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Off-Grid Home Ecocapsule To Hit the Market This Year
Kristine Lofgren writes: If you dream of living totally off-the-grid anywhere in the world, you need to get your hands on this home. Nice Architects just unveiled their incredible egg-shaped Ecocapsule, and announced that the tiny solar and wind-powered dwelling will be available for sale later this year, with units shipping in spring 2016. From the website: "Despite its small form each Ecocapsule is fitted with all essentials necessary for a comfortable prolonged stay without a need to recharge or re-supply. Ecocapsule is powered by a built-in wind turbine complemented with an array of solar cells. Dual power system and a high-capacity battery ensures that you will have enough power during periods of reduced solar or wind activity. Spherical shape is optimized for the collection of rainwater and dew and the built-in water filters allow you to utilize any water source.
No not really
I don't get why they don't have wheels and an A-bar on this -- it looks an awful lot like a caravan to me, even to the point of being pretty aerodynamic (other than the sodding great windmill getting in the way).
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
So you have a places smaller than a mobile trailer but without the mobility.
Really? Any water source? So the egg also replaces the need for a sewer/septic tank for urine?
I want to see the idiot that used "any" in the summary instead of "many" or "some" drinking the "filtered" output of one of these eggs after I piss in it.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
The energy output of a wind turbine is proportional to the cross-sectional area, and to the cube of the wind speed*. This means that to provide a useful amount of energy they need to be big, and they need a lot of wind - that means a high mounting point. These little pinwheels on short poles are just a gimmick - you'd be lucky to get 20W from them on a very good windy day.
*Think about it. (m*v^2)/2 will get you half-way there.
Pretty looking caravan (with optional wheels?) but not very efficient on the space, not particularly comfortable looking and not really practical as a permanent home as they try to suggest. In pretty much every use case you'd be better off with a larger caravan and a couple of solar panels and some batteries that you can set up when you get wherever you're going.
I'm sure it wouldn't look so showy if the "world's first ecocapsule" (which is totally not a caravan without wheels) had a more conventional shape but it would have been a lot more practical, and doubtless cheaper to build too.
The website says "Ecocapsule comfortably houses two adults", but that's not a two person bed, even if you're sleeping with your SO.
If you're a 2 person research team who is not interested in cuddling while you sleep, you'll have to sleep in shifts
Add some wheels and a trailer hook to that thing so that you can move it around !
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Here is a link to a Airstream floor plan. Looks to be well thought out too. They do have a few years of learning how to do this. http://www.airstream.com/trave...
Passionately Indifferent
Wow, an ugly impractical solution to a problem no one has by someone with no concept of the reality of living in a small space. This looks like an art school project from a fan of the Jetsons.
The article actually says "The architects also recommend it as an urban dwelling for singles in high-rent areas such as Silicon Valley or NYC" which is clear proof that they haven't even a vague clue what life is like in the real world.
So they reinvented the caravan................... Nope, never gonna live in such an ugly home..
The picture on the website shows it can be put on a transport platform and drawn around by a car.
Or I could just buy a camper that is already "on a transport platform" and get a more practical design while I'm at it. Seriously, this is the sort of stupid concept "designers" are getting WAY too much money to come up with. The clearly started with the external appearance and a checklist of features and worked from there rather than actually spending time considering any functional considerations.
How do you propose to get this thing "on a transport platform"? It's clearly not meant to be dragged. There is no obvious hookup for a hoist. It apparently fits in a shipping container but that raises the question of why not just convert the shipping container to living space? It's more practical, modular, goes right on a truck and almost certainly is cheaper to make and convert. Plus probably more durable and recyclable. The transportation infrastructure is already available and it's not exactly a challenge to put solar cells and a wind turbine on the roof.
This would make an awesome camper.
You mean except for the idiotic layout, the lack of wheels or towing equipment, the impractical shape, the lack of substantial water or battery space, the inflexible interior design, the ugly appearance and the expensive round shape?
Yeah other than that it's great...
Humans build rectilinear structures because because we like to stock them with our own (rectilinear) furniture and appliances, walk around without stooping or bumping into one another. When we wish to get artsy or need to avoid snow pack accumulation we go with angled flat surfaces because you can tile and shingle them. When we want to be innovative and compact we put hinges on rectangles, as in a fold-out porch, solar array with a single seasonally adjustable angle. We round corners, not the whole thing.
