Work, school, rapidly changing cities and declining home ownership rates have us moving more often than ever, so the kinds of heavy antique furniture favored by older generations aren’t exactly practical in the modern world. In fact, we might become even more mobile in the future, our sense of ‘home’ tied more to a handful of physical objects and intangible feelings within ourselves and our loved ones than to a particular structure. For this nomadic future, designers envision minimalist, portable furniture systems that can be packed up at a moment’s notice, but retain the ability to make us feel comfortable, cozy and cocooned.

Hannabi Urban Nomad Sofa

Sofas are often among the biggest, bulkiest things we have to lug up and down stairs and cram through small doorways when we move, and they don’t usually disassemble in a way that we’d want to deal with at our destination. Enter the Urban Nomad Sofa by Hungarian furniture brand Hannabi, a modular setup consisting of stacked cushions that can be used together or separately in various configurations. Two long rectangular cushions create the base of an average-sized sofa when used together, or comfy mats when used apart. Triangular supports can be used as pillows or backrests.

Transformer Furniture 2.0 by Povilas Danius

Designs like this bedroom in a box by Povilas Danius make us wonder why IKEA isn’t already selling similar offerings. The Transformer Furniture 2.0 set packs down to the size of a bookcase but contains a twin bed, shelves, lighting, underbid storage and a closet system with a built-in shoe organizer. Packing it up takes seconds thanks to a few hinges.

Nomadic Life Set by Gerardo Osio

The concept of taking the feeling of home with you wherever you go manifests in beautifully simple physical objects with Nomadic Life by Gerardo Oslo, a collection of comforts that can make all the difference when you’re in an unfamiliar environment. It includes a pillow, tatami mat and a wooden box with a lid that doubles as a tray containing copper tableware, a candleholder and a flower vase.

Sweet Seat by Dear Human

Sweet Seat is a modular furniture system by Dear Human that can be a squishy chair or an extra bed for houseguests, all in a simplified minimalist package. The upholstered cushions are held together by elastic bands when stacked, and you simply remove them when you want to stretch out.

Next Page - Click Below to Read More:
Nomadic Futures 12 Home Design Solutions For Changing Urban Lifestyles

Coming to Austin next year, this mobile housing strategy takes portable living out of trailer parks, plugging you straight into the city grid and allowing you to easily hop metropolises on demand (at the tap of an app). Denver, Portland, Brooklyn, Stockholm, Seattle, Chicago, Los Angeles and Manhattan are also on the list.

Kasita has created a system of prefabricated units that pack hideaway furniture but also a full kitchen, washer and dryer into a 208-square-foot living space. The real trick, though, is in the supporting framework – a grid-like structure into (and out of) which these units slot.

More than just a wrapper for a box, these allow external elements like staircases for circulation, patios and decks to remain in place while the core modules move around.

Initial deployment will take place in Austin, Texas, and the units will cost $600 a month, but as they roll out in other cities, the project will take on an additional dimension. Eventually, users will be able to swap into new slots in other cities on short notice and without packing a thing.

A collaboration between Professor Jeff Wilson, a teacher already famous for living in a tiny dumpster for a year, and Frog, an industrial design firm, this project was inspired as much by the sleek simplicity of the iPhone as it was by other container-type home projects.

Tucked into an historic winding Hutong of Beijing, this work of convertible architecture featuring a modular moving wall to make maximum use of flexible interior and exterior space on demand.

The so-called Humble Hostel by Chinese architect Cao Pu is a tiny 130-square-foot apartment with beds that can be rented out for just $20 a night. Its novel modular nature is a reflection of complex courtyard politics of these intertwined neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, over the centuries in China the lines have become blurred regarding ownership of communal open pedestrian space shared by the aged dwellings that surround them, attached organically over time to branching streets, paths and alleys.

In pulling back the facade of the structure, the design effectively gives space back for public use when the interior volume is not needed, creating space for seating and socializing in otherwise cramped quarters. The resulting roofed patio can host card games, a tea table, pop-up shop or temporary bar.

This prototype could herald potential applications in all kinds of close-proximity housing situations involving small-space dwellings. Future buildings might include this technology from the ground up, reshaping the way we think about architectural flexibility.

Next Page - Click Below to Read More:
Wall On Wheels Sliding Facade Swaps Indoor For Outdoor Space

A proposal by an international architecture firm would reduce travel time in the London Underground, not with faster rail cars but by using people movers of the kind generally found in airports. Closing the loop on questions of congestion, this strategy would stop trains in their tracks.

Aimed at the congested Circle Line looping through the heart of the city, the design from NBBJ Architects incorporates three parallel walkways moving at different speeds (up to a maximum of 15 miles per hour). That may sound slow until you consider that the top speed of the trains currently running these sections of Tube is around 20 MPH due to congestion.

Commuters and travelers would step from the slowest-moving walkway across to increasingly faster lanes, using the replacement paths to connect to work or other (generally faster) lines of the Underground. People walking down the fast lane could actually end up moving more quickly than a train. Others could potentially sit down along one side on fold-down seats (as with an escalator railing, these would speed along at the same pace as the track below).

While the odds of implementation are slim, the data is compelling – the system could accommodate more passengers than the current trains and would eliminate the frustration of waiting in queues. The Circle Line in particular is infamous for delays, with an average of 10 reported per day.

Christian Coop of NBBJ cites a challenge from think tank New London Architecture for the inspiration to create these strange proposal. If nothing else, it might be something to consider for the vast expanses of derelict underground rail space running through the city.

Will the cities of tomorrow be filled with intelligent kinetic architecture that moves and transforms of its own accord, as if it has a life of its own? The designers of these 16 structures seem to think so, whether they’re making use of ancient pulley-powered systems or engineering remarkably responsive auto-adaptations to change the look of a structure, shield it from the sun, or make it seem like a living creature in a bid to foster deeper connections between humans and architecture.

Adaptable Snow Cone Lifeguard Station

Modeled on a pine cone, this lifeguard post by RAW Design, Ferris + Associates and Curio adapts to weather conditions on Toronto beaches. The white ‘petals’ can move to either offer shade during the hot summer months or to collect snow in the winter for extra insulation. The petals can also be retracted on one side and closed on the other to guard against heavy winds but still let sunshine in. It was fabricated in three weeks and then re-assembled on-site within 6 hours.

Penumbra Adaptive Window Shading System

The Penumbra system by Tyler Short is “designed to offer a kinetic and mechanical solution to a problem that would otherwise be nearly impossible to solve with static architectural components: providing shading across a building facade for both low evening sun and high afternoon sun conditions.” The various kinetic elements of the shade system can shift in different ways to deflect light as needed.

Moving Parts by Olson Kundig Architects

A home with a roof that opens vertically, an art gallery with a hoist-and-pulley facade and a ‘virtually indestructible’ cabin with operable steel panels are among the kinetic projects by Tom Kundig of the firm Olson Kundig. The architect says early exposure to mining, logging and farming industries led to a lifelong fascination with machinery, which he has integrated into all sorts of architectural projects. The idea is to move something large using very little energy, encouraging user participation in the transformation of the space in concert with geometry and physics.

Next Page - Click Below to Read More:
Architecture Thats Alive 16 Transforming Kinetic Buildings