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High-tech cocoon

 

In the 75-square-foot Micro Compact Home (foreground), every space performs double duty. The bed folds down over the dining area (below), and with the door closed, the entrance becomes a shower. The unit incudes a kitchen, a toilet, LED lighting, and flat-screen TVs. Photos: © Dennis Gilbert

 

The only house that was faster to install was the diminutive Micro Compact Home, or MCH, for short. At just 75 square feet and 2.2 tons, the timber-framed, aluminum-over-plywood-clad MCH [record, April 2007, page 165] was transported from its Uttendorf, Austria−based manufacturer by container ship and then by pickup truck to the MoMA lot. The installation team secured the unit's three-legged base to its foundations and connected it to a power supply in less than four hours.

Horden envisions a vertical village of MCH units. Photo courtesy Tim Wessbecher

The cocoonlike MCH is intended to provide "short stay, smart living" for one person, or 1.5 people counting the occasional guest, according to Richard Horden, a principal at London-based Horden Cherry Lee. Horden, along with Munich-based Haack + Höpfner Architects, designed the house.

Inside the MCH, every space performs double duty. For example, the bed folds down over the dining area, and when the door is closed, the entrance morphs into a shower. The house also includes a kitchen, a toilet, and two flat-screen televisions.

The 8-foot-8-inch cube not only has a minimal physical footprint, but also a small carbon footprint. Taking into account appliances, LED lighting, air-conditioning, and heating, the unit would require about 86 square feet of PV panels and a small wood pellet stove in order to operate off the grid in Central Europe, according to Horden.

The MCH is already commercially available for about $78,000, and 15 units have been produced to date. Seven are being used for housing at the Technische Universität of Munich. Horden, who teaches at the school's department of architecture, stays in one two nights of each week.

The MCH could be grouped or clustered to form a high-rise or a Family Compact Home (FCH). For the single-family version, Horden suggests that children have their own units, complete with kitchen. "So that they learn to manage on their own," he says, reminding us that the cute cube has a serious agenda. "There are social implications," he says.