Your Life in a Shoe Box: Modular Living

Don't have the finances to own a penthouse suite? Loftcube.

For around $100,000 you can own a piece of what looks like deconstructed tupperware big enough to live in.


The view into the familty room of Aisslinger's housing concept.

Though I joke, I must admit that Werner Aisslinger is on to something. He is marketing a new kind of living to a generation that loves things that are disposable. His recent project, known as the Loftcube, takes a stylish prefabricated loft and airlifts it onto the rooftop of an urban skyscraper. Why not?

The fun thing about motor homes is that they can be taken wherever you may want to go...well almost anywhere at least. For those hard to reach places, like the top of sears tower, you need something a little more agile.

The Design Guy Orders Takeout and a Loftcube

I like the fact that it has a lot of windows. They can potentially increase the size of a room to double or triple its actual size when left open to the outside view. I would imagine that this effect would increase drastically if one had 360-degree views of the surrounding city.

I also think it's neat that loftcubes offer the privacy of a rooftop from which one can relax. The interior designs are sleek and versatile, allowing for faucets to swivel between the bathrooms and kitchen for reduced plumbing requirements.

But before I get one...I have just a couple of questions.

1. What about strong winds? It seems like a good gust of wind might turn your home into a
loft-curse as it spirals to the city streets below. It looks pretty aerodynamic if you ask me.

2. Air conditioning and heating? It appears that the main climate controls for the structure are air vents slatted into the siding.

3. What about pigeons? Yard work would be a mess...and it would not be pleasant if they invited themselves into your living room. Their presence as guests may be unavoidable if the structure doesn't come with doors.

4. What about access? Finding a parking space at a condo complex is one thing, but having to find a service ladder onto the roof after a 5-minute elevator ride up 30 flights would get a little straining after a while.

5. How about a refrigerator? Washer and dryer? A pantry? A closet?

Maybe they're upgrades.

At the asking price, they should be included.

The Design Guy

The fall and rise of a Phoenix I knew

No backyard. Fivel walls shared with neighbors. One 400 square foot living space with a joined bathroom. An elevator. A parking garage. A lobby. Asking price: $1 million dollars plus everything that made Arizona charming.

I don't quite know what to say about this one.

I remember thinking two-story houses were fascinating because they were semi-rare. When I think of the 40+ urban loft projects being constructed throughout Phoenix, Arizona I find myself a bit speechless.

The design guy critiques the style of his hometown.

The architecture coming to the valley of the sun is no doubt, world class. The gourmet blends of steel and brick, stucco and stone, and rust and copper can really catch the attention of investors and urbanites who are paying three times more for the same amount of space in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Portland, Seattle, and Chicago.

I don't have a problem with the interior and exterior design aspects of the new construction. I think it's all just swell. What I want to redesign is the attitude that's coming with it.

We used to have a theme park known as "Rawhide" where visitors could watch gunfights, eat rattlesnake, pan for gold, and take horse drawn wagons deep into the desert to watch Native American Indian dances. The property that "Rawhide" was on eventually became so valuable that the owners of the park sold the land to developers. There are now just a few remnants of the park staged like museum exhibits at a casino ten miles outside of town.

I understand that things change, but it's tragic when the change is purley money driven. I remember when a local freeway was being built. Homeowners, some of whom had lived in their homes for decades, were forced to sell their houses to the city and relocate. Then, the city enacted a policy called "imminent domain" in which developers could pressure public officials to condemn the property on which one's business lie if the person did not want to sell their business. Buy condemning the property, the value of the property would decrease, pushing the business owner to sell his land cheaply to the government or the investor looking to come in. This was originally meant to be for the development of legitimate city needs, like the building of a power plant or a water treatment facility. Now, it's being done to make way for shopping centers.

A statement is made when the city planners tell you that your home or your business is no longer worthy to remain as it is. It means that the city is growing colder. The life in it is is becoming as mechanized as the automatic checkout counters at the grocery store. What used to be a ranch is now a 500-home, cookie cutter community strategically dropped next to a Safeway, a video store, and a Starbucks. Is this all a city needs? Though I can now find almost anything by driving three minutes in any direction, it is rare that I find any real community. It is only when my job leads me to 55+ communities that I find someome who knows their neighbors well enough to invite them over for dinner.

