These cardboard houses are built to last for 100 years
If the eco-friendly tiny house movement has already won you over, then you’re going to love this new cardboard house made by Fiction Factory, an Amsterdam-based design group. The Wikkelhouse, as it’s adorably called, is made up of several modular segments and it’s extremely eco-friendly. The cardboard house is also a reminder that powerful things come in small packages—because this particular tiny house is meant to last a good 100 years, despite its humble components.
To create the Wikkelhouse, Fiction Factory puts together several 54-square-foot house-shaped segments, all wrapped in 24 layers of virgin fiber paper board and treated with eco-friendly glue and waterproof foil. Customers can request as many segments as they’d like, making the home either tinier or a bit bigger, and the result is a tough, insulated and beautiful house. It can be put in place nearly anywhere, and doesn’t even need a foundation to hold strong against wind.
For many big-city dwellers, the Wikkelhouse is also a far more affordable option than traditional housing. Pricing starts at around $41,750 for three basic segments. It can have a glass or closed front, and once you—or your children—are done with the Wikkelhouse, it’s 100 percent recyclable, making it three times more environmentally friendly than the average home.
If you want a Wikkelhouse of your own, though, you may have to wait a few years. At the moment, Wikkelhouse only operates in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Scandinavia, and it plans to keep things that way through 2018. The company also has a bit of a waiting list on its hands, as it only creates 20 houses a year in order to make sure production is top quality.
You can still sign up for updates, however, to get a notification when Wikkelhouse is available in your country of residence. Because, after all, isn’t a tiny house this cool worth the wait?