These Futuristic Mobile Homes Combine Green And Tiny Living
Slovenian company Smartdome is making futuristic, modular homes that are as mobile as trailers and as futuristic as a floating neighborhood home on "The Jetsons."
Updated May 27 2019, 2:21 a.m. ET
A new take on the tiny home draws on the future for its inspiration. A Slovenian company called Smartdome has created futuristic structures that are as unimposing as tiny homes, as mobile as trailers, and so futuristic they would be at home inside the Biosphere 2 or floating in some space neighborhood down the road from the Jetsons family. And you can have your very own modular, mobile, minimalist Smartdome for the price of a brand-new economy car.
The future is fascinating.
Resembling geodesic domes, Smartdome follows in the footsteps of Shelter Tent Manufacturing Co., Pacific Domes and Glitz Camp, all of which sell dome structures for camping, gardening, living, and entertaining. The main difference is the universality of Smartdomes and their DIY-style design allowing owners to change the domes around, move them, and disassemble or reassemble them as easily (or nearly as easily) as a camping tent.
The company has come up with four kinds of Smartdomes: aqua, sky, snow, and tree. Each is designed to work with outside elements. Smartdome’s intention is to make “thematic villages” possible—imagine an Alpine ski village or Hobbit compound in the middle of the woods. Because the domes are modular, it’s possible to anchor the structures’ galvanized steel stilts into almost any setting, from slopes to swamps.
“Our main occupation is putting up buildings in degraded areas, while taking into account their multifunctionality, mobility and modulation,” Smartdome’s website says. “The idea was based on the principles of bionic construction. The buildings are designed to blend in with their environment.”
Smartdome is principled on the idea that nature heals. “More and more people live in urban surroundings where they are exposed to constant stress,” the website says. “The best way of overcoming stress is life in nature. It means rent, construction or purchase of real estate. Rent is economically unsatisfactory, while construction or purchase of real estate ties us to a certain place for a longer period. This doesn’t suit today’s understanding of a mobile world.”
The solution? Combine technical efficiency with “careful treatment of resources and nature alike.”
Smartdome is focused on the future.
Instead of tiny homes, campers and vans that were nostalgic on the great American road trip or bohemian lifestyle, Smartdomes offer a refreshing take on the mobile life by looking forward. The modular nature of the Smartdome means each comes with the following: two-layer floors with space for electric, water, and air-recuperator installations, a vertically adjustable entrance, and pre-fabbed transparent or opaque wall modules with insulation options of 3D thermoformed polycarbonate or 150-millimeter-thick insulating mineral wool, respectively.
You can customize your Smartdome just how you’d like it, with add-ons available for Smartdome dwellers on the move so you can spend time living just about anywhere with the same basic setup.
Energy efficiency is central to making this thing work, so Smartdomes rely on their half-dome shape and modest size to heat and cool with minimal output. The domes are about 20 feet wide and 11 feet tall—and all come with double gutters for you to grow plants hydroponically regardless of whether you’ve settled in the woods, a desert or in a crowded space without land for growing.
The Smartdomes are still in their design phase, so if you want one you should start saving up for their base-model’s $23,000 price tag. To get in line first, shoot the Smartdome team a note on their contact page.
