Living large by living small

Here's an interesting concept. Designer and architect Jay Schafer, self-proclaimed "claustrophile", wanted a house with a smaller environmental footprint, and ended up designing and building houses with a very small physical footprint, here shown is his own 100 square feet / 9 square meters home, the "EPU". As a bonus it is economical and easy to maintain too, how long can it take to sweep 9 square meters? It will definitely encourage neatness, otherwise the mess will probably immediately be out of control, and it will fight consumerism to some degree. You just can't bring much stuff home... :) And it's fast and cheap to heat or cool, depending on climate.

I think the philosophy of R. Buckminster Fuller, "Doing more with less", fits very well within this concept.

"The master bedroom".

The inside of the EPU consists of kitchen, bathroom, sleeping room and the "great room". More interior views here.

But downsizing doesn't have to mean downscaling, it can actually be the opposite. Jay Shafer quotes the italian architect Carlo Scarpa:

"If you are making a corridor that is 20' wide, you can make it out of concrete; if it is 10' wide, you should use stone; if it is 6' wide, use fine wood; but if it is 2' wide, you should make it out of solid gold."

And if you're only going to have one doorhandle, as an example, why not get the nicest possible?

Some of the smaller houses of his, they range from 40 (!) square feet to a "whopping" 770 square feet (71 sq. meters), can be delivered built on a trailer. This serves two purposes. First, mobility. R. Buckminster Fuller designed his Dymaxion house with the feature of being (somewhat) easy to relocate, a trailer is of course even better. Tired of the view? Move the house to different spot on your property. Second, the trailer let's one circumvent local laws in the US that forbids (!) houses under a certain size. In Sweden on the other hand a house under 10 square meters, a.k.a "Friggebod" does not require a building permit. This maximum size will likely be upped to 15 sq. meters in the near future.

There are some obvious drawbacks with such a small house. Forget about raising a family! :) Collectors would have a hard time, unless the collections are small or consists of very small things. Having guests, especially staying over the night, will require some extra patience of both guests and host.

So, could I live in 100 sq. feet? Possibly, but only I was allowed to cheat with a shed three times the size for storage (do I really need all this stuff?), workshop and a washing machine.

I like his Z.Glass house design, with exterior walls of hot rolled steel that will get a natural rusty finish. Wicked!

More reading at www.tumbleweedhouses.com. All pictures from their site.

/O.K.
(Listening to while posting: MBMA - Musiken)

P.S. Post number 500!

And now for something completely different!

Or "The world according to Buckminster Fuller". I feel we need some counterweight to PP's post about the monoculture and conformist thinking, "More and more of the same".


The Dymaxion world map designed by R. Buckminister Fuller (I mentioned him in this post), inventor and visionary, has several features I like very much. It does not have the usual projection problem were the poles get stretched out and distorted, it folds (animation here) into a polyhedron so it can be used as a regular globe and it shows all continents together as an island in the ocean(s).
The last point I find interesting from a psychological point of view. I suspect that how things are presented steers us to think about them in a certain way. On an ordinary map the continents are divided, on Fuller's they are closer together like links in a chain. Fits very well with the rest of his views.

From this picture you might fold your own polyhedron. There's also very detailed ones one can buy from the Buckminister Fuller Institute.

Some Australians seems to be fond of this map. Can't blame them, who want's to be "down under"?

/O.K.
(Listening to while posting: Jens Johansson - Don't mention the war)

Stamp of the Day: Buckminster Fuller

In remembrance of a post long since posted.

Shapes

This tropical greenhouse at Missouri Botanical Garden reminded me of
Buckminster Fuller's head on a recent stamp of the day. The greenhouse is called the Climatron Conservatory and includes 1200 plant species, and also some tropical birds.

More art: Floating glass (by Chihuly) in the Victoria waterlily pond in front of the greenhouse.