Everything about this capsule seems impractical, artistically ludicrous and commercially predatory. You can see at a glance that nothing is flat or standard. You will not be one with the Earth, you will be one with the catalog of proprietary overpriced replacement parts and misshapen accessories. The swing-up 'DeLorean' front door is like fingernails on a chalkboard, an obscene engineering middle-finger gesture. Better make sure you have plenty of tools inside and some shape charges to blow your way out after it is sealed by an ice storm. Houses have eyebrows for the same reason people do.
For some reason it brings this song to mind. I started it playing in another tab while viewing their slide show.
That's just how it's built. As to how it looks, to each their own. For me the novelty wore off at first sight. I'm sure the sinks, toilet and the microgrid stuff works well enough. The designers should just assemble a core modular (rectilinear) package with that stuff and leave the house-building to house builders.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
I'm looking at all those rounded space-wasting contours. And once you try to fit it inside a (rectangular) shipping container to get it to your locale, there's even more space wasted between the pod and the box.
So how about some lateral thinking: instead of buying one of these and have them shipped from Slovakia, how about buying a discarded shipping container RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE and fixing it up for living quarters? There's some nice designs floating around on the internet... Which will cost you less, probably, than purchase and shipping on one of these eggs.
Could still be moved around with comparable ease locally, and when you want to go to another state or country, sell it and start over in the new locale. Although I'm thinking that 2 x 20ft/6m containers might be more livable for my claustrophobic slightly-oversized frame.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
Well, thanks for bringing politics into this for no fucking reason at all. Not to mention you're totally wrong.
In some larger cities it is illegal, the reason being if you don't have power, water, etc it is considered unfit for humans. Unfortunately you read kook sites and don't get the truth, the person did not want to try to change the law they just wanted to do it and pocket some money from selling the idea to others.
Provided you don't want to live in a larger city than there are generally no restrictions, just move out the city limits and most places are almost unrestricted and you can do almost anything. The worst restrictions you are going to get are country restrictions dealing with the removal of human waste and the soil composition of your leach field
I used to live on a boat that ran entirely on solar and wind.
I can tell you, nobody wants to live that close to, or in a dwelling attached to a wind generator like that. The 3 blade design either puts out little to no useful power (1A@13,8V on most light air days) while all the time it spins putting out a shrieking noise that makes the noise made by mega-wind gennies sound relaxing by comparison. Perhaps if you swapped it out for a multi-blade lower output unit, but for the most part the best place for these little monsters is over a hill somewhere not within earshot. Unless you love banshee wails, in which case go whole hog and get some guinea fowl and perhaps a chimpanzee for the full crazy sound orchestra.
Also, the solar panels are woefully inadequate. You will be constantly making trade offs between chilling with your fridge or charging your laptops with that level of wattage. And for the price, you can probably DIY a 20' sea container and get more bang for your buck, and more solar panel mounting area too.
The energy output of a wind turbine is proportional to the cross-sectional area, and to the cube of the wind speed*. This means that to provide a useful amount of energy they need to be big, and they need a lot of wind - that means a high mounting point. These little pinwheels on short poles are just a gimmick - you'd be lucky to get 20W from them on a very good windy day.
*Think about it. (m*v^2)/2 will get you half-way there.
Poppycock. Sailors have been putting small wind generators on their boats for many decades now. Certainly you're not going to power a washer and dryer with one of those things, but if you have a 400 Ah battery bank it will help to keep it topped off.
Especially given that when it's cloudy, and your solar bank isn't doing much, it often means a weather system is moving through--which generally means wind.
https://www.emarineinc.com/AIR-Breeze-Wind-Turbine-12-Volt
The amazing micro-dwelling is perfect for nature lovers, scientists, photographers, rangers and anyone who
...loves to waste space on shapes which are good for eggs but stupid for houses, and who wants to be kept up all night by their wind turbine.
If it's supposed to be eco-friendly, shouldn't it be made out of recycled materials? And there's absolutely nothing about the shape which makes it easy to collect water. In fact, it's much harder to deal with on a shape like that.
