The Ekinoid Project

This spherical self-sufficient home has been designed as part of the Ekinoid Project, which aims to provide sustainable housing for the masses. Raised on stilts, the home is also designed to withstand disasters due to floods and storms.

The Ekinoid is powered by wind and solar power, has rainwater catchment system that can recycle grey water, and a hydroponics garden for growing food.

At 34 feet in diameter and over 2500 square foot in size, the home contains plenty of living and storage space for the occupants and is accessed through a spiral staircase, which is supposed to double as the hydroponic garden.

The designer intends for each home to be prefabricated and shipped to the site, where a small crew of unskilled workers will be needed to assemble the home in less than a week – a bit of a stretch considering even standard prefab homes can take longer to construct by experienced professionals, minus the spherical form (and the solar panels, rainwater catchment system, black/grey-water recycling systems etc).

The designers of the Ekinoid project hope to sell the kits for around $78,000 each (another aspect of this concept which could do with some reviewing!), excluding furnishings, the hydroponic system, or labor.

All in all, I think this is an interesting conceptual model for use as a disaster-proof home, but I doubt it will receive funding to be constructed in its current form – take away a several of the lavish eco extras and we might get to see a prototype shell built, other than that, it’s going to need to be more ‘grounded’ before the project goes any further.

Via Inhabitat