Introducing » The Cube Project
Can you live in a house that is 3m x 3m x 3m?
When it comes to green architecture, achieving the lowest environmental impact sometimes means reducing your footprint as much as possible. This is remarkable project shows just how small you can really go when designing a home.
‘The Cube Project’ is an initiative of Dr Mike Page at the University of Hertfordshire who set out to build a compact eco house, no bigger than 3x3x3 metres on the inside, in which one person could live a comfortable, modern existence with a minimum impact on the environment.
Constructed from a variety of sustainable materials, the Cube provides everything that a single person might need. Within its whopping 27 cubic metres it includes a lounge, with a table and two custom-made chairs, a small double bed (120cm wide), a full-size shower, a kitchen (with energy-efficient fridge, induction hob, re-circulating cooker hood, sink/drainer, combination microwave oven and storage cupboards), a washing machine, and a composting toilet. Lighting is achieved by ultra-efficient LED lights, and the Cube is heated using an Ecodan air-source heat pump, with heat being recovered from extracted air. It has cork flooring and there is two-metre head height throughout.
image © Nick Edwards
The project is still at prototype stage, so don’t rush out to try to buy one, but if this can work commercially, it could certainly mark a turning point in affordable sustainable housing worldwide. Conceived, designed and managed by Dr Mike Page, engineer and Reader in Cognitive Psychology at the University’s School of Psychology, the first prototype, QB1, was unveiled on April 9th, 2011 in St Andrew’s Square, Edinburgh, as part of the Edinburgh Science Festival. The first Cube took two carpenters five working weeks to build, taken from the day of delivery of materials to the site, to the time it was transported to site. He also had two electricians for three days, and two heating engineers for three and a half days and claims that everything was cut by hand. Imagine the possibilities if this were to make it to a pre-fabrication assembly line, you could be popping out homes like hot bread.
“In future, we would like to have all materials pre-cut by computer and are actively working to achieve this aim. We hope to get the total build time for a fully-fitted Cube to 30 person-days or fewer, not including electrics and heating, that can proceed in parallel.”-Dr Mike Page
It seems that ‘The Cube’ still has a long way to go before it is commercially available, but millions of people could benefit from such an innovative and low impact house, and the project certainly demonstrates how simple ideas can help us visualize that modern zero-impact, affordable and eco friendly housing is possible.
image © Nick Edwards
