I’ve been listening to ‘War of the Worlds’ recently. The musical, not the crappy Tom Cruise film. For those not familiar, Victorian London is attacked by Martians in big metal walking machines with heat rays. It’s got some kick ass songs, and rumour is it terrified the Americans when it was played on the radio, by starting with a fake NASA report.
This is relevant I promise. Because I came online today and came across walking houses, and I almost thought that the chances of anything coming from Mars had significantly increased. But then I realised it’s just a concept piece by Dutch designers N55 and I calmed down.
The walking house ‘is a modular dwelling system that enables persons to live a peaceful nomadic life, moving slowly through the landscape or cityscape with minimal impact on the environment. It collects energy from its surroundings using solar cells and small windmills. There is a system for collecting rain water and a system for solar heated hot water. A small greenhouse unit can be added to the basic living module, to provide a substantial part of the food needed by the Inhabitants. A composting toilet system allows sewage produced by the inhabitants to be disposed of. A small wood burning stove could be added to provide CO2 neutral heating. Walking house forms various sizes of communities or walking villages when more units are added together. Walking house is not dependant on existing infrastructure like roads, but moves on all sorts of terrain.’ (website)
So essentially an environmentally friendly, very souped up caravan then. It was actually designed after consultation with a nomadic group in Cambridgeshire, and commissioned by the Cambridgeshire based Wysing Arts Centre, and seems to be a way to improve upon the traditional Romani lifestyle. It’s stabilised by six legs, three of which are always on the floor at any given time while walking. It does only move at 60 meters per hour, apparently a similar speed to a human, but if you fancy the sedate lifestyle it does sound rather nice.
One walking house is big enough for a family of four (although the designers do envision ways to make it big enough for larger families) and looking at the concept art, the hexagonal shape appears to allow stacking of a group, so you essentially have a movable block of flats.
Might be a good idea considering the growth of the homeless population. And if you decide you want to move to greener pastures, or you simply dislike your neighbour, then there’s nothing to stop you toddling off into the sunset. I wonder if they have WiFi…?
Read the whole story at N55’s website.