More aesthetic than ascetic, the micro compact home may be smaller than an SUV, but it packs a lot more utility.
Welcome to the microcompact home. The m-
ch, for short, is a 76-square-foot
domicile designed by Technical University of Munich professor Richard Horden to meet the growing demand for short-stay living.
And this isn''t just a dressed-up shack; the m-ch is the BMW of small homes. For $96,000 a
cube (including delivery and installation anywhere in Europe), owners get a fully integrated interior teched out with everything from a flatscreen TV to a dining room table that seats five. In the future, solar panels and a roof-mounted horizontal-axis wind turbine generating 2,200 kilowatts of power a year will make m-ch models self-sustaining.
The aluminum-clad abode has a Le Corbusier sheen, but really, the m-ch is all about the inside. "It''s for people who like interiors," Horden says. "You come into contact with all surfaces in the structure — similar to what you experience in a car or an aircraft."
Since late 2005, TUM students and staff have lived in the first mini-home
hamlet of seven m-chs, and a 16-unit village is being developed for a site near Vienna, Austria. "There''s no reason to have all that space anymore," says Gregory Paul Johnson, director of the Small House Society, an Iowa-based advocacy group. "For one thing, all your media collections can fit into an iPod now."
Publicado em: junho 07, 2007
Mais críticas sobre http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.05/pl_home_p90.html