Popup Inspiration! Multipods Popup House

by Alastair Cameron

A you have probably noticed every now and then we like to go a little off point here at Startacus…as the old saying goes - variety is the spice of life. We also like to give an inordinate amount of space over to all demonstrations and manifestations of the popup phenomenon. We love it all - from popup shops to popup villages, once we pop we just can't stop (no copyright infringement intended).

During our most recent exploration of the world of popup we came across something that stretches the boundaries of ‘popup’ to whole new levels of marvellousness.

A popup house!

Not a children’s playhouse, or temporary ‘melts to the ground’ at the first mention of rain’ popup house, but a real, fully habitable, water tight, structurally sound, honest Abe human habitation space!

Multipod Studios is the company responsible for our excitement as they have designed and created houses/offices which can be built with minimal effort, are environmentally friendly, affordable, eco efficient and fully recyclable!

How does it work?

The concept is so simple, it makes you wonder why it has taken until now for someone to come up with it!  Basically you can build an entire building (floor, walls, ceiling) by piecing together lightweight, durable insulation blocks and separating them with wooden boards.  Practically anyone can build it because it requires no specialist skills and a very minimal arsenal of tools (power drill, circular saw and hot wire) - from the video you will see it’s much like building a 120m2 Ikea desk!

What else do we like about it?

• It’s a ‘passive house’ - this term was a bit of a head-scratcher for us, but we have learned it basically means a building whose energy consumption per square metre is very low - specifically less than 15 kWh/m²/year.  For Multipods popup house this is achieved by its thermal insulator construction material, air-tightness and ability to capture lots of the sun's natural energy.  

• It’s pretty affordable - including labour (if you need it) - it costs about 200 Euro per square metre - we’ll let you do the maths…

• It’s recyclable - we are not really sure why you would want to recycle your amazing new home, but if you did, it can be deconstructed as easily as it was built and either put back together in another location or recycled.  
  
  

There is one piece of bad news that comes along with this story…Multipod’s popup house isn't commercially available yet. The team have built two prototypes to demonstrate the concept and have just filed an international patent on the technology.  Fingers crossed we will have more news to bring you about this great popup innovation!

If like us you are intrigued by all things ‘popup’ you might like to take a look at some of these recent articles on the subject;

• The lost and found popup
• ISO Spaces, the popups made from recycled shipping containers
• Falcon Enamelware’s cardboard popup shop ...and many more popup inspired articles! 

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• #popup
• #pop up
• #inspiration
• #innovation

Published on: 12th May 2014