5 Unconventional living spaces - Great examples in problem-solving

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Working as a research engineer I had to solve quite a few challenges with unconventional methods. One, I’m particularly proud of, was a little addition to a custom made silicone mold jig, that solved a multi-component mating problem. By simply adding an external frame, and rotating the entire assembly upside-down reduced the manual labor time required for the assembly, component registration, and molding from about 2 hours to less than 30 minutes. 

As architecture is one of my interests, I thought I collect a few examples where similar unconventional thinking was used to create homes and try to draw parallels between these projects and engineering and give you ideas on how they might benefit you.

5 Container - https://bit.ly/container-home-CM

Container homes are probably to most common unconventional living spaces, they’ve been around for a while, their abundance, low cost, ease of modification and combination makes them an excellent platform to create living spaces. This is an outstanding example of a well designed and built container home by Cocoon-modules. As Nastazia Spyropoulou explains in the video, the combinations of the containers are basically limitless, while also providing an easy way to transport and install them.

Modularization is a design concept used in many different disciplines, apart from architecture, a few examples are:

• Shipbuilding: where the different parts of a ship, like a cruise ship, cargo ship, naval vessel or submarine are pre-manufactured, then welded together in a shipyard. This way the building process can be parallelized and sped-up shipbuilding significantly. https://bit.ly/modular-submarine-saab by Saab, https://bit.ly/arctic-patrol-irving by Irving Shipbuilding
• Software engineering: where classes are analogous to modules in object-oriented programming. 
• Electronics: when I design a PCB with multiple submodules, I dedicate a separate schematic sheet to every logical component, making the design process very streamlined.

When facing a project I definitely recommend exploring ideas to modularize the solution and think from a system standpoint rather than a single solution standpoint. It might be an overkill for simple tasks, but as soon as the specifications grow unexpectedly, using modules pays off. 

4 School Bus - https://bit.ly/school-bus-home

Another great example of unconventional homes is a school bus that was converted to an off the grid home by a couple. The reason I like this project is that the elongated rectangular footprint of the bus greatly restricts the layout of the different rooms, much like in the previous example with the container. These constraints can be a lot of help, reducing the branching of the design concepts, on the other hand, if the constraints are too hard and numerous, they can be a source of frustration as only a handful of options are viable. 

When you face a challenge, try to identify your constraints and if you understand them, the solution might simply present itself. 

3 Diesel tank - https://bit.ly/tank-home

Martín Marro in Argentina built this personal shelter to preserve the memory of his childhood home, which was a converted gas station. Although this project is a smaller scaled shelter for shorter stays, rather than an actual home I think it is a great example of when our imagination is freed up, what extraordinary solutions it might bring to us. This tank was rusted, buried in the ground, people were driving and walking on top of it, not knowing about it, but after it was dug up and converted to a micro-living space it became useful again. What I think needs to be taken away from this, is that even something dirty, forgotten and discarded, in the right hands and in the right mind, might be the crown jewel, or the foundation of a project. 

I remember when I worked as a technician I often looked into the workshop bins for off-cuts that I turned into useful parts again. I often found large slabs of mostly aluminum, even some components like bearings and timing belt pulleys that were discarded and just waiting to get machined again and turned into something useful. 

2 Grain Silo - https://bit.ly/silo-home

This well-executed concept is yet another excellent example of how an agricultural object like a grain silo can be converted into a comfortable and well-designed home designed by Christoph Kaiser, something it was not originally designed for. The circular shape of the grain silo made some obvious constraints on the geometry of the furniture and the layout of the house which were overcome by custom-designed pieces.

This home reminds me of the lower station of the Conshelf 2 sub-sea habitat built by the famous Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the famous ocean explorer and his team in 1962, where the underwater structure had circular cross-section to cope with the water pressure. It’s very interesting how two completely different applications might have so similar solutions.

https://bit.ly/conshelf-2-short

https://bit.ly/conshelf-2-documentary The World Without Sun. A documentary by Jacques-Yves Cousteau

1 Water Pipe - https://bit.ly/pipe-home

I think the most genius solution to a reduced footprint is the concrete water pipe housing which was developed by James Law to solve the soaring property prices of Hong Kong. What I think stands out, in this case, is not only an ingenious technical solution but also scalability. The low cost, existing transportation method, and supply chain of concrete piping make this living space a scalable solution. A great lesson here is that a solution to a problem might lie right next to the existing solutions in a different form, just waiting to be used.

I remember I often got distracted and sidetracked by “beautiful” but too complicated and resource-hungry solutions to technical problems making them unfeasible. With experience, the person learns to dismiss these methods early on, and gravitate towards simplicity.

I’d like to close off with a quote from one of the most important engineers of mankind in my opinion:

Leonardo Da Vinci:

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”

Conclusion 

I hope these homes will be a motivation for you and this article will spark new ideas when facing both professional and personal challenges.

Special thanks to Kirsten Dirksen, Bryce Langston, Zillow and NeverTooSmall for providing a detailed insight into these creative building solutions.

Photos by Guillaume Bolduc, Mike Marquez, Alexandra Gorn via Unsplash, edited by Gabor Gubicza

Disclaimer: This article was not sponsored.