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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFUTURE OF MOBILE DWELLING
TEN FOLD TECHNOLOGY: FUTURE OF MOBILE DWELLING. Kitchen/Bathroom. See Version 1: See Version 3: 3D ...
dawg day
(7,947 posts)I can see how this could be adapted to hillsides and sloped yards.
Zoonart
(11,844 posts)WOW... these are amazing. thanks for sharing.
csziggy
(34,133 posts)Plot summary
Quintus Teal, a "Graduate Architect" in the Los Angeles area, wants architects to be inspired by topology and the PicardVessiot theory. During a conversation with friend Homer Bailey he shows models made of toothpicks and clay, representing projections of a four-dimensional tesseract, the equivalent of a cube, and convinces Bailey to build one. The house is quickly constructed in an "inverted double cross" shape (having eight cubical rooms, arranged as a stack of four cubes with a further four cubes surrounding the second cube up on the stack). The night before Teal is to show Bailey and his wife, Matilda, around the house, an earthquake occurs. The three of them arrive the next morning to find what appears to be just a single cubical room.
Inside, they find the upper floors completely intact, but the stairs seem to form a closed loop. There appears to be no way to get back out, as all the doors and windows lead directly into other rooms. At one point, they look down a hallway and are shocked to see their own backs. Teal realizes that the earthquake caused the house to fold into an actual tesseract.
In attempting to move from one room to another by way of a French window, Teal falls outside and lands in shrubbery. Exploring further, they find that the windows of the original top room do not connect where they mathematically "should". One gives a dizzying view from above the Chrysler Building, another an upside-down view of a seascape. A third window looks out on a place of no-space, with no color, not even black. The fourth window looks out on an unearthly desert scene. Just then another earthquake hits, and so they exit in a panic through the open window. They find themselves in a desert with twisted, tree-like vegetation around them, with no sign of the house or the window they just jumped through. They are relieved when they discover, from a passing truck driver, that they are in Joshua Tree National Park.
Returning to the house, they find it has vanished. "It must be that on that last shock it simply fell through into another section of space", Teal remarks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22%E2%80%94And_He_Built_a_Crooked_House%E2%80%94%22
GemDigger
(4,305 posts)Other than that they look very comfortable.
localroger
(3,622 posts)Those structures have a very Frank Lloyd Wright feel, which is itself problemantical because FLW's homes and buildings are infamously impractical, and they are built conventionally. They leak and don't have enough storage space and don't even get me started.
These foldout buildings will each need hundreds of expensive moving parts which will only ever move once, when the building unfolds. In many cases the precision needed for the bearings and unfolding hardware is much higher than the precision needed for the final sealing surfaces. And all those dynamic seals are going to be prone to leaks. I think there are also strength of materials considerations which are being glossed over; some of those unfolding struts will be subject to really extreme forces as they are operated. And I assume there really won't be motors doing it automatically, because that would be really insanely expensive, so there are probably a bunch of hand crank sockets and an elaborate manual unfolding procedure.
The ability to get the structure onsite by truck and assemble it without a crane (as most prefab systems require) is a big draw, particularly in remote locations, but you have to ask what that's worth. I find it hard to imagine one of these 1,000 sqft or so after unfolding buildings costing less than half a million dollars to manufacture. It costs $400 an hour to rent a crane around here, and you can typically put together a similar structure made of truckable prefab modules in less than a day.
I don't think the OP people have actually ever built a structure and a lot of reality will come raining down on them if they ever try.
crickets
(25,959 posts)Also, tornado alley need not apply. Cool concept, though.
haele
(12,645 posts)The discipline required to keep the aesthetic for a space like that is not one the average family -American or otherwise- can maintain.
Any bit of clutter is out there for the world to see...all that glass will quickly become "stained glass" to the level that my four year old grand-daughter can reach.
Maybe good for a vacation rental for a childless millennial or retired Boomer couple can host some of their friends for a week or so, but I can't see long-term living in a house like that.
It's pretty, but so is a concept car...not something most people - even the comfortably well off ones - can afford.
Haele