This Tiny Egg-Shaped House Makes It Easy To Live Sustainably Off The Grid
This new prefab has thought of every aspect of off-the-grid living and put it into an easily transported unit that's both beautiful and efficient in its design.
Updated May 17 2019, 4:26 p.m. ET
Prefabricated housing units have made so many leaps and bounds in recent years that they actually look like they're from the future. The Ecocapsule looks like it is designed to fit into the world of The Jetsons or a Star Fleet trailer park. Treehugger reports that the egg-shaped unit is designed by Bratislava-based Nice Architects. They obviously wanted something that would stimulate the imagination in every way.
According to their website, the Ecocapsule is self-sustainable; you can live off the grid and create your own power with solar and wind energy. It produces enough power to function as a charging station for an electric car. It also offers a degree of luxury. It's a "smart" house, enabled with sensors that can also connect to your smartphone. And it looks great in all sorts of settings:
It's also fairly light. The outer shell is constructed from fiberglass and aluminum, and weighs about 2976 pounds. That means with a custom trailer or some wheels, a regular car could be hooked up to drag it wherever, which means that sustainable life in any location is in reach. And the shape itself is part of the sustainability design, as it minimizes heat loss.
The power comes from a 750 watt wind turbine and panels that produce about 880 watts of solar, both of which are connected to a 10kWh battery. But what about water? They've thought of everything! A reverse osmosis filter cleans water collection from the roof. There is even a waterless toilet, which composts solids and filters out liquid.
Ecocapsule is currently trying to drum up its customer base, so they're offering some special deals on their prefabs. The first 50 ordered are on sale for € 79,900 or close to $100,000. Luxury and sustainability doesn't always come cheap, but if you're one of these early buyers the team will work to help you customize the unit to your needs.
You can also put down a deposit for a future iteration, which the makers believe will be cheaper as they get the assembly line going. Who knows, we may all be living in an Ecocapsule on a rocky outcrop someday soon. At least, that's what it looks like on the Sci-Fi channel.