John Labovitz contacted me the other day to tell me about his tiny housetruck project that he is working on. The minute I saw the frame it reminded me of the Cable Car Trolleys that I worked on for a couple of years as they were built using the same steel tubing and looked very similar before being skinned and completed.
I’ll let John tell you more about his plans and his philosophy behind his choice of design and materials.
My overall values in designing the housetruck were simplicity, durability, sustainability, and mobility, which combine to liveability. Although I’ve been inspired by the tiny house movement, the biggest breakthrough was discovering the long tradition of gypsy caravans and British ‘living wagons.’
I’m building the tiny housetruck from scratch, based on an Isuzu NPR truck chassis. The housetruck will serve several purposes:
- A compact and mobile home in which I can hang out and socialize,
cook and eat, and retreat and sleep. - A workspace for my photography and programming projects.
- A vehicle that will transport me & my belongings to points beyond.
- A laboratory for research into alternative and mobile technology.
- An expression of art & creativity.
I’ve been designing it for about a year, and about a month ago hired a local steel fabricator to build the frame. That’s now done, and I’m now onto adding “skin” to the bones.
If you’d like to follow along, I’ll be updating my website fairly regularly. You can always find the current status, plus links to longer articles & more images, here: http://polymecca.com/housetruck
–Best,
John
You can follow the progress on Johns blog and I will also try to update the Tiny House Blog as John completes different stages in the project. It’s fun to see something a little different, so stay tuned.
by Kent Griswold (Tiny House Blog)
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