It’s not what one would expect in a prefabricated home.

A movable wall. Bamboo floors. Walls made almost entirely of glass.

“You can’t find a home like this anywhere else,” said Amanda Langweil, a Kansas University student who is helping build a modular house for a Kansas City, Kan., neighborhood.

The house is the product of Studio 804, a KU School of Architecture and Urban Design class of about 20 students that annually designs and constructs a house. The entire project takes about five months.

Over the years the projects have turned heads, and the class has garnered national praise. In 2004, the class project won Architecture magazine’s Home of the Year. Both the 2004 and 2005 houses won Project of the Year awards from Residential Architect magazine.

Dan Rockhill, the KU professor who oversees the class, said it’s the students who do all the hard work.

“They are the ones who take responsibility for every aspect of it,” he said.

The students worked Thursday in clouds of dust inside an East Lawrence warehouse as the latest house took shape.

“It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever done,” student Trevor Chalmers said of the project.

The 1,200-square-foot, two-bedroom, one-bath house uses sustainable materials and building practices – those that are in balance with the environment. Its interior floors will be bamboo, a quickly renewable natural resource. The exterior will be Douglas fir, a certified sustainable softwood. The exterior sealer is so environmentally friendly it’s practically drinkable, though that is not recommended.

One room has a movable wall, so homeowners can fit the space to their needs.

“It’s a lot of work,” student Lisa Reed said. “I think that we’re going to have something really exceptional in the end.”

The class operates as a nonprofit. The students rely on donated materials, which they say come easy because the class has received so much publicity and praise.

They work together on every part of the process.

“No one’s the boss here,” student Karla Karwas said. “It’s a really interesting collaboration here that works.”

Past houses have sold for $140,000 to $165,000, and the students expect this house to be in the same price range. The students are unpaid, and remaining funds are rolled over and used for the next year’s project.

This year’s house is being constructed for an elevated lot at 534 Riverview Ave. in the Strawberry Hill neighborhood in Kansas City, Kan.

Carole Diehl, president of the Strawberry Hill Neighborhood Assn., said the house differed from the large Victorian homes and cottages common in the neighborhood, but that’s OK.

“I think that it’s time to make a change,” she said. “It’s kind of like passing the torch. We kind of realize that we have young people coming in, and we have to cater (to) their wants and desires.”

Diehl said neighborhood residents were eagerly awaiting the open house.