This article was first published in the September 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online
This home is made to disappear. Designed by Austrian studio Delugan Meissl, the two-person housing unit, Casa Invisibile, can be lifted from its foundation and moved to a different location in a couple of days. The 3m x 14m x 3m prefabricated wooden structure is designed to slot snugly inside a commercial truck. "When we built our first prototype, it was loaded on to a lorry and transported to the spot we had chosen," says Dietmar Feistel, one of the studio's partners. "You just need to prepare some kind of foundations, and connect it to the water and electricity systems. It took only one day to set the house up."
Casa Invisibile's ceiling, walls and floor each consist of three layers of timber glued together to combine strength and insulation. "We didn't think about it as a permanent house," Feistel explains. "It's more of a holiday home." He adds that the building could also be fitted with wheels and transformed into a mobile home to circumnavigate housing laws: "In Austria, you can't move a real house without authorisation, but a mobile house can be placed anywhere in the landscape."
Now the studio is looking for a manufacturing partner to produce the Casa Invisible to a larger scale. The challenge is in keeping the finished product cheap and customisable. "Maybe consumers would like to use a different material for the interior, say, or to make it bigger or smaller," Feistel says. "We want to provide more choices."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
