"The micro compact home is a lightweight, modular and mobile minimal dwelling for one or two people. Its compact dimensions of 2.6m cube adapt it to a variety of sites and circumstances, and its functioning spaces of sleeping, working -- dining, cooking, and hygiene make it suitable for everyday use.
"The design of the micro compact home has been informed by the classic scale and order of a Japanese tea house, combined with advanced concepts and technologies in Europe."
"The tiny cube provides a double bed on an upper level and working table and dining space for four or five people on a lower level. The kitchen bar is accordingly arranged to serve these two levels.
"Compact dimensions allow the micro home to nest amidst small trees and shrubs and integrate into any landscape. . . micro compact homes may be grouped in horizontal or vertical arrangements as 'family clusters', or form larger villages connected by personal outside spaces related to each unit."
Now, imagine what might be possible when molecular manufacturing allows us to design and build simple homes like this virtually anywhere for only a few hundred dollars!
Mike Treder
Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog
It's clever - I doubt it'd catch on in developed nations, other than where a version of it already has (the pickup truck "camper"). But maybe if the alternative is an equally compact mud brick hut.
From what I can see, the main benefit of stacking them as shown is maintaining a feeling of openness, community level uniqueness, and separateness.
But it really would need an energy efficient means of getting to the upper floors. Maybe a system of per-cube rope-elevators, in keeping with the "treehouse" feel. :-)
Posted by: Tom Craver | January 08, 2006 at 12:11 PM
Using counterweights, you could move the cubes up and down for egress (down), and scenery (up).
Posted by: Mike Deering | January 08, 2006 at 07:36 PM
That would certainly thrill me, having my home jerked around every time one of my neighbors wanted in or out.
Posted by: Janessa Ravenwood | January 08, 2006 at 08:57 PM
If I was going to share that little space with someone, or have neighbors that close, we would have to get along very, very well.
Posted by: shegeek | January 09, 2006 at 09:42 AM
As far as I can tell, this thing really isn't that much different from a typical one bedroom apartment. The novelty seems to come from the fact that it's portable and modular. But there is a certain stigma attached to modular prefab living in the United States--trailer parks for example.
If through some cheap retrofitting technology (like MEMS or nanomachinary.) existing apartment buildings, coops and condos could be made truly modular, extensible and portable maybe there'd be something here.
Still the world getting more densely urbanized all the time. At least in the post-industrial world, people who living dense apartments and condos have a lower impact on the environment than people who live in the McMansions out on the edge of suburban sprawl. Dense, with some exceptions, is better.
Posted by: Pace Arko | January 12, 2006 at 09:26 PM