation has kept pace with them. With the bipartisan 21^st Century ROAD to Housing Act now law, HUD and the factory-built housing industry are moving in the same direction — turning these showcase concepts into homes that buyers across the United States can actually purchase.

(All citations were taken from each company’s promotional materials provided at the showcase.)