BEEN-SEEN.COM - A DIFFERENCE IN WHERE AND HOW WE TRAVEL
This weekend, a little alien capsule will land on a mountain in the Italian Alps and set up camp there. As compelling a notion as that is, the shiny bauble pictured above is the brainchild of London designer (and self-confessioned 'evolutionary biologist') Ross Lovegrove, and nothing to do with little green men. The Alpine Capsule is the ultimate futuristic compact living unit.
It was invented for disasters like earthquakes, but the Octagon House-in-a-Box makes a great temporary home. Created by Sago Mokuzai, it's made of cardboard and duct tape, and looks a great deal easier to assemble than any tent I've ever (tried to) put up.
How's this for a twist on the traditional treehouse? A swinging tree tent, designed to look like a nest. It's the work of Spanish industrial designer Gerard Moliné, who makes the case that our lives are too complicated, and we need to simplify them. After all, he says, birds don't pay rent. He has a point.
All over Britain, the beach hut is getting a stylish makeover. The most exciting place to find innovative huts right now is on the Lincolnshire coast, courtesy of the brilliant Bathing Beauties project.
Imagine getting one of these in your Christmas stocking. M-Velope is a transformable cabin designed by architectural pioneer Michael Jantzen, and it's available exclusively through Neiman Marcus' Christmas Book.
Prefab houses are so, well, fab these days. A resurgence of the prefabricated housing concept can be seen in the publication of coffee table books and photo essays in slick design and architecture magazines. (Been-Seen is not immune to its charm either). Turning heads at the Walker Art Center a few years ago, and currently wowing the crowds in New York City at the MoMA, prefab is hot.
The Joshua Tree, an elegant steel-clad prefab cabin created by Italian design group, Hangar, can be transported anywhere and set up quickly and easily. Why it's called the Joshua Tree, I'm not sure. Perhaps it's ideal for setting up in California national parks. It's certainly not spiky and spindly.
There's something really appealing about mobile homes. While we may not all be enthusiastic about hauling a giant RV around the countryside, it's nice to have a change of scenery from time to time. These Rolling Huts by Tom Kundig of Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects are a great example of pared-down, portable living.
When Japanese architect Terunobu Fujimori is sitting in his treehouse, he feels like a space traveler from another planet 'taking a peek inside our world'. The main reason for this is that Takasugi-an ('an overly tall hermitage') is six meters off the ground and balanced on two tree trunks. From way up high he towers over all of his neighbors in Chino, Nagano Prefecture, and uses it as an escape from the world around him.
We love this design called Single Hauz by Polish front architects because you can in theory build it absolutely anywhere. Like a giant billboard, it can spring out from a neighborhood that's already full to capacity. You could build one in your backyard (and really freak out your neighbors, especially if it had the ability to move up and down on its mast). You could build one halfway up a mountain, or even in the middle of a lake.
We've heard of garden huts that rotate (see our article about George Bernard Shaw's revolving hut), but never a cabin that gets up and walks across the garden. Here's a prototype for a Walking House created by Danish design team N55 - which promises to take you even farther afield. The House is a modular dwelling system intended to provide the inhabitant with a peaceful nomadic existence that has minimum impact on the environment. If it works (which we hope it will), it'll be able to walk slowly from site to site, allowing its owner to change views every single minute of every single day.
If you're looking for a new holiday park home or a home office, check out The Orb. This British-designed cylindrical living unit was created for folks who like the great outdoors, but want style and affordability too. It's built with marine technology, so it's tough and easily portable, and you can sleep up to seven in its contemporary modular interior.
