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.

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Nomadic Futures 12 Home Design Solutions For Changing Urban Lifestyles

Load up a prefab cabin on a truck and drop it virtually anywhere you want to be. Rustic lodgings in remote locations aren’t what they used to be now that modern mobile housing is available in so many forms and price ranges, from tiny houses on wheels costing just $11,000 to ultra-narrow habitable garden sheds to cabins shaped like actual logs to take the typology to its extreme.

Escape Vista

The Escape Vista is a 160-square-foot, cedar and cortex steel cabin on wheels that can be towed to the location of your choice to take advantage of its many large windows offering views of your surroundings. There’s room for one or two, and despite its small size, you’ll have a bed, kitchen, dining or work table, lounge area and bathroom. The open interior is finished with aspen wood, and luxury features include solid butcher block tops, designer faucets, integrated solar power, a washer/dryer combo and a pop-up flatscreen television. It starts at $39,900.

Pircher Oberland

Hangar Design Group created this prefabricated, mobile metal-clad cabin for Picher Overland to blend into rocky mountain environments. Vertical wooden siding on either end mimics tree trunks, and the interior is lined in natural wood flooring and synthetic stone-toned tiles.

Flake House by Olgga Architects

This nomadic dwelling by Olgga Architects is like a modern take on the log cabin, camouflaged on the outside by fully-round timber siding. It stands on the site of Frossay in France, open to anybody who needs a simple shelter overnight. The proposal is “based on the concept of the ‘foil’, where the wooden structure is broken in two halves establishing a radical spatial boundary while materializing an unexpected entry sequence. an object, recalling a broken branch, whose unconventional scale is the main idea of the project: to be built-up, taken down, moved, pt down, left behind or taken along, inhabited or left to its surrounding.”

The Wedge: Luxury Rolling Cabin

This 400-square-foot luxury turnkey cabin by Wheelhaus features a spacious bedroom with a king-sized bed, standard-sized bathroom, fireplace, large windows, high ceilings and a private deck. Base prices start at $89,500.

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Mobile Cabins Go Off Grid In These 12 Rustic Modern Designs

Why stay tethered to the grid in a fixed location when you could live in a compact mobile pod that can be transported to the location of your choice? These modern capsules are what 21st-century off-grid dreams are made of, ranging from spacious self-sustaining retreats to accordion-like expanding shelters that are lightweight enough to tow behind a bicycle.

Tricycle House

Made mostly out of folded polypropylene, ‘Tricycle House’ by People’s Industrial Design Office is lightweight enough to be towed around like a bike trailer. The house can be expanded like an accordion to increase the space inside or make it more compact for travel. Translucent walls let in daylight and all amenities within – including a sink, stove, bath tub, water tank and transforming furniture – is manually powered. The firm also makes ‘tricycle gardens’ to tow alongside the house.

Egg-Like Ecocapsule

Shaped like a massive egg, the Ecocapsule by Nice Architects is a tiny off-grid living pod that’s equipped with all the comforts of home, including a bed, hot showers, flushing toilets and the capability to cook. Powered by solar panels and a built-in turbine, with a back-up battery for cloudy and still days, it can be shipped, air-lifted or towed and fits into a standard shipping container.

Diogene Hut by Renzo Piano

Designed by architect Renzo Piano for the Vitra campus in Weil-am-Rhein, Germany, the Diogene cabin offers 80 square feet for an individual occupant as a “voluntary place of retreat.” Photovoltaic panels and a rainwater retention tank make it self-sufficient, and it’s highly portable. There’s just enough room inside for a bed, table and chair.

Portable Retreat with a Roof Hatch

Three hinged panels open this two-level off-grid retreat to the sky on both the top and bottom floors, enhancing the occupant’s connection to whatever environment they’ve chosen. This mobile wooden shelter by Allergutendinge features a bunch of fold-down elements, hidden storage and a bed that doubles as a staircase to the loft.

Camouflage Stacked Wood Cabin

This ‘invisible hut’ looks like no more than a stack of logs when it’s all closed up, but a hatch on one side drops down to become the terrace for a rustic cabin. The Yeta Log Cabin by Lab Zero can be set up virtually anywhere, and as small and minimal as it is, it comes complete with a kitchen, shower, toilet and solar panels.

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Mobile Modern Modular 15 Capsules For Off Grid Living

Flimsy, factory-made RVs have nothing on these totally customized, cozy buses converted into compact rolling homes. Dusty, run-down clunkers of school buses and city buses may not look like much at first, but creative DIYers transform them into comfortable living spaces complete with wood floors, transforming furniture, wood stoves and full bathrooms with hot showers.

Waldmire Road Yacht

This amazing half-wooden contraption is a converted school bus known as the ‘Waldmire Road Yacht,’ built by Rob Waldmire, who traveled in his handcrafted creation for decades along Route 66. It’s now part of the Route 66 Hall of Fame Museum in Pontiac, Illinois.

Run-Down City Bus Converted to DIY RV

This city bus seemed beyond saving when two Israeli women initially found it, but they saw the bones of their own highly customized DIY RV. The women tore out the interior and gave it a fresh, modern new look with pops of bright color.

Bus to Minimal Mobile Home

Tired of just drafting imaginary buildings in studio courses, architecture student Hank Butitta decided to get his hands dirty: he bought a bus for $3,000 and completely transformed the interior, spending $6,000 to improve it with an array of transforming modular features. Those include a bed system that unfolds in various ways for different sleeping configurations, lots of hidden storage, and seats withs egret flip-up and slide-out panels.

School Bus Turned Home That Sleeps Ten

‘I think my mom’s reaction was, ‘this isn’t the sixties,'” says co-owner Rachel of the bus she converted with her partner Richard. It may not be conventional, but this living situation allows them to go wherever they please. Buying a school bus cheap gave them a blank canvas, and they designed every detail of their new home – which has transforming beds to sleep up to ten.

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Schools Out Forever 12 Crazy Converted Diy Mobile Homes

Prefabricated, portable and modular, the Transportable Tourist Tower (TTT) by Portuguese architect Jose Pequeno is an adaptable housing solution that can be installed on almost any site, vertically or horizontally, as a single unit or a larger stacked structure.  Capable of being made from local, recyclable materials, this nearly self-contained unit is ideal for temporary installations and sensitive building sites.

The tower debuted at the 2010 Shanghai Expo and has since made its way around the world, installed in various locations as a tourist information center. It needs as little as 10 square meters for its installation, fitting into tight spaces. It can be transported on a truck, and lifted into place with a crane.

Vertically, the Transportable Tourist Tower can be placed alone or side-by-side. But what makes this unit even more versatile is its ability to be placed on its side. All of the components within the building are flexible and modular, making them easy to move, remove or replace as needed.

The three-story unit is packed with functionality despite its small size. It contains a living space, dining area, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, study and rooftop deck. It’s easy to imagine this tower in use at large events such as the Olympics, where compact housing is only needed for a short period of time.