FLOATING MOBILE HOME
by Sarah Rich, 02/15/06
We’ve talked about mobile homes and we’ve talked about floating homes, and now a conceptual convergence brings us a floating mobile home. Designer Hallstein Guthu calls his concept a “mobile eco-home for the contemporary techno-nomad.” Might be something you’d find at Burning Man if it weren’t waterborne. And Norwegian.
In fact, this is the result of a highly elaborate and imaginitive architectural Masters thesis at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Guthu emphasizes the use of technologically advanced design as a means of achieving a greener, more sustainable structure. With an outer membrane comprised of solar cells, a wind turbine, and a recycled aluminum structure, the highly efficient home is designed with awareness of its eventual disposal (you can recycle it!).
The 100m-sq house is divided into three zones: “work,” “fundamentals,” and “pleasure.” The WORK-zone is located in the back and contains office space, fishing supplies, and a control center for taking your home on an ocean-bound world tour. The FUNDAMENTALS-zone, in the middle of the structure, houses two bedrooms, a bathroom with bathtub, a technical room, kitchen and main entrance. This zone can be sealed off from the other two for consolidating heated space. The PLEASURE-zone is found in the front, with vast views all around, a long table for visiting friends, an entertainments center, as well as a “cozy, lonely lounge seat by a minibar with space for a few good books.”
Of course for now, this home exists only as the brilliant broodings of an architecture student. But with luck, you may eventually have a chance to be the captain of your very own high-tech green seafaring dwelling.
+ www.hallsteinguthu.com
(you have to zoom in many times in his PDF in order to read the details on this project)
