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The Walking House 304

Posted by samzenpus from the baba-yaga-eat-your-heart-out dept.
What is 10' tall, has six hydraulic legs, and is powered by the wind and solar panels? The prototype pod house built by art collective N55 in Copenhagen, Denmark. With the help of MIT, N55 built the pod over a two-year period at a cost of £30,000. Designers say it provides a solution to the problem of rising water levels as the house can simply walk away from floods. One of the designers says, "This house is not just for travellers but also for anyone interested in a more general way of nomadic living." It won't be long now until the Japanese make Howl's Moving Castle.

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The Walking House More

The Walking House

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  • blah the emporer has his new clothes on again. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by The_reformant ( 777653 ) on Thursday October 23, 2008 @04:28AM (#25479415)
    Its only about the same size as the back of a transit van. Hardly a house or worth the ridiculous price tag. Caravans etc beat this hands down in every way.

    Modern art is pointless.

    • Re:blah the emporer has his new clothes on again. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23, 2008 @04:34AM (#25479439)

      That's a bit harsh. Modern art is *mostly* pointless.

    • Re:blah the emporer has his new clothes on again. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Thursday October 23, 2008 @04:47AM (#25479489) Journal
      Don't know about that, a motorhome typically costs over $100,000 [rvbrokers.com]. This thing only cost about $50,000 (current exchange rate). It is solar and wind powered, and can go over any terrain. I could totally see it used as a cabin off in the mountains somewhere. When you get tired of one place, walk off to the next. Great place to become a philosopher. The Thoreau of the mechanical age.

      • Re:blah the emporer has his new clothes on again. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Splab ( 574204 ) on Thursday October 23, 2008 @05:02AM (#25479545)

        Also it is the price tag of the prototype ($50.000 for a prototype is cheap), they expect the resale price to be a lot lower.

      • Re:blah the emporer has his new clothes on again. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by timmarhy ( 659436 ) on Thursday October 23, 2008 @05:07AM (#25479573)
        yeah, but this thing is so slow it's almost useless and it's a lot smaller with less features. it's just a gimic, despite what you think you know from star wars, mechanical legs on everything is a really really bad idea when compared to wheels or tracks.

      • Re:blah the emporer has his new clothes on again. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by capnkr ( 1153623 ) on Thursday October 23, 2008 @07:27AM (#25480147)

        My sailboat - made of FRP, 40 years old, a classic with a sound hull and rig - cost less than $5K to buy, and I will have less than $15K in her when she is completely fixed up, including replacement of all wiring, subsystems, etc... She uses solar and wind, and is just fine living off the grid. For ease of access, though, it costs less than $300/month to stay tied up to a marina dock. Mechanical propulsion, when needed, is provided by a small outboard which consumes only 1/4 gallon/hour at full speed. She is capable and able to go nearly anywhere in the world that there is a water depth of 3.5 feet or more. Floods only give her more places to go. ;)
         
        There are many many hundreds if not thousands of older boats - power and sail - out there which get destroyed or sink due to neglect every year. With some due diligence, anyone can find a very sound vessel to start with, "recycling" in a sense, and living a lifestyle which has a very small 'footprint' of consumables. Why pay $50K for a home as small as a small boat, that can only traverse land (and that, slowly...), and which is absolutely dependent upon the grid?
         
        Of special note is the fact that few marinas will have a true geek/nerd/IT pro in residence. Yet nearly all of them now have office computers, websites, and wireless networks - all things which can benefit from knowledgeable attention. Your skills and knowledge can make the cost of marina living a trivial sum, reducing your "existence tax" even more... ;)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Lumpy ( 12016 )

        but what do you do when you sit in a community of these things and some smartass kid yells "Form mecca Shiva!" and now your house is the upper thigh of a 260 foot tall god of Shaiva hell bent on wanton destruction?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by YeeHaW_Jelte ( 451855 )

        "When you get tired of one place, walk off to the next."

