The 3X trailer deploys with the push of a button, tripling its interior space in a matter of seconds, turning a cramped road can by day into an expansive set of rooms at night.

Designed by French company Beauer, the nesting camper is about 8.5 by 6 feet in its travel-ready configuration, but the shorter dimension turns in the longer one (15 feet) when deployed.

Its fixtures conveniently slot into place, unfolding to become parts of a set of bedroom, kitchen, living and dining areas (complete with refrigerator, stove, microwave, sink and toilet).

Portable tanks for potable and gray water systems are also included. Its compact configuration is ideal not just for taking it on the road but storing it in parking spots, driveways or garages when not in use.

With a price tag of around $25,000 USD, the units may not be cheap but come packed with amenities. Currently for sale in France, plans are in place to expand sales throughout Europe and eventually around the world.

A larger variant with built-in towing vehicle (shown above) is also in development, utilizing similar space-saving and expansion strategies in addition to other caravan buildouts. Perhaps one model or another could take the action as its name: the Tripling has a nice ring to it.

Context – that is the key to taking the ordinary and making it amazing in this series of displaced homes soaring up from forgotten streets of Paris. The results float like an intentionally mundane version of Pixar’s UP, or a modern-day urban Wizard of Oz Tale.

Laurent Chehere picks a range of dwellings, but most are dilapidated and seem perhaps sad in their crowded urban environment. She takes photographs of local buildings, tents and trailers, then photoshops their surroundings into something radically new.

Some are slathered in graffiti – others shown with clotheslines in everyday use. To this, she adds a few whimsical gestures – power lines, strings of lights, earthward ladders and other odds and ends to tie down each piece like a balloon and keep it from floating away.

One consequence of ripping these from the ground and setting them in the sky is simply an enhanced focus on an otherwise-connected building. In these isolating images, townhouses become standalone works, and we start to see them differently.

Nicola L. is one of those artists who has simply been around forever. She’s known by only her first name and last initial, and she manages to bring unmistakable style to each and every thing she does. She’s been known to create performance art, films, conceptual art, and sculptures, but perhaps her most enduring form is her functional art. It’s at once whimsical and serious, serving a very real function but having loads of fun doing it.

Looking at Nicola L.’s art, it’s hard not to notice her preferred subjects: eyes, heads and snails make repeated appearances. Though she does at times visit different forms for her functional art, the human body remains a subject of continued interest for her.

Since her first solo gallery show in 1969, French-born Nicola L. has been showing her functional art in galleries all over the world. She makes her pieces – lamps, planters, fish tanks, tables and sofas – in extremely limited editions, and in 2006 she had a large retrospective show of her functional art in Ingrao Gallery in NYC.

These stylized shapes of the human head, eyes, body and limbs take on a whole new meaning when they are in the context of functional art. They become familiar and warm, but also very playful. We don’t usually see head-shaped bookcases or eye-shaped ceiling lamps, so Nicola’s pieces often inspire wide smiles as the unexpected shapes are noted by viewers.

But there is also a hint of creepiness about some of the pieces, especially those featuring eyes. The artist manages to interject that tiny bit of discomfort into these pieces that many of us are used to feeling from conceptual artists: it seems that there might just be a subtext there, but we feel like we are missing it.

The artist says that she came by functional art almost accidentally after constructing a foot-shaped sofa for her and her friends to sit on. Nicola L.’s impressive body of work spans over 40 years and is truly something to behold. And if you can afford to furnish your home with functional art, hers is some of the most timelessly impressive you’ll find.