With a decrease in available land resources, our future houses will probably look more like small lodges, both green inside and out. The truth is that we actually only need few things to survive, yet we often surround ourselves with more stuff than we actually need. Now more than ever, designers are reacting to these circumstances, building micro, cubic, compact homes all over the globe. One of the coolest designs I came across during my research, carried the signature of Swedish designer Torsten Ottesjö. Torsten build the HUS-1, a 25 sqm compact house that truly has it all: kitchen, bathroom, sleeping quarters, dinner table, hallway and even a room for welcoming guests.
The HUS-1 is nestled in a valley far from urban linearity, where it aims to provide an optimal living environment. The house its design feels and looks real free as the walls seam together with the floor creating both a sense of airiness. A curved seating space along the sides of the interior make it look cozy. The structure is free-standing, so it can be moved anywhere, even though it looks like it just sprouted out of the ground it rests on. Ottesjö wanted the house to “adapt to nature’s infinite variety of form” and therefore only used wood to shape it. ‘Wherever a person comes in contact with the building it should be tailored for the form and the mechanics of the human body’.
With all the features of a regular house, this tiny eco lodge on the Swedish west coast could well be the face of future housing.
All images © David Relan