        Yeah, sure, and were are you going to walk? You can't have this on the public roads, it won't fit on a sidewalk, so no way you're going anywhere in this.

        It's fun but it doesn't have any pratical use, IMHO.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Hotawa Hawk-eye ( 976755 )

          Walk onto a waiting 18-wheeler parked in a nearby parking lot.
          Drive to a new location and park near where you want the house to be located.
          Walk off the truck and to the new location.

          I could see this being useful as a command post for emergency services (say in a place with bad roads, or one where wheeled vehicles can't access for some reason.)

      • > can go over any terrain. Then why do we see it only on flat pavement? Let's see it go somewhere wheels can't. > I could totally see it used as a cabin off in the mountains somewhere. I can see a simple trailer used as a cabin off in the mountains somewhere. > When you get tired of one place, walk off to the next. After you get all those hydraulics working again. I could do it myself but most people whould have to bring in an expensive specialized mechanic. Wheels are a simple, reliable, i

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Firethorn ( 177587 )

        First, found a MUCH better link about the house here [n55.dk]

        Technical specifications:
        Basic module:
        Height: 3.5 meters
        Width: 3.5 meters
        Length: 3.72 meters
        Weight: 1200 kg
        Max speed: 60 meters/hour
        Component list:
        Plating and framework wood and plywood
        Legs made of steel and mechanical components
        12 linear actuators
        solar panels
        micro windmills
        polycarbonate plates
        interior equipment

        Height - not bad, but going by pictures goes from pavement to roof - you lose a foot or so before the floor.
        Width - definetly counting the legs in, reducing it's usefullness as a measurement of living area.

        From the last time I bothered to look inside of a trailorhome/motorhome(mall display, wasn't shopping for them), they're relative basins of luxury, and probably have 3 times the square footage(especially the expanding models) than what this one looks to

    • Re:blah the emporer has his new clothes on again. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23, 2008 @05:16AM (#25479607)

      Modern art is pointless.

      Maybe so.

      But if you added a huge (solar) panel on the side of it, Star Wars fans would be queuing up for miles to get it.

    • Re:blah the emporer has his new clothes on again. (Score:4, Funny)

      by MRe_nl ( 306212 ) on Thursday October 23, 2008 @06:53AM (#25479979)

      Modern art is pointless? Au contraire, mon ami:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointillism [wikipedia.org]

    • Re:blah the emporer has his new clothes on again. (Score:5, Funny)

      by SimonGhent ( 57578 ) on Thursday October 23, 2008 @06:55AM (#25479995)

      Get your walking house off my lawn!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Whiteox ( 919863 )

      Modern art is pointless.
      Excellent! Yet I would have said 'Pointless is Modern Art!"

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by aliquis ( 678370 )

      A caravan is only about the size of a big tent, hardly a house or worth the ridiculous price tag.

      (And houses are just our days caves anyway.)

  • Looks.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by vidarh ( 309115 ) <vidar@hokstad.com> on Thursday October 23, 2008 @04:29AM (#25479423) Homepage Journal
    ... like it'd go well with a Darth Vader suit.

  • Just add beer... (Score:5, Funny)

    by retech ( 1228598 ) on Thursday October 23, 2008 @04:32AM (#25479429)
    This alters the playing field of going home drunk considerably.

    You can either have your house follow you.

    Or your house could just not be there when you go home.

  • There's that cool new invention (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kickasso ( 210195 ) on Thursday October 23, 2008 @04:43AM (#25479479)

    called "wheel". Very handy for moving things around. Check it out!

  • It's too late. (Score:5, Funny)

    by dasheiff ( 261577 ) on Thursday October 23, 2008 @04:51AM (#25479509)

    You've awakened the house, and it catches you and eats you.

  • Maybe a dorm room... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Strange Ranger ( 454494 ) on Thursday October 23, 2008 @04:57AM (#25479533)
    That big piece from the Star Wars Lego set is not a house. Despite what you stuff inside of it. Form follows function. This would be a great tool for FEMA. But it's not a house. How about we stop building houses on the lowest parts of alluvial flood plains? There's a bright idea.