Here's how you get eco-friendly: You get a used shipping container for two grand, the energy cost of its production is already sunk. You get it delivered to your lot for 1-2 grand more, most likely. Then you start haunting demolitions and recycled construction material sales for materials. That's eco-friendly. You can't just go buy eco-friendly at a store with a big price tag on it. That stuff is never eco-friendly.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I lived in a tent for a year - smaller than this thing. But only went in there to sleep or, er, commune with companions. All other activities, including cooking, bathing and so forth were conducted outside, and in beautiful surrounds too. I did six months of temperate zone summer and six of the dry season in the tropics. Wow, that was 20 years ago now.
If it acquires resources on instantiation like a duck, then its a shared_ptr<Duck>
Ah, there's the problem. My dad was a high-end remodeler for many years. He never got a set of plans from an architect that was actually buildable as received. Generally he could sketch something on a note pad that would be far more practical and functional.
That's not a phenomena unique to architects. I run a contract manufacturing company which means we build stuff that other people design. I can count on my fingers the number of drawings I've received that could be made without clarification or revision in the last 5 years. There invariable is some combination of missing specifications, incompatible parts, inaccurate dimensions, inappropriate materials, missing part numbers, (useless) customer internal part numbers, unrealistic tolerances, design flaws, obsolete/unobtainable parts, confusing instructions, overpriced vendors specified, etc. Most engineers I've run into are somewhere between moderately and reall bad at doing good quality engineering documentation. (read - they are bad at the most important part of their job) They have poor attention to detail and are terrible at writing documents that someone else has to read and interpret. I almost always have to spend a substantial amount of time fixing their product and/or documentation so it can be built. Basically the same problem your dad ran into.
I'm not buying one of those unless it's certified free-range.
... or at least fired and not allowed to design ever again.
First off, on the floor plans the only window that opens is on the same side as the silly gullwing door. So no cross ventilation. I also see no obvious vents to compensate. It is going to get awfully stinky in there before you suffocate.
Oh, and the kitchenette? Is the range top electric? Good luck with that and that tiny solar array and batteries. On the other hand, if it is a propane range top you will suffocate much more quickly.
And that cute little solar array on top of the egg? Well, unless you are in Ecuador at certain times of the year a lot of your expensive solar cells will always be in the shade, not doing you a bit of good. People who actually have used solar would realize that an array that small needs to be mounted on a platform so you can at least point it south at the optimum angle for the season.
I also completely fail to understand how the egg shape makes it easy to collect water.
Kill it before it reproduces, please.
Not so much, once you cut holes in a shipping container it's very hard to move it.
Not unless those holes are so large they affect structural integrity. It is almost trivial to put some windows or extra doors into a shipping container without affecting structural integrity. The entire thing is made of steel so you can weld whatever reinforcements you need permanently or temporarily and steel is pretty much 100% recyclable.
If you plan to move your shipping container home, you'll also need to budget for a trailer to move it on.
This pretty much falls into the "duh" category. You don't have to own said trailer however.
About the cheapest I've seen a container trailer is five grand, and I didn't go look at it so I don't know what kind of condition it was in.
Or you can just hire one for a relatively modest fee unless you plan to move it around constantly. One of the beautiful things about using standardized containers is that there is enormous existing infrastructure for hire to move them about. You can put them on a truck, a train, or a boat easily and economically take them almost anywhere you want. You can even have them lifted by helicopter or crane with no modifications or special equipment.
If you're going to have a home built into it, you're talking about some real weight there.
Real things have real weight. Unlike this stupid pod however it would actually be functional for something more than glamping.
All this wandering isn't all that eco, it takes energy to drag a house around.
Sure it does but if you are wandering there presumably is a reason you are doing it. A standardized container is FAR more economical and eco-friendly than this stupid egg pod thing.
You can have that now: get a travel trailer and put some solar cells and a small wind turbine on it. I guarantee you it's cheaper and better designed. Get a four season one if you want to stay in it in the winter. And unlike this tiny "house" that violates code just about everywhere, you can actually find a place to put a travel trailer.
I could easily go off-grid. In fact, the grid is so unreliable here that I am virtually off-grid now. I put power into the grid pretty much constantly. I get credits and I understand that I can sell them. I am going to see if I can donate them after the end of this year.
Off-grid? There are still people in my state who have outhouses and no electricity at all.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The only advantage from square architecture is that it maximizes volume ... WHEN FILLED WITH EASILY AVAILABLE RECTANGULAR furnishings. But those furnishings themselves waste the corners. No one uses the back left and right corners of a chair. No one can every make full use of the corner piece is a wall to wall bookshelves.
