Italian architect Renzo Piano has come up with a small, simple-living home design that is less of a shiver shack and more of a one-person, off the grid castle – and, if you’re in themarket for a “tiny house”and you have an eye for going off-grid, you’ll want to pay attention, because it doesn’t get much better than this.
As you might know, I live in the Southern hemisphere, and winter has begun to hit us in full force. Driving up a rural road recently, I saw that someone had put up a sort-of “rent-a-shack” on the side of a local field road. My first thought was, “That would beSOcold this winter- and cramped- and, well, frankly miserable.”
The type of cheap and small accommodations that I typically see in tiny house blogs aren’t something that I think will inspire typical middle-classers to sell their townhomes for. The insulation in these tiny shacks is almost non-existent, and most of them come without cooking or heating facilities. However, Renzo Piano has designed a single person home that would not only be comfortable to live in, but would provide all the comforts of a larger house.
It’s officially called the Diogene Micro Home, and it demonstrates how clever thinking can pack a huge punch in a small space. Piano turned to solar panels and boiler tanks to take care of electricity for the refrigerator, electric stove, and water heater. Fold-up furniture provides plenty of flexible living space inside, and water tanks collect water for later use. Speaking storage, the Diogene has clever storage spaces tucked into the ceiling, walls, and even the floor!
As I look at the pictures of Piano’s Diogene, I think that this would be a place that I would love to sit out the long winter … or (in the “new Insteading” spirit), the end of the world.
No word, yet, on whether Renzo Piano’s Diogene design will reach full-scale production as a flat-pack home, be sold as plans, or what – but if we hear more, we’ll let you know!
Source | Photos:New Atlas
Where’s the Jacuzzi and granite counter tops?