Pop-Up Camper Looks Like Sydney Opera House on Wheels
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 11. 2.09
Images via dezeen
Trailers are such interesting exercises in design of small spaces. Pop-up campers and tent trailers have been around for a long time (see this great Pac-man version from 1936). Their great virtue is lower air resistance when towing, making them easier to handle and reducing fuel consumption considerably.
In Europe, people take caravan and trailer design seriously, and the Opera by Belgian architect Axel Enthoven is seriously high end; you don't see stuff like this in a North American campground. Less has never so looked like more.
Its interior is handcrafted in hardwood, stainless steel and leather, and Rose at Dezeen says it has two beds, a toilet, hot and cold water, LED lighting and a mobile hob. (British for range)
All closed up for towing. You can see a film of it, with too much time spent on the people who will use it and the places it will go, at the Opera site.
The designer writes in Dezeen:
It is not a tent, not a caravan and not a motor home. The new mobile holiday home designed by Axel Enthoven has been christened Opera for its striking shape, reminiscent of the Sydney Opera House. The subtitle chosen is Your Suite in Nature to suggest the best of hotel rooms, but in the heart of nature in this case. The Opera allows you to stay in the most beautiful places, but with the luxury of a wine cabinet, warm-air heating, espresso bar and an enclosed teak veranda. This nomadic, contemporary living tent offers the quality of a luxury yacht combined with the outdoor feeling of camping under canvas.
The finishing touches are currently being put to the first Operas, which are being made completely by hand in Geldrop in the Netherlands. Only first class materials like hardwood, stainless steel and leather are used in production. The dimensions of the Opera are magical. When it has opened and levelled itself by electric power - inside 5 minutes and without tent pegs, stabilizer jacks and loose tent poles - what you see is a residence measuring 7 metres long, more than 3 metres wide and 3.5 metres high with every conceivable luxury: two first class and electrically adjustable beds that become one with a single simple movement, hot and cold water, ceramic toilet, LED lighting and a mobile hob and barbecue, for example, for cooking outside.
Alas, like so many toys for the rich, it is all teak and leather and not exactly made from sustainable materials; perhaps they will build an economy or "green" version. I would also worry about putting such nice stuff into a tent trailer, that anyone can break into with a pen knife while you are on the beach.
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