Living in Beta: The Mobile Hexahome

I used to live in a treehouse in Berlin, but now I’ve got a family. The design brief for a good quality shelter and base for living has changed. The Mobile Hexahome will be our first prototype house, and is still very much a work in progress. If you want to keep up to date, please subscribe to our newsletter or check into this blog for updates.

At present we are in the early stages of prototyping, we’re hoping to develop the prototype to a stage we can live in it during POC21 whilst living with other makers at a castle in France – life is hard ;). The images shown are MK1. MK2. is underway, taller and simpler in design and assembly.

The Hexahome opens from a box trailer 4.8 m x 2.4 m to create a 40 – 45 sqm living space which is comfortable and fit for myself and 2 princesses ;).

Mobile Hexahome – Folded.

Mobile Hexahome – Unfolded Side View

The Hexahome will feature a range of sustainable technologies, creating a luxurious space that shows that it’s possible to minimise our environmental footprint, whilst enjoying a good quality of life.

Because the Hexahome is based on Open Source Technologies, it will be possible to build your own, or customise the design to better suit your needs. The  core design is based on the Hexayurt system designed by Vinay Gupta for refugees and disaster relief. It is widely used at Burning Man. It’s been a pleasure to build on Vinay’s work and borrow his brain for this project.

For the inside, there will be a composting toilet that will feed a Vermiculture compost bin and/or Biogas system to provide energy for cooking and/or for plant growth. This will also be used for our organic waste. One big challenge with this is pathogen destruction – AKA killing the bad stuff in the poop. To kill the bad stuff we’ll need to pasteurise the poop – so we’ll need to incorporate a hot box somewhere in the process. Again Vinay has some great insights on both natural heating, and efficient energy use. I believe my friend Amin’s Insulangel product could be hacked to monitor such systems remotely for peace of mind.

The Grey Water from washing will be used for feeding plants (we’ll use an appropriate detergent), and perhaps filtered back through the system (at least for washing). For indoor growing solutions I’m thinking of a series of these wheels – but to make them thinner, and use the wheels to distribute water to grow spaces in the gaps.

The shower will be solar heated, and I intend to hook up some solar panels and perhaps wind energy in the long term. In the even longer term I’d like to convert a classic car to electric power and use that to transport the house.

The idea with the Hexahome is that we can feel at home wherever we are, as we explore where we might want to settle – if indeed we do. On another level we hope to create a space that demonstrates that living in a way that benefits the environment and others is not only feasible, but desirable and accessible. However “Home” is more than a house, or a physical location. To be “Home” is to be around people who you feel comfortable with. So this unit is intended to be one design of many, each adapted to the needs of friends who will travel with us as a part of a larger ever shifting community.

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