M-house: The Trailer for the Tasteful

A mobile home that’s stylish? Mais oui! Strict UK planning laws wouldn’t allow Tim Pyne to build a house on his estuary land in Essex. He was permitted, however, a trailer that could be delivered to the site and removed again later. Unimpressed with the options currently on the market (and who could blame him?), he and Michael Howe of mae architects designed m-house (pronounced “mouse”). At 1000 square feet, m-house is over twice the size of the Loftcube...

...and complements the open-plan kitchen/dining/living area with two bedrooms. The shiny exterior is matched by a sleek interior, finished with birch ply walls and high-end appliances in the kitchen.

Irritating as planning laws are, they’re there for a reason—in this case, to protect the countryside. M-house lets you live in nature without tearing it down. And one of the great benefits of small prefab housing is adaptability: m-house can float on pontoons, or be put onto flat roofs of existing buildings with a crane (it won’t fly by helicopter, but still). Pyne is busy putting them in on a Carribean coastline where environmental impact is regulated.

Solar panels come as an option, for both independence and clean energy. Environmentally responsible materials are standard. The engineers work with buyers to customize the interior and exterior, but alterations that don’t fit m-house’s contemporary style are less accommodated: Pyne compares requested farm house kitchen modifications to trying to buy a BMW with floral carpet. Have some restraint, people!

£135,000 ($262,600) will get it delivered within the UK. There used to be a bit on the website about not supplying to the US, but it seems to have gone missing so we Yanks might be in luck.... Via Spaces Magazine ::m-house [by KK]