    • Re:Maybe a dorm room... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by polar red ( 215081 ) on Thursday October 23, 2008 @05:08AM (#25479579)

      How about we stop building houses on the lowest parts of alluvial flood plains?

      We've been building there because it is a great place to build harbours, and these places are usually also very fertile. It also makes us very vulnerable to rising sea-levels.

      • Re:Maybe a dorm room... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Firethorn ( 177587 ) on Thursday October 23, 2008 @09:45AM (#25481155) Homepage Journal

        We've been building there because it is a great place to build harbours

        Not that I object to this - Just that New Orleans ended up being far more than just a harbour, so I think the correct response would be to build housing for the area - whether it be on stilts to let tidal wash from hurricanes pass underneath and survive the occasional flood, to having everybody simply live in RVs/Mobile homes and simply pull out for the occasional hurricane, to crazier stuff like building your house on a float pallet or being able to crank it up to keep it above the water line.

        Either that or build cheap and simply accept that you'll be buying/building a new house every ten years or so. Or have your insurance pay, and pay the corresponding premiums. Therefore, the only people who can 'afford' to work there are the ones essential to the harbour industry who get correspondingly huge wages.

        Housing in the USA today has gotten somewhat crazy. People are buying a LOT more than they need. Personally, I think that, in some circumstances, 'disposable' housing is a perfectly reasonable response. Build it cheap, replace when destroyed.

    • That big piece from the Star Wars Lego set is not a house. Despite what you stuff inside of it. Form follows function. This would be a great tool for FEMA. But it's not a house. How about we stop building houses on the lowest parts of alluvial flood plains? There's a bright idea.

      You have a point IF you negate the profit from the shipping and agricultural industry. I won't disagree people build in stupid places. I'm sure you can look at your own down and see new construction in areas that we didn't build in before, areas like drainage basins. There, when it floods, well, their own damn fault for building there. But coastal, river, and flood plane communities, well, loosing a house from time to time is pretty trivial when considering the benefits we get from them.

  • You can just imagine the high class of people that would want to live in this tin can.

    Perhaps its time these "artists" stopped reading comic books reconnected with the real world.

    • You can just imagine the high class of people that would want to live in this tin can.

      They call themselves "artitsts".

      Perhaps its time these "artists" stopped reading comic books reconnected with the real world.

      See, you already knew.

    • You can just imagine the high class of people that would want to live in this tin can.

      None. But consider this; housing gets more expensive, so only the "high class" people can afford land and to build a house on it.

      So, more individuals are forced to find a more affordable sollution; a tiny mobile house fit with media to numb down the mind. But you have no land! Oh, lets rent a standing space from the "high class", and lets move when we cannot afford it anymore...

      You can put your sexy cool and nerdy pod on m

      • That arrangement already exists. They are called trailer parks.

        • That arrangement already exists. They are called trailer parks.

          Yes, but now they're accessable and acceptably fashionable for StarWars nerds ;)

      • Re:Its a trailer with legs (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Firethorn ( 177587 ) on Thursday October 23, 2008 @10:25AM (#25481655) Homepage Journal

        None. But consider this; housing gets more expensive, so only the "high class" people can afford land and to build a house on it.

        Despite everything else, this isn't a good usage of limited land*. Consider, a 3 story condo/apartment complex can offer it's residents four times the floor space in about the same amount of actual land, far more luxury in the sense of having actual water and sewer, air conditioning, etc... Make it 6-10 stories and each apartment can be luxurious, space wise. I doubt you'd be able to stack these 6 high. Worried about flooding? I saw a condo being built that was 6 levels of parking garage and 12 levels of condo.

        Humans wanting to live denser calls more for multistory buildings, and I'd like to see more arcology type structures - retail businesses on the bottom, offices in the middle, living quarters on the top, except for maybe a rooftop restaurant. Even that's flexible. Want to put the housing on even floors and the businesses on odd? That'd work too.

