Design Concepts: Modular Mobile Homes for the Future, Now

The Web is teeming with the unrealized ideas of both students and established designers who set out to produce astonishing renderings and prototypes for unusual products. Unfortunately, due to the lack of time, money, or technology, many of those products never progress from the planning stages to the mass market. But that doesn't mean we can't salivate over them, nevertheless.

Over the past few months, we've covered design concepts for every space in the home, but never the home itself. The mobile and modular architectures we've culled this week all share a vision of living within enclosed and self-sufficient systems that can be modified as needed. In the future, will we see an exodus away from the cities? Will humans retreat to what's left of nature, living like nomads on the few resources still available in low-impact mobile and modular homes? Modularity seems to be a key trend in architecture nowadays, especially for the more eco-minded set. But whether this is just a futurist fantasy or a bona fide move toward sustainable living that literally takes residential space off the grid is still to be determined. For the record, though, we hope it's the latter.

House Arc by Joseph Bellomo

Last year, California-based architect Joseph Bellomo designed a slim, curved bicycle rack called Bike Arc in order to promote two-wheeled transportation in his Palo Alto hometown. He apparently loved the cylindrical style so much that he put together a rendering for the House Arc, a sustainable and freestanding modular home. Designed to function off of the electrical grid, the structure is coated with a photovoltaic film that generates power for both lighting and appliances. The long curved space is composed of multiple steel-framed modules, set up on a concrete or wooden platform. Bellomo suggested that the House Arc would cost roughly $100,000 per unit; although driving the price down by building en masse would be ideal. Then, the tubular shelters could be used as temporary or low-income housing.

LoftFloat Houseboat by Toni Clariana, Magma Design & Enoc Armengol

We suppose that, for writers of a certain age and stripe, the fantasy of retiring to a houseboat to drink sherry while penning the Great American Novel is not uncommon. Or, perhaps, that's just your writer thinking aloud. Still, in any case, these floating lofts kick ass. The 485-square-foot studio-style space has room enough for a kitchen, bathroom, living room and bedroom, as well as a beautiful deck from which to enjoy the lapping waters. Self-sufficient and solar-powered, the prototype would carry a proposed €80,000 (about $109,000) price tag, should it ever go into production. [Ed. note: Yes, please.] For an energy-neutral modernist floating home, we think that's fairly reasonable.

Ecopod by Zendome

We're cheating a bit with the Ecopod hotel, because it's not truly a design concept; you can actually contact the hotel, right now, to book a stay in one of its ultramodern geodesic domes. Still, the implementation of the great Bucky Fuller's architectural vision for the modern age is an excellent working example for designers and architects who are thinking about sustainability. Based off the shores of Loch Linnhe in Scotland, Ecopod was manufactured by the German geodesic-loving group Zendome. The dome incorporates locally sourced wood, energy-saving electronics and graywater recycling. And, of course, the structure itself retains heat via convection, minimizing the need for thermal adjustment. Oh, and all the pods' furnishings are either made from sustainable materials or are recycled design classics. Where did they find this bevy of used Eames chairs, anyway?

Eco-Pods by Howeler + Yoon Architecture and Squared Design Lab

While not exactly houses for humans, these Eco-Pods (no relation to Zendome's) are the happy homes for a forest of microalgae. Using an abandoned or condemned building as a sort of armature, builders wrap the Eco-Pods around an existing structure. The simple green organisms are housed in enclosures, which are regularly moved by robotic arms to provide optimal growing conditions, and are destined to serve as biofuel. Envisioned specifically for the downtown Boston area, the project aims to be at once a public sculpture, a municipal park and a living manifesto on the potential of biofuels.

Arctic Mobile Unit by 2-B-2 Architecture

This is, hands down, the coolest Arctic research station we have ever seen (counting out Carpenter's 'The Thing,' of course). Designed to give life support to three people for up to 15 days, at temperatures as low as -40 F and winds as high as 50 mph, the Arctic Mobile Unit folds out from an austere steel box into a bright, three-room habitat. A solar battery offsets a 5kW power generator. (If anybody should be allowed to use fossil fuels, it's a global warming researcher freezing his fingers off in the Arctic.) Also, we're seriously in love with the bathroom. Check the gallery below.

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