The 3 mansions shown below are owned by the same person, the richest person in the world, Elon Musk. Well, at a net worth of 240 billion dollars, he could possibly buy any kind of mansion in the world. But shockingly, on 1st of May 2020 , he announced on his twitter account that he is selling all of his real estate, and moving into a tiny, 400 square foot home. So, what’s so special about this $50,000 home? And how is this going to shape the future of the architecture that we are going to live in?

If you have already stepped into adulthood like me, there will be a time when you start thinking about getting your own home. Reality often hits hard. First of all, houses are expensive. You literally had to spend 30 years of your life paying consistently for the mortgage. There is a huge amount of cost upfront too, for the house deposit, renovation, furniture, and so on. Worst of all, you might have a heart of adventure and rather spend the money on new experiences. You don’t want to work hard for your entire life just to afford a house. Now you are in a dilemma when making decisions. Good news? This type of home might be the solution for you.

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At the beginning of the post, we talked about Elon Musk selling all of his mansions and moving into a tiny home. This home is actually different from any other houses that you saw. It is an affordable prefab home, designed by the company Boxabl, only costing $50,000. So what is a prefab home? You might ask. When you buy a house, it’s often built on site. You may see trucks transporting all the raw building materials like lumber, cement, bricks, and so on to the site, involving a group of builders doing the construction work. However, prefabricated homes are often built off-site and have been around for centuries. Depending on the construction method and mobility, there are 3 types of prefab homes.

Types of prefab home

The most expensive ones are modular homes, which are created in sections, then sent to the site for construction and installation. It has its own permanent foundation, just like the typical built on-site homes. The construction process is similar too, except that it’s faster as most of the parts are completed beforehand. The second type is a manufactured home, they are built onto steel beams and then transported to the site. It is not attached to a permanent foundation, so you can relocate the building if you want in the future. Last but not least, there are mobile homes, which are built on wheels. You can literally pull the building with a vehicle on your own.

What is Boxabl?

What’s so cool about this Boxabl company is the homes they built are foldable. This design allows it to be shipped easily, and anywhere in the world, compared to other prefabs. Also, it is completely hassle-free. Once the home arrives at the site, it just needs to be unfolded. Within hours, it’d be ready to move in. How convenient is that! The kitchen, bathroom, even electrical and plumbing are completed in the factory before shipping out. You might be considering the safety of the home, as it skipped a lot of construction steps, but let me share with you what I found out.

How Boxabl challenged the tradition

As we all know, the traditional construction method consists of lumber, hammer, and nails, while Boxabl uses concrete and steel as the main construction material. These materials don’t degrade and usually last a lifetime. Other than that, the tiny home is also strong enough to withstand tough weather, like hurricanes, floods, snow, etc. What’s better? It’s mold-resistant too. Of course, Boxabl is not the only one in this field, there are startups like Abodu, Kapana pod, and many others that are working hard on making houses more affordable and easy to build.

Even though Boxabl has only built 3 houses, 2 on-site at their headquarters and another one for a top-secret client, we are guessing it’s Elon Musk. But it already has a long waiting list of 40,000 clients and expects to deliver by the end of 2022. The company has a vision of transitioning building construction across the world, into factory assembly lines, just like any other consumer product. This could be a huge revolution if houses could be mass-produced. This vision is to solve one critical issue. As the world population grows, housing demand continues to soar. According to the UN, the global population is expected to reach 11 billion by the end of the 21st century. This results in a demand for 2 billion new homes. 2 BILLION!

So, how is this going to shape the future of the architecture that we are going to live in? Is architecture design even important anymore now that the houses could possibly be mass produced like a normal product? Well, here’s my humble opinion.

The future of architecture

A foldable home like Boxabl is not bad after all, even if it means a revolution of the way people live now. First of all, we can say that this is an ongoing trend based on the orders the company received. Houses are getting more and more expensive these days. An option that is much cheaper, stylish and innovative is definitely a tempt to many people. Secondly, considering the fact that it is more environmentally friendly, as it comes in smaller size and consumes less energy. It is because every tiny home only relies on a small air conditioning system, with a tight building envelope and limited thermal bridging to better control the indoor temperature. So it could really save you a fortune in the long run.

Last but not least, the core of Boxabl’s design is the ability to expand. So you might start with a single studio size home, and later add on another space upstairs, or an adjacent bigger kitchen / dining area. With this flexibility, one could still play around with how the spaces could be attached together, and have different forms for the building facade. Not to mention when the size of the foldable house is so small, spatial design would play a bigger role in order to create a comfortable living space for the user. And this is all a part of architecture design. One thing we have to recognize is that architecture is not all about making the building look good. It also consists of the technique that is involved in the construction progress, users’ comfort, as well as the environmental impact and sustainability of the building. So there is no need to worry my darling, architecture always has its way to make your life more fun.

So have you ever heard of foldable homes? What do you think about them? Would you buy one if they are becoming more and more common? Let me know what you think in the comments section below!

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