Some of these projects are recognized as much for their form as their function. The Japanese architect Shigeru Ban designed shelters from recyclable paper tubes for victims of violence and natural disasters, for example, while the Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena has pioneered what he calls “incremental” social housing projects, in which residents buy half of a two-story home at a state-subsidized rate and complete it when and how they can.

Other designs are known for their high-profile sponsors. The Sweden-based Better Shelter project, for instance, partnered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the furniture giant Ikea to mass-produce an emergency shelter with a solar panel, UV-protective roofing and siding, and parts that can be individually replaced.

These and other projects have generally been well received by design professionals. Mr. Ban and Mr. Aravena have both recently won the Pritzker Prize, architecture’s top honor, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York last year selected a Better Shelter unit for its permanent collection and featured it in an exhibition.

Some critics say, however, that high-profile humanitarian architecture often ignores the complexities of housing policy and finance, as well as local variations in climate, building materials and aesthetic tastes.

Chang Jiat Hwee, an assistant professor of architecture at the National University of Singapore and the author of “A Genealogy of Tropical Architecture: Colonial Networks, Nature and Technoscience,” said the notion of using prefabricated dwellings to solve housing problems in the global South was pioneered by Europeans in the 19th century and became especially prevalent in the 1950s. But the projects have tended to fail, then and now, he added, because they took a universalist approach that ignored local particulars.

Professor Chang said he wondered if the S House project could avoid the same pitfalls. “Vo Trong Nghia is a very good architect and his firm has designed some really nice single-family houses,” he said. “But I think designing a prototype for mass housing presents an entirely different set of challenges.”