        So, more individuals are forced to find a more affordable sollution; a tiny mobile house fit with media to numb down the mind. But you have no land!

        The idea of the common man having a large house is a very new one in the scheme of things. I mean, modern bedrooms are bigger than many King's back in the medieval period.

        Sure, land is limited, especially when you consider we need to grow crops on it still, and want a reasonable commute to work. As I said earlier - I think vertical integration, especially 'mini arcologies' is the answer. If I was a city planner I'd be working on ways to encourage them. Probably through tax breaks if they build at least as much housing into the building as they'd be anticipating working there.

        Imagine getting up in the morning, taking an elevator down to go to work in accounting office on floor 10, taking lunch two stories up, leaving early to down to floor 5 to visit the dentist, pick up your kids from daycare on 12, go to the roof to play some frisbee before dropping a floor to have a nice meal in the penthouse restraunt before heading home on floor 40.

        Oh, lets rent a standing space from the "high class", and lets move when we cannot afford it anymore...

        As somebody else noted, this is known as a 'trailor park'.

        *BTW, I'm wierd in that I don't think homes appreciate in value; the LAND, if in an area of expanding development does, but the house doesn't. It just depreciates slower than inflation and value can be kept up/increased with renovations. I figure this is part of the reason for the housing collapse - people were sold a different 'truth', which finally broke down.

  • Slashdot has useful pics instead of weird icons??? (Score:5, Funny)

    by yo303 ( 558777 ) on Thursday October 23, 2008 @05:03AM (#25479555)

    So... the pic shown in the front summary story is actually relevant?

    I don't like it. [shakes fist]

  • You could pack sharks in there.
    And lasers on top...

    ...of the sharks and the house!

  • .. but he still needs the cane.

  • "Paw.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by PinkyDead ( 862370 ) on Thursday October 23, 2008 @05:17AM (#25479611) Journal

    ...them housey thingumies is up on the back field again."

    "Boy, fetch my shotgun."

  • This is so awesome! Mobile houses!? What's next: houses on wheels? Water? In trees!?!?

  • Exotic bloody solids (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kahei ( 466208 ) on Thursday October 23, 2008 @05:44AM (#25479717) Homepage

    ...and needless to say these guys design everything as a truncated octahedron or a hexagonal prism (on it's side, yet, so there are no vertical walls) and never as a BORING OLD CUBOID. Because having wide flat floors to live on and vertical walls to put doors in would be too boring and traditional and convenient.

    Instead, their project has cuboctahedral modules that join onto each other via round portholes that are at about 30 degrees off vertical. I don't know what it is about architects that gives them such contempt for the actual users of their buildings. Everyone else designs to co-operate with the eventual users. Architects design to be clever, where 'clever' means lots of big geometrical shapes that reflect sound and carry vibration and have nowhere to sit down. Metal-walled buildings are pretty grim anyway from a temperature/moisture control/vibration point of view, but making it cuboid, corrugating the surfaces a bit and avoiding welds (in favor of joins that provide some damping) would be a start.

    I think the acid test for innovative housing ideas should be: do they have to resort to silly futuristic shapes, or is there a chance they have some actual ideas for creating nice places to live?

    • All true, but the idea - as it is so often around here - is to attract attention rather than provide mere functionality. The thing is basically a weirdified RV, but nobody's going to post a story about a motor home to Slashdot, saying "Hey look! You can move it in case of a flood!"

    • ...and needless to say these guys design everything as a truncated octahedron or a hexagonal prism (on it's side, yet, so there are no vertical walls) and never as a BORING OLD CUBOID. Because having wide flat floors to live on and vertical walls to put doors in would be too boring and traditional and convenient.

      And yet, hexagonal prisms are stacked more easily than cubes. You only need to lift 1/2h instead of h in order to attach the next one.