Perhaps this is because the neighborhoods are being filled by people that have moved here because of the low prices, yet plan on selling again as soon as the market is right. Phoenix is becoming like seat neighbors on an airplane; pleasant and short lived relationships come and go as people make their way to new destinations.

Now, when I look at the skyscrapers being built, I am starting to wonder what portion of Arizona was torn down in order to build that tower of steel.

There is a good reason why Phoenix was able to last as long as it did while other cities have gone this way long ago. No doubt, this is because it was harder to push people around when they had a pistol on their hip.

Why I Don't Watch Design Shows

"Don't try this at home."

"Objects in video may be more costly than they appear."

"Scenes containing images of stress, anxiety, frustration, and disagreement have been edited from this film to make home remodelling look easy."

Any one of these disclaimers would make home design and remodelling shows more believable to me.

Tearing down walls, painting perfect faux finishes, adding built in entertainment centers, and re-upholstering furniture all looks like a breeze when the show presents the project as being completed for free in less than 30 minutes. This is not reality.

I painted a small, one-bedroom condo after a general contractor did some remodelling. Similar to what you might see on one of these shows, the builder cut back a wall, added a small bathroom, added some cabinets and some lighting, changed some doors and trim and then painted. The project took over two months, cost over $150,000, and the house was unlivable during the time of the construction. This is what should be expected when having work done.

I should also mention that contractors are rarely young, attractive and fit, which is in contrast to how they are depicted on these types of shows. It should also not be assumed that the people producing the work are going to be able to speak the same language as you, depending on the hiring practices of the company you've hired.

Let's briefly examine the behind the scenes of this design video to see if the project really is as easy and desirable as it looks. When watching it, keep in mind a couple of questions:

1. How many couches are there at the beginning and ending of the program?
2. Where is the dining room?
3. How did the designer use light to show the room...and will the light always be this way?
4. What is the fate of the brick fireplace?
5. How much would it cost to faux finish a whole room, build-out a counter, and re-upholster some pillows if you were to have someone else do it?

Did you watch it?

You might have noticed that there are no longer two couches, but one. This automatically makes the room look bigger, but it likely means that the homeowners no longer have enough space to sit. They had two couches for a reason. Unfortunately, the missing couch didn't fit with the motif, so it was deleted. Notice how crammed the actors look sitting on it at the end of the show. Imagine your company sitting on it like this...with your spouse having to lie on the rug for lack of room.

I thought it was interesting to note the dining room is permanently dark red. Can you imagine eating a bowl of cheerios in the corner of a dark red room? It will look great at night, but during the day, it isn't going to be very functional.

The room also looked fantastic when the room was dark and lit with manmade light. But this is not the way that the family lived. We know this because the beginning of the project showed the windows open, looking out into the neighborhood. What will the room look like if the window shade is back up? It will probably look different and may feel kind of dark and stuffy in comparison to the bright contrast of the outside.

What also looked nice was the fireplace in contrast to the dark red walls. Unfortunately, painting brick is a one-way road. Once it's painted, it will have to be painted again and again. The question should then be whether or not the customer liked having real brick in the room. Though brick can later be repainted to look as if it was not painted, it just isn't the same.

The cost should be considered to give us an idea of what a project of this magnitude might take. Faux finishinng typically costs between $4.00 and $6.00 per square foot. The room in the video had approximantely 700 square feet. This would bring the cost of the painting between $2,800 and $5,600. The wooden mantelpiece addition would typically cost at least a few hundred dollars for the labor depending on the comlexity of the design as well as the cost of materials. Designer stitching can cost between $12 and $100 per hour. Fabrics and materials can also be expensive when using custom fabrics and leathers. I have heard seen 4 chairs be re-upholstered with scraps of leather for close to $1,200.

Lastly, it may be interesting to note how long a project like this would really take. The painters would probably take 2-3 days. The carpenter would take most of a day, and this would create a lot of dust. Thus the carpenter should come before the painter. The pillows would probably be completed off site so they would not be too much of an inconvenience.

This means that realistically, this free 30 minute design showcase filled with attractive and competent contractors is actually a 4-5 day, $6,000 project that will produce a fashionable but slightly non-functional living space.

It's just how it works.

The Design Guy