Outward Mobility: Clever Campers, Trailers & DIY Mobile Home Conversions

[ By WebUrbanist in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

The 20th-century American dream of suburban houses and picket fences unfolded in parallel with another vision: freedom to roam, embodied in camper vans and other mobile housing designs. The increasing costs of city living and desire to escape nine-to-five life has since led to a new generation of creative solutions, ranging from converted camper vans and buses to space-saving sleeping trailers that can be towed behind cars or even two-wheeled vehicles.

DIY & Professional Van Home Conversions

Many mobile living creations of this new millennium are actually adaptations of existing vehicles, including do-it-yourself van rehabs as well as professional remodels.

Some are cheap, simple and use recycled materials while others feature more luxurious amenities and higher levels of finish — as with most things, you get what you pay for, whether in dollars or sweat equity.

The more modest exterior appearances of some such livable vans can be deceiving – many stealth campers and DIY RVs include solar-paneled roofs, custom wood trim, flip-down window covers and even flip-up computer desks designed for digital nomads. Many of these features can be all but invisible from the outside.

Livable City & School Buses Transformations

Wanderers requiring more room for extravehicular activities may require something bigger but presumably still street legal, making buses a natural option for larger-scale mobile makeovers. A city bus has its advantages, including expansive windows for those seeking extra sunlight.

Meanwhile, plain old yellow school buses offer benefits as well, including more standardized design elements to work with. These can be turned into expansive pads of all kinds, whether they are fitted with elegantly curved plywood or sliced, diced and topped with rustic timber frames.

Modular Sleeping Trailers Make More of Less

 

Not everyone can afford the time or money to buy or convert a van or bus. For those who need something smaller that can be hitched to a more traditional vehicle, there are still a lot of clever ways to get the most out of limited trailer space, including pop-outs and auto-expanding rooms that deploy on demand.

Flaps, wings and other folding elements can help bring more outdoor space in, extending interiors to include sheltered zones beyond the limits of whatever one has in tow.

Even a surprisingly small trailer can pack a lot of utility, including running water, power outlets, USB ports and LED lights — some even feature a full modular kitchen for a bit of light glamping. Mounted toolboxes, roof racks and cargo decks can help expand their functionality as well.

Bicycle, Motorcycle & Other Small-Space Trailers

Choosing to ride a bike instead of driving a car doesn’t have to mean foregoing the convenience of a camper trailer, though such options may require especially clever construction (not to mention physical endurance) in place of motorized assistance (or at least: an electric assist bicycle).

Bigger Rig Renovations & Off-the-Rails Creations

 

There may be rules to the roads, but there are practically no limits to the creativity of people who want to live their lives on them. Beyond the realm of conventional conversions are all kinds of creative cars, vans and trucks that are effectively inhabitable art.

Rolling Master Plans & Dreams of Nomadic Futures

It goes without saying that no one knows what the future of mobility will look like, but imagine for a moment a kind of city on rails made up of modules that could be moved from one place to the next, all running on existing train tracks. Consider the advantages for migratory seasonal markets, mobile concert venues and other businesses and events that benefit from moving around throughout the year, embracing a sort of perpetually nomadic urbanism. Hotels, restaurants and other commercial operations see changes in demand throughout a given year and and could conceivably pull up stakes to seek out better opportunities.

It may be an exercise in fantasy, but one has to wonder: what would the world look like if more people could take their architecture with them as they traveled? Between food trucks and container homes and other modular living solutions, not to mention the rise of autonomous vehicles, this prospect is in some ways already grounded in the real world around us. As more and more people move ever more often, working remotely and take their homes and businesses on the road, new typologies for portable spaces will no doubt continue to emerge and surprise us along the way.

The post Outward Mobility: Clever Campers, Trailers & DIY Mobile Home Conversions first appeared on WebUrbanist.

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[ By WebUrbanist in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

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Localvore Revolution: Vertical Urban Farms Promise to Deliver Greener Produce

[ By WebUrbanist in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

In Newark, New Jersey, a large and deceptively nondescript building is redefining the Garden State, producing millions of pounds of food per year just outside of Manhattan. This 70,000 square foot facility has the equivalent yield of over 5 million square feet of traditional farmland. Inside, a year-round, closed-loop aeroponics system employs no pesticides and requires 95% less water than field farming. This branch of AeroFarms is not alone — it’s part of a food production revolution with projects ranging from at-home and in-store micro-farms to massive facilities set up in old factories and warehouses around the world.

Technically, vertical farming can be done outside, too, by stacking planters in natural sunlight, but indoor vertical farms offer a range of advantages. Inside, there are no seasons and specialized LED lights make it possible to grow plants continuously and cycle through various crops more easily. The controlled environment and standardization of these systems also makes automation easier. In Japan, approaches have gone predictably high-tech, with endeavors like the Vegetable Factory, which is operated entirely by robots.

Spatial containment makes recycling more efficient, mitigates spoilage and reduces the risk of diseases and pests spreading beyond a specific facility. Transportation costs and energy requirements are also reduced for farms that move into old factories and warehouses right in and around cities, putting them closer to consumers. Aeroponics in general also require less material input — mainly mist and air with minimal water and soil — leading to a lighter footprint.

What started in large and independent facilities has begun to spread into mainstream grocery stores and supermarkets, too. A few years back, Target started testing direct retail micro-farms, beginning with leafy greens before moving to tomatoes, peppers and more. Since these kinds of retail spaces are climate-controlled already for the sake of both shoppers and products, less added energy is required to maintain ideal conditions.

In Berlin, a company called INFARM recently partnered with local shops to provide similar in-store services, cutting down on farm-to-table distance right in the heart of a major European metropolis. Meanwhile, in Tokyo, vertical creepers, rice paddies and broccoli fields were integrated into the design of an otherwise Modern-looking office building, brightening up the place while also providing food for the employee cafeteria.

Taking vertical integration a step further, projects like the ReGen Villages aim to incorporate stacked farms directly into residential communities. It may sound impractical or even Utopian, but at its root the idea is relatively traditional: backyard gardens and community gardening are nothing new. Coupled with walkability and density, these kinds of green-centric towns have a lot in common with New Urbanist ideas that go back decades.

Still, it is generally wise to maintain a healthy skepticism when it comes to fresh green architectural trends and technologies and eye-catching renderings. Skyscrapers covered in greenery (or treescrapers), for instance, have proven to be popular but also problematic in practice (catchy conceptual earthscrapers, groundscrapers and sidescrapers, too, for that matter). Sometimes, more practical organic solutions are hiding in plain sight. Take wood, for instance, a historically popular green building material now finding new forms and reaching new heights in tall buildings around the world. Newer is not always better.

Some extreme vertical farming ideas may indeed prove to be far-fetched and unsustainable, but market movements suggest there is a future in these kinds of facilities and approaches. Investors are putting their money where people’s mouths are, buying up disused urban real estate and developing new indoor farming technologies. Already, vertical farming is a $2,000,000,000 industry and experts project it will grow as much as 30% per year over the next decade.

Vertical farms are of course not a complete solution to ongoing threats like climate change and mounting global food crises, but they do show promise — these endeavors are slowly breaking down urban and rural barriers, reconnecting cities with the food sources that sustain them and shortening that critical distance from farm to table.

The post Localvore Revolution: Vertical Urban Farms Promise to Deliver Greener Produce first appeared on WebUrbanist.

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[ By WebUrbanist in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

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