The ability to situate a home in any context according to needs, employment opportunities, or migration patterns underscored the development of the mobile home in the USA, the minimum dwelling in Europe and the plug-in pod in post-war Japan and beyond. The small portable house is a recurring figure in response to crises. The tiny house movement is spawning current attempts to bridge mobility and domestic comfort.
Developed in Slovakia by the Ecocapsule startup founded by Igor Zacek, Sona Pohlova & Tomas Zacek (Nice and Wise, architects) in 2015, the egg-shaped micro-dwelling can be set anywhere on its leveling supports. Completely self-sufficient, the unit is powered by solar panels covering the elliptical roof and an optional wind turbine for supplemental power. Deployed as a fixed camper, mobile office, pop-up accommodation or a research station, the off-grid microarchitecture will suit different functions and sites over its lifespan.
It's not clear how many of these units have been produced and it may be archived as another marginal prefab experiment. Like many previous capsules, the 8m2 space is structured by a steel chassis covered with aerodynamic composite fiberglass skins. Appearing more like a vehicle than a building in its renderings, it federates current and postwar prefab quiddity defining buildings as products. The ellipse’s two centers arrange the plan. An entry leading to a camper like kitchen and bathroom, including a WC shower and small sink define the first while a foldable bed, table and a small storage space envelop the second focal point. The flexible built-in furniture can transform a workspace into a sleeping space. The interior is molded into the egg-shaped form establishing a comprehensive product / human ergonomic integration.
Similar in discourse to Kisho Kurokawa’s, now dismantled, Nagakin Capsule Tower from the early 1970s, some 50 years later, the Ecocapsule takes the idea one step further by including complete self-sufficiency. Suggesting an untethered lifestyle, the only element that seems to be missing from this complete dwelling pod is an integrated form of mobility and a capacity for aggregating multiple units into inhabitable clusters.
Ecocapsule set in a landscape
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