Design your life to include more money, health and happiness with less stuff, space and energy.

Design your life to include more money, health and happiness with less stuff, space and energy.

Bicycle-Powered Nomadic Housing

Maybe it’s the cooling temperatures, or the fact this author has been hanging out at home too much as of late, but there’s been a ton of talk about nomadic living on this site as of late. Last week, we looked at Foster Huntington, a full-time-camper-pickup-living-nomad and bon vivant. While I definitely dig his lightweight setup, one question has always troubled me about his and all petrol-fueled mobile living arrangements: what do you do in the event of a complete societal meltdown? Really, when SHTF, it’s going to be tough to move your ICE-powered home to more favorable environs if gas costs $20/gallon or is simply unavailable. (C’mon, I can’t be the only one thinking these things).

Resilient nomad housing would have to have minimal grid-dependence, which is why we dig the Taku Tanku concept by Japanese design firm Stereotank so much. It’s a trailer that’s minimal enough to be towed by foot or bicycle. If we were ever to face a Mad Max dystopian reality, we’d want this as our home way more than some 454 V8-powered behemoth.

The Taku Tanku is designed to sleep 2-3 people and carry a bit of luggage. It can be made of lightweight, off-the-shelf materials; its main structure being two 3K liter water tanks. There’s really not that much more to it.

tricycle_house

This is not the first time we’ve seen human-powered nomadic housing. The Tricycle House, was, as the name implies, a house affixed to a tricycle. Unlike Taku Tanku, a Tricycle House was built. Each house has its merits. We suspect the Tricycle House’s flexible folding, accordion structure, while lightweight, might not be as durable at Taku Tanku’s. The Tricycle House is smart because it’s designed to be used in tandem with a trike-powered garden, making sure you can tow your food source in case things get nasty. If S really did HTF, it’d be good to work through these important considerations ahead of time…just saying.

Via Gizmag