Backstory: I bought my first physical Etsy thing! (previously only digital files for papercraft): the Miniature Tiny House made by Turkish company Terrarium Stories. The seller and I started chatting (because I am now also intrigued by Turkey) and I asked if they have considered making the Klein A45, you know, the tiny house I am obsessed with. They said not yet, but they are taking a short trip to Denmark soon = The Bjarke Ingels Group, who designed the A45, is Danish. This conversation reminded me of when I got to see the A45 up close during a tiny house exhibition in Denmark in 2022.
The backstory of the backstory is that I’m restless. I miss my wooden treehouse I built in Hopefield, inspired by the A45. I miss living super simply and being in the middle of nowhere. The problem is that what I want – being in the middle of nowhere, out of society and just Done with all of This (and somehow in the Arctic nevermind that this little south African summer butt who gets grumpy when a window is closed won’t survive a winter there, surely) is perhaps not quite what I need – being integrated into a supportive community and having things like drinkable water, electricity and good internet to do Good Research and be an overall asset to said society. So my restless fingers did some retail therapy and bought a miniature model instead.
Anyway, back to Denmark. In August 2022 I was on a sortof a roadtrip, we did a bunch of things, I went to FOSS4G in Forenze/Florence, and also used the opportunity to visit my good friends Siri and Jonas in Orø, Denmark.
I don’t recall how I found out about it, but learnt that there was a tiny house exhibition in Aalborg – on the other side of the country, but also, it’s Denmark, so you could probably walk there. And the A45 was there! (it’s likely they organised the whole thing as a marketing move – smart!) It was a done deal, I was going. Turns out it was about an 8 hour or something train ride one way, I can’t remember if I stayed over or just timed the transport and ferries and everything really well – probably the latter. But it was An Adventure!
I see now I didn’t take that many pics. I remember taking a lot of paper materials, because each little house exhibited had a floorplan and information and I was dizzy with delight. But of course, since then I moved and I don’t know where all that stuff went.
Looking through the internet, the exhibition was called SOMMERHUS (Summer House, or Holiday home) and it was at the Utzon Center in Aalborg. And, of course, there are pictures! Some links:
- https://www.wallpaper.com/architecture/utzon-center-exhibition-celebrates-danish-holiday-home-aalborg-denmark
- https://landfolk.com/en/l/9f855a2a
- https://jonathan-satchell-mkwe.squarespace.com/news/2022/4/28/sommerhus-exhibiton-utzon-center-aalborg
- https://bobedre.dk/boliger/sommerhuse/dyk-ned-i-sommerhusets-historie-3-arkitektoniske-perler-fra-hver-sin-tidsalder
I met the Klein A45 caged in a courtyard. It was downright weird, like a caged shy animal missing it’s forest cover. Because I built my one, a higgledy piggledy crooked one with cheap planks, I think the reality of the A45 could never measure up to what has been created in my head. It’s the same reason you shouldn’t meet your idols in person; they can’t measure up to the idea in your head. Don’t get me wrong, I loved it. But I didn’t 100k EUR love it.
Now look, at a price tag of 100k EUR I’m not going to buy the A45. I built my version of it back in Hopefield, and I am itching to do it again. I love the concept. It’s basically an A-frame, the top bit twisted by 45 degrees (hence the name) that gives it two “conventional” corners, which makes it a lot easier to furnish than the usual A-frame. The twist also breaks your brain trying to figure out what it is based on its silhouette, should you stumble across it in its natural habitat. At the exhibition, there was also a canvas version which I think was intended to be a cheaper alternative (also intended to be for sale as a kit but I have seen no movement on that front). And that tickled my fancy.
I didn’t like how they re-arranged stuff, the bed downstairs, for example. It was clear the canvas option is temporary, for, like, a weekend, while I was thinking more of a permanent traveller lifestyle but replacing the mandalas and oversaturated, overly detailed motifs with minimalist designs or something instead (still maximalist colourful though, of course). But I liked how the shape still worked in this more transient setting.
Overall the exhibition was cool, but the sense that you had to be rich or influential or something to make something remarkable annoyed me (welcome to the Nordics, I guess). While most of the houses exhibited had some element that inspired, overall it felt like they were mainly exhibited because someone influential lived in them. To me, that’s not really Design.
By the way, If you look at that A45 canvas pic, and imagine the top half as the main living area, and the bottom half as the animal shed, that was the Hopefield iteration, 6x6m square footprint, and then I had a wrap around deck going at that halfway line. It was epic. It doesn’t exist anymore and the land is sold, and I never took pics of the completed thing, so it’s like it was a dream. But I will do it again, some time.
The Utzon Centre also had a thing about the architect who designed the Sydney Opera House. I remember something about him peeling pieces of orange skin to show how they fit together, and I toyed with integrating such curves into a tiny house – using wooden beams and then tension structures (aka canvas). I have paper models of this but eventually abandoned it. (I found a pic of the paper model but this is from 2019? So not sure if it was inspired by the Sydney Opera house. Maybe it was some church in Norway or something instead).
Not apropos of anything related, but when I passed through Hamburg, Germany, on the way to Forenze, I did also find another thing I was mildly obsessing over – the bicycle camper:
I still think it is super cute, but it makes no sense (and at 4700 EUR you must be silly). You lose all the freedom you have with the bicycle if you have this wind-sail attached to you. A tent is better. Worth a mention is the variety of bicycle designs as explored in this survivaltechshop article. If you have to go for a trailer then a small teardrop thing is probably better.
Van die os op die jas … My current plan … is to build a chariot for the ponies, and have some saddlebags and backpack for me with a tent for overnight getaways. I bought the Vango Stelvio 200, although, sad to say, I haven’t even taken it out of the bag yet. (I’m not sure we’re allowed to just go camp anywhere, I’m pretty sure we’re not, so I am gathering up courage to ask the Florestal for permission and maybe a document to show people and maybe I can like help with data gathering or something to make it more legit. And at least I have a legal house here so that must help, right?)
So, the next adventure, lol:
And yes, chariot rather than a wagon, because a chariot is faster and more manoeuvrable. But who knows, maybe a wagon later… Cue a reddit rabbithole about why people rode chariots and not the horses themselves… soooo many factors to consider! I’ll leave that to the reader to explore 😉 And then also when mules started to appear, because it needed donkeys and horses to be in the same place which took some time.