As this pod comes with it's own furnishings, it does not have the major problem that you foolishly overlook in all rectangular housing. The oval shape does not waste a single bit of volume internally. Everything is accessible.
But that isn't why it's oval. The reason why the external shape is oval is because such a shape is far more storm resistant Wind and rain does not have a single surface to push against. The wind coming directly at the north side pushes the center directly back, but an inch to the left it pushes back and slightly to the right. An inch to the right pushes back and slightly left. The right/left forces meet in an arch, cancelling themselves out. Such a shape can withstand 10 times what a flat surface can withstand. It's called aerodynamics. Notice how planes and cars are round, not boxy. In addition, it withstands flying debris almost as well. Unless a rock happens to hit it directly head on, it is deflected by the oval shape. If you do a minimal amount of research you will discover that round houses are far more storm resistant. This applies even if the shape is merely octagonal, rather than truly round, but spherical/ovoid is the best when it comes to storm resistance.
Finally the door. It is true that the gull wing shape makes it easier to remove in a storm - if it is open. But closed, it makes for a tighter fit.
More importantly, a gull wing door makes the opening wider by the width of the door. It isn't quite as intelligent as a sliding door system, but that has some other problems.
You are correct that the standard rectangular shape is cheaper.
This shape was chosen because while more expensive, it is FAR MORE PRACTICAL. It stands up to a storm better, collects the rain better, conserves heat/cold better, and also is a far more efficient use of space - as long as it is filled with custom designed furnishings (which it comes with).
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Have you ever looked inside a kitchen cabinet? If you fill it with the normal, round plates and glasses, the corners are almost NEVER used.
I assure you I can fit more round glasses into a square cabinet with X length/width than I can a round cabinet of X diameter.
But that isn't why it's oval. The reason why the external shape is oval is because such a shape is far more storm resistant Wind and rain does not have a single surface to push against.
Unless you are planning to live in a hurricane, that's demonstrably not a meaningful problem. Most houses are square and you know what? They deal with the wind and rain just fine. Unless you are trying to make the habitat as light as possible (like for spaceflight) it is a far more sensible decision to simply built it adequately strong than to use fancy and hugely impractical round designs.
The only advantage from square architecture is that it maximizes volume
Wrong! It is easier and cheaper to build. It is simpler to repair. It is easier to modify. It can store more things with less problems. (easy to store round things in a square box but harder to store square things in a round box)
Finally the door. It is true that the gull wing shape makes it easier to remove in a storm - if it is open. But closed, it makes for a tighter fit.
"Tighter fit"? The tightness of the fit has nothing to do with where you locate the hinges. If anything it means you need stronger hinges AND a device to keep the door propped open in the up position.
You are correct that the standard rectangular shape is cheaper.
It's not only cheaper. It is easier to build, easier to repair, more practical in utility and easier to modify.
This shape was chosen because while more expensive, it is FAR MORE PRACTICAL.
It is far LESS practical. More expensive to built, harder to maintain, less flexible to use and update, and impractical to use. It requires single sourcing of custom furnishings. It's a fail on almost every level.
It stands up to a storm better, collects the rain better, conserves heat/cold better, and also is a far more efficient use of space - as long as it is filled with custom designed furnishings (which it comes with).
Tell you what. I'll use a converted shipping container and you use your stupid little people pod. I assure you that I'll withstand the storm better, I can insulate it better, I can collect rain better and more of it, and I can use whatever furnishings I want. Furthermore it will be more durable, entirely recyclable and easier to modify and fix.
Custom designed furnishings in a weird space basically means you can't change anything and if anything breaks you can't replace it easily or cheaply. Anyone who has actually owned a residence will tell you that the one thing you can be sure of is that things WILL break and wear out. This egg thing is stupid on so many levels it's hard to know where to start.
I have something similar. It's called a sail boat. Mine is roomier and moves around.
History has ended, we have arrived. A committee can figure out which variant of the solution to all problems that our ideology represents should be prescribed.
Not according to the people who actually build the things. I've read interviews with them, and they disagree with you. I'm going to do with the voice of experience rather than the voice of Slashdot, thanks.
Citation please. Twenty seconds on Google establishes that you are making crap up. While there are no doubt some corner cases where modifications are ill advised, there is no fundamental obstacle to modification while maintaining structural integrity. You may add weight but even an amateur like me could do it with little more than a welding torch and some scrap steel.
