Trailer (Equivalent #2): A Low-Cost Micro Home Constructed from Wasted Materials and Unseasoned Timber

Invisible Studio developed the Trailer, a self-built prototype that can be functioned as a living place and workspace as well. Located in Bath, England, the prototype is a low-cost micro home constructed from waste materials and locally grown unseasoned timber. This project was intended to design a building that is able to legally transported on a public highway in addition to being used as a temporary or permanent accommodation.

The Trailer

The Trailer is a versatile and useable space with a super low cost. It also can act as a kit of parts for self-builders to adapt easily or improvise around.

The micro home comes with a removable wheeled ‘bogey’. The wheel can be taken off from under the steel chassis to keep the house in place. The bogey is also useful when removed to transport all of the timber frames that have been prefabricated in a workshop to a site.

While it was built as a domestic space, the Trailer is versatile enough to be functioned as a workspace or anything else for that matter.

The Construction

The Trailer is clad in corrugated fiberglass and steel on the outside, while inside, it is lined in used but cleaned shuttering ply.

Every joinery was made of plywood offcuts, not limited to the 2 existing staircases. Handrails are from offcuts of blue rope left over from Studio in the Woods.

Both gable ends are glazed with high-performance interlocking polycarbonate. The gable ends provide high levels of natural light inside the Trailer.

Furthermore, scavenged insulation was utilized to insulate the property.

The doors came from a skip and the roof lights were damaged and trade seconds.

The Timber

Invisible Studio used timber of all ‘same section’ 125 x 50mm so that the milling was much more economical.

The timber was laminated up into structural sections for the cross frames as needed.

Such method is actually related to the forest management plan for the effective use of timber on the woodland managed by the firm as a resource around their studio.

Via Invisible Studio