CUBITAT, a 10’x10’x10′ (3-meter cube) with “plug and play elements” that seamlessly reveal and hide the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, laundry, entertainment area, and storage.
Exploring CUBITAT revealed the potential for future flexibility and mobility in the way we live, treat our “stuff,” and invest in ownership. The CUBITAT Project examines how our “stuff” and life functions could fit into a self-contained cube.
Take this concept a few steps further and consider that we could move the cube, or have it moved for us, when it was time for a change. This could foster nomadic, technology-enriched lifestyles to replace static 20th-Century retirement, stuck-on-campus university periods, and, even, office-bound career years.
Changes to lifetime cash-flow and earning requirements could be significant. If we were moving the interior functional core of home with us, we could escape the repeat expense of financing, constructing, and furnishing interior rooms with every move. Needing only to lease or own space for our “home in a box,” instead of buying an entire finished house, could help stretch income earned during four or five decades of work over our 100-years-plus lives.
CUBITAT, created by Developer Urban Capital and Venice- and Stockholm-based Nichetto Studios, is a demonstration of transformable design to explore the future of living through adaptive design.
CUBITAT demonstrates that minimal living does not necessarily mean low-square-footage living space, just a simplified system of owning and using stuff and space.
- When “small” means built-ins around the edge of a small space, stuff rules and people feel confined. Compact units with traditional kitchen, bathroom, and other areas are not necessarily cheap builds even if they are smaller.
- When “small” means compact kitchen, living, bathroom, and storage in a personalized, full-service pod, space rules. The living space around the “home-in-a-box” is flexible and airy.
Mentally moving into CUBITAT, had me thinking about moving from location to location, city to city, and country to country with my things remaining packed to go while accessible for use.
- All I would be doing is finding open space and utilities to hook up to like an interior RV park.
- At any point, my CUBITAT could be stored.
- When ready, a newly-constructed or renovated shell is all that is necessary. The costly part of construction—finishing the interior, building the kitchen and bathrooms—would be eliminated. “Buying a home” would become buying or leasing empty space.
- Shell houses and high-rises would be simpler to build and keep up-to-date.
- Gone will be the horror of getting rid of stuff, packing, moving, storing….
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