      And hexes, when space is a constrain, are more efficient for

  • ambulating whimsically about the countryside

    until the day it wandered into an AT-AT retirement farm, during mating season

    let me tell you, it's not fun to be in a house on legs being humped by a horny AT-AT

  • Just add a neck, some turbolasers, sells as "AT-AT mark2" and profit!

  • The Mobile Outhouse

  • It's great for a nomadic lifestyle and all, but isn't there something like a concept of property that prevents you from just up and going somewhere else? If you own all the land, then it's not very nomadic and odds are that you're not moving very much.

  • The RV of the Future (Score:3, Funny)

    by ehaggis ( 879721 ) on Thursday October 23, 2008 @07:24AM (#25480117) Homepage Journal
    But does it come in a double-wide?

  • New Dictionary Entry Needed (Score:3, Funny)

    by Rick.C ( 626083 ) on Thursday October 23, 2008 @07:25AM (#25480123)
    ... under "squatters".
  • The first steps [youtube.com] of the Walking House:
  • Walk away from floods? Along what? Roads? I would bet any money that this thing is not street legal.
  • It sucks to have your car stolen, as I know from recent experience. Even worse having your house stolen.
  • We Filipinos were way ahead in that regard -> http://farm1.static.flickr.com/25/103053707_82776c774a.jpg [flickr.com]

    ("Bayanihan" roughly translated means "helping your neighbor." House-moving is the most common depiction.)

  • where does the toilet go to?

  • Walk away from your debt.

    Literally.

    Seriously, the starving artists must have a secret plan. I'll bet that house will just disappear someday, when nobody's looking.

    "Hey where did that darn house run off to?"

  • Hydraulic? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23, 2008 @09:01AM (#25480723)

    I work on 6th Degree of freedom (6 hydraulic legs) flight simulators and there's one thing that all the hydraulic ones have in common. After a few years they start pissing oil all over. No matter how well they are maintained, they always eventually leak. Part of it is the weight they're under, part of it is the seals start to wear.

    I wonder how environmentally sound it would be to have a house that sags on one side and pisses hydraulic oil everywhere it goes. Not to mention that the owner would have to maintain the locomotion systems.

  • More Information from one of the designers (Score:5, Informative)

    by kronick ( 1392271 ) on Thursday October 23, 2008 @09:08AM (#25480785)
    I'm the "MIT engineer" who worked on this and thought I'd mention a couple of things.

    First, the Telegraph article is just silly reporting; the whole "runs away from floods" thing is pop media spin. For the original motivations for the project, read this: http://www.n55.dk/MANUALS/WALKINGHOUSE/walkinghouse.html [n55.dk]

    Second, yeah, it's contemporary art, not a piece of raw engineering or product design. N55 works entirely non-commercially, so the "pricetag" is not very relevant; you won't be able to buy one of these from us, but hopefully we will document things well enough that you can build something similar yourself if you'd like. The tetrahedral legs are of a unique design (as far as I know) that we want to share and the control software/hardware will all be explained and made available online in coming weeks. Art can be nerdy, too.

    Third, I know it's slow and small and funny shaped. That's part of the point: to get people questioning the status quo of how we live and what we've been given to live in during recent times. But don't be so dismissive of radically different ideas... I can assure you that hexagonal prisms and truncated octahedrons are far more comfortable shapes than your boring ol' cube any day.

    There's also a video on Youtube of it doing it's thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvxIB83Y0PA [youtube.com]

  • Terrans well on our way to Flying Buildings (Score:4, Funny)

    by ArmorFiend ( 151674 ) on Thursday October 23, 2008 @11:09AM (#25482311) Homepage Journal

    In StarCraft, Terran buildings fly. It's just an ability the Terrans build into all their buildings for free, because they like it. Its good to see that we're progressing towards that ideal, because it will really help us fight off the Zerg.

  • You are standing in a open field (Score:3, Funny)

    by hansamurai ( 907719 ) <hansamurai@gmail.com> on Thursday October 23, 2008 @03:33PM (#25486333) Homepage Journal

    You are standing in a open field, west of a white house.

    The house walks away.

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