This four bedroom house with its stylish aluminum exterior and rough hewn wooden interior seems classically Scandanavian in its simplistic design. Measuring approximately 5.5 meters long, 5.7 meters high and 2.3 meters wide, this micro home features a kitchen/dining room and living room on the bottom floor and then a bathroom and bedroom upstairs. A ladder in the center of the box accesses the upper floor and windows form a crooked cross to let natural daylight in.
BOXHOME was designed to minimize energy needs for lighting and especially heating, which is necessary in the colder climate of Norway. The timber-framed home is insulated with glass wool insulation Rintala Eggertsson built the micro home back in 2007 to show that smaller homes could have a considerable economical and environmental benefit to the home owner. The project focused on the quality of space, the use of materials and light and designing a simple home that could be used as a retreat from the surrounding city. The prototype home, which could easily become a prefab, was on display at the Galleri ROM in central Oslo.
The Japanese aren’t the only ones who can lay claim to micro homes. The Norway-based architecture firm, Rintala Eggertsson Architecture designed and built BOXHOME, a 19 sq meter home with the all the basic necessities. Rintala Eggertsson felt the need to move away from the larger homes that many Norwegians had and wanted to focus on the necessities in life and the things that were needed inside a home – namely space for kitchen and dining, living, bathroom and bedroom.
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At only 19 sq meters, the BOXHOME really only has the necessities and is really designed for a single person or maybe a couple. The small space living is the main point of the home, to show that more is space is not really necessary.
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The home includes a kitchen/dining space and a living room on the bottom floor. The kitchen is a platform with a long counter in the center and holds two burners and a built-in sink.
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The kitchen was inspired by Korean tradition where cooking and eating happen at the same place and guests converge around the same table.
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The living area has a bench that can turn into a twin bed for a guest.
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The timber-framed house is covered in reflective aluminum panels and windows form a cross to let in natural daylight into the rooms.
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BOXHOME was built in the courtyard of Galleri ROM in central OSLO in 2007 and kept on display.
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The architects designed the micro house to explore what was necessary for living and to prove that a small home could be built with quality spaces and materials and good lighting.
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The interior was built with various rough hewn woods, like pine, cypress, birch, spruce, red oak and nut.
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The architects designed and built the prototype for BOXHOME from August 2007 to October 2007. They are interested in making this a prefab home.
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