A design firm called Casagrande Laboratory is discovering inventive approaches to make housing in urban areas with limited land, beginning with Helsinki. Fast Company reports that the organization has been attempting to make a unit that will fit into smaller and smaller spaces. Specifically, a parking area. The association’s founder, Marco Casagrande, revealed to FC that automobiles have been ruling city designs for too long.
“The city is not designed because of humans–it’s designed because of cars,” he explained. “All the streets in cityscapes are based on car dimensions. This I found a little bit strange. We have all this talk about the density of cars getting less and less in cities, and at the same time, we are talking about people moving into cities . . . but we don’t have space to build. Nobody has been questioning car parking spaces. They are everywhere. So this talk about no land to build in cities is nonsense: It’s everywhere, but it’s just for cars.”
Their first attempt is Tikku, a prototype created for Helsinki Design Week that measures 8 feet by 16 feet, yet has three livable floors.
A strong type of engineered timber, according to Casagrande, was the key to easily building the prototype.
“I would like to emphasize how easy it was,” he said. “It’s almost ridiculous. Usually, building a house is really a pain in the ass, and it takes so much effort . . . In this case, it just popped up.”
The tiny apartment runs on solar panels, and the wood was designed specifically with insulation in mind. They’re still working on implementing running water, but changes are coming soon. The logic behind the project, as it is missing some “essentials of everyday living,” is that these apartments would go up in urban areas with proximity to gyms, laundromats and take out.
The hope is to create interchangeable units which allow people to design a tiny house to their own needs. The version about features a work floor, a sleeping floor as well as a greenhouse on top. Casagrande is asking for people to expand their minds about where houses can go.
“Out of these Tikkus I could build 10,000 homes behind any Ikea,” he suggested. “Or if you have parking spots on top of your supermarket, these things are so light, you can easily build a city there.”
The firm is already getting orders, and if you’re wondering, it costs about $40,000 to create a three story unit. That’s about the cost of a car. Now you just have to pay for the parking space.
“Out of these Tikkus I could build 10,000 homes behind any Ikea,” he suggested. “Or if you have parking spots on top of your supermarket, these things are so light, you can easily build a city there.”
The company is already getting orders, and if you’re wondering like we were, it costs about $40,000 to create a three-story unit. That’s about the cost of a car. Now you just have to pay for the parking space.