Once you put a bunch of holes and stuff in it, good luck getting it on the trailer without harming it.
That's just nonsense. We move entire conventional houses that were in no way designed to be moved without damaging anything routinely. Moving a shipping container is trivial by comparison, modified or not.
You know what else is far more economical and eco-friendly than dragging houses around the planet? Moving just the people, and a little bit of stuff, and they change which house they live in.
It is also cheaper and more eco-friendly to build one dwelling and move it than it is to build two dwellings and only occupy one. Sometimes you don't want a dwelling to be permanently located somewhere.
Shipping containers are not structurally sound once you drill a hole in one and need to be framed like a regular house if you don't want to die of suffocation.
Both problems are trivially solved with a bit of reinforcing metal and a welding torch. This has been done countless times already. Twenty seconds on Google would have established that this is not a problem. At all.
Or of boredom of being inside a black box.
You mean black boxes like these? Or these? Or these? Yeah, those are terribly boring places to be be... [/sarcasm]
No it's not illegal in much of the US. What typically is illegal is to not have a sanitary method of disposing waste or not building to local codes. Those things are done to preserve well water quality and ensure the safety, at least to some degree, of people who may be entering your house in an emergency.
Yeah, I have a custom, semi luxury, offgrid (solar) 1000sqft house. Three people can very comfortably live there, twelve people can comfortably visit. All year.
Nanu nanu!
You're not the one not getting it.
Citation please. Twenty seconds on Google establishes that you are making crap up.
Ten seconds on Google establishes that I'm not, from people who have actually done it. You can search down for 'flex' http://www.jetsongreen.com/201... here's another one on container flex, not specifically on the holes http://www.prepper-resources.c... here's a link which has some content in the comments which speaks to it directly http://www.containerhomeplans....
etc etc etc. See, when I started researching container homes, I looked into this stuff then. Years ago, mind you. And when I did my google searches, I used my standard method for controversial subjects: I tried searches which made both the assumption I wanted to make, and the one I feared.
If you cut holes in a shipping container, and want to move it afterwards, you're going to have to reinforce it. That can easily cost hundreds in materials alone, and if you don't know what you're doing, you can actually reduce the structural integrity of the container by welding it. The containers are designed to carry all the weight in their outer frames, but the sides of the container are also critical for transferring shearing forces.
I looked into this from both ends, and it's obvious you've only tried to confirm your biases.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Well it looks like it will fit nicely into a standard 20 foot container with room to spare.
How are you going to get it in there? This egg thing clearly isn't designed to be handled by common material handling equipment like forklifts or cranes.
Besides if you are going to put it in a shipping container, you might as well just convert the shipping container itself and use that instead. It'll be more practical, cheaper, more durable, easier to modify, easier to fix, more recyclable, recyclable, easier to transport, have a more sensible layout, easier to insulate, have more room for solar cells and not look as stupid.
Basically this egg thing is an epic fail on close to every level.
None of those links proves your point. The argument that you can't modify them and then safely transport them afterwards is demonstrably nonsense. It has already been done countless times.
If you cut holes in a shipping container, and want to move it afterwards, you're going to have to reinforce it.
Duh. Any time you modify a structure you're probably going to have to reinforce part of it. Doesn't matter if it is mobile or not.
That can easily cost hundreds in materials alone, and if you don't know what you're doing, you can actually reduce the structural integrity of the container by welding it.
"Hundreds"? Wow, blows my budget... And if you don't know what you are doing then don't do it. Do I really have to point that out? Sure you can do welding badly, news at 11... Anything can be screwed up but that doesn't mean it isn't possible.
I looked into this from both ends, and it's obvious you've only tried to confirm your biases.
My "biases"? Whatever dude. This discussion is finished. You clearly don't have a clue and I'm obviously wasting my time...
None of those links proves your point. The argument that you can't modify them and then safely transport them afterwards is demonstrably nonsense. It has already been done countless times.
Oh, is that what you think my point was? Because what I said was that you can't just cut holes in them and then move them, and that it can easily cost you as much as the container itself to reinforce it so that you can move it once you cut holes in it. Why didn't you just speak to the fucking point instead of inventing things to be mad about?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Seriously? Complex curves for the windows, door, sides, interior ...
Why not repurpose a shipping container dumbasses?! Epic fail.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.