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Young Beijing Architect Lives in Mobile Egg House on Sidewalk

by Lee Bains on December 9, 2010 at 12:00 PM

egg house
Acting on an impulse familiar to many young people these days, Dai Haifei, a 24-year-old architect in Beijing, said to hell with high rents, and built himself a house. The six-foot-tall, solar-powered, egg-shaped abode is made of bamboo, wood and grass seed, and fits easily on a sidewalk. "The seeds will grow in the natural environment and it's cold-proof," Dai told China Daily. He then added that it's "a bit cold sometimes." Whatever. It's rent-free, dude!

Or, rather it was. Haifei has been ordered off the streets, and is uncertain of where he will go. Facing tough economic realities, the young architect preferred to design and build the $964 structure than to rent a traditional apartment. He says that his mom and dad, a maid and construction worker respectively, would like to buy him a house, but would have to make payments for 300 years to do so. At the moment, Haifei is crashing with a friend, and weighing his options. Fortunately, he still has his job, and his firm (which must be impressed by his ingenuity) has kept the egg house. A source at the firm told People's Daily: "At present, there are still many technical aspects of the egg house that should be improved, such as waste disposal and heat preservation problems, so we cannot begin mass production."

Still, if that sentence has as big a "yet" on the end of it as we think it does, Haifei may not have to worry about rent money for much longer.

Mobile Egg House


Tags: architecture, beijing, china, design, green, house, lowcost, solar, top

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