Alternative Homes

In a country with 3.4 million empty homes (of a total 11 million in the EU), architects Aixopluc have created a solution to quickly and affordably make an abandoned property habitable. They call it “Homeful” and it’s a modular furniture system that can be reconfigured to make small spaces serve multiple purposes.

David Tapias and Ricard Pau installed their first experimental home inside a former photographer’s studio that had been vacant for 2 years. To maximize the 50-square-meter (538-square-foot) space they placed all the installations to one side - kitchen, sinks, toilet and shower- leaving the rest of the space open for a dining table and an indoor cabin that they call a “tiniest house”, which is exactly the size of a bed.

The Tiniest House, as well as the Homeful “enclosures” (walls, floors, ceilings, doors) and cabinets are created from plywood boxes that can be assembled and disassembled by hand.
The system relies on wooden pegs which serve many functions: sliders for drawers, support for shelving or tabletops, hooks for kitchenware and knobs for cabinets.

The stand-alone furniture in the home - chairs, tables, benches, stools - is built from LEGO-like CNC-cut pieces that fit together without glue or screws and can be rearranged to go from chair to table to bench to tiny house.

René Douma and his mom Marianne began building houses into the hillside on the family farm without any experience in underground construction. Relying on books and online forums, they excavated a knoll behind their farmhouse and used 45 acacia trees from the property to shore up the walls and roof. After a waterproofing layer of asphalt fabric, they coveted the homes with dirt and waited for the native grasses to grow back.

Today, the twin homes are invisible from three sides; only the glass facade is visible from down the hill. Everything follows the slope of the land and shape of the wood beams so nothing is linear. The windows and curtains were handmade to fit the site. Even the beds were built using acacia branches.

After completion, Marianne noticed one winter day that the sun had heated the south-facing space to 27°C (81°F) and decided to move from the drafty farmhouse to the 30m2 (323 sq ft) burrow for the winter. Her farmer neighbors started calling her the marmot, but she loved the cozy space and felt enveloped in a blanket. Given their southern exposure, the homes are heat­ed in the win­ter by the sun and cooled in the sum­mer through the ground.