An unfamiliar sight welcomed returning students at Technical University Munich this fall: somebody shrank the dorm hall. A cluster of seven sleek Micro-compact Homes, the O2 Village, debuted to press fanfare and curious onlookers in Germany. In the rarely innovated architecture of student housing, one could hardly have found a surer way to make a splash.
An academic creation from the start, the Micro-compact Home design has been the brainchild of instructor-architect Richard Horden and his students. The cube structure, which sits lightly upon and contours to its landscape, is a marvel of miniaturized mobile architecture and a careful distillation of showroom-calibre living space. Students, faculty and guests will be breaking in the O2 Village this academic year.
“People thought we were mad,” architect and project partner Lydia Haack noted when the high concept residences were first proposed to German housing authorities, as government officials scoffed at the possibility of engineering for such miniaturized architecture. The reduced space allowed for the design team to minimize design compromises, however, and so students can enjoy a plasma television and a fully appointed, highly adaptable interior.
Richard Horden, the lead designer, drew inspiration equally from the interiors of the Swissair Airbus and post-2001 BMWs as he did from the Japanese tea house. The result is a streamlined, ascetic vision, a still from Woody Allen’s Sleeper come to life for its inhabitants—wherever their travels take them. Alternate designs include a tree of the nest-like homes.
The high-quality, small-footprint design appeals to a much broader audience, Horden adds, who envisions micro-compact housing comprising in-situ surfing or snowboarding cabins, an Olympic press village, or, thanks to the included tow equipment, an RV. Haack has even fielded early requests from admiring faculty wanting their own. Just don’t call it a student ghetto.
[Ref: http://microcompacthome.com/index.php]
[Ref: http://microcompacthome.com/projects/?con=o2]
