“Nau” You See It “Nau” You Don’t: the Ultimate Self-Sustaining Mobile Home Pod

Known as the Living Roof, it’s only a concept, though one of the most well-crafted and designed living capsules I've seen in my lifetime.

That's because this miniature pod contains absolutely everything you would normally find in a home. That includes a kitchen, full-size double bed, writing desk, wardrobe, bathroom, and even a whole bunch of other amenities our modern homes do not include.

Now, from the outside, it literally looks like some spacecraft that’s landed in your local neighborhood. It looks like a 3D hexagon with tapered off ends. It seems that honeybees know what’s up because, mathematically, the hexagon is one of (if not) the most efficient structures when creating a living space.

Another thing we notice while looking at it from the outside are the photovoltaic cells on the exterior. Actually, all of the exterior shells, except for the windows, are covered in solar cells. We can also notice that the structure appears to be segmented into about four equal parts. Why?

Well, one of the pod’s abilities is to transform the interior space to fill the need required by the occupant at a specific time. What do I mean by this? Well, the interior of the pod can rotate within the shell in order to change the layout of furnishings.

For example. Let’s say you want to have a seat and lounge for a bit. All you have to do is walk over to the control panel, push a button, and with you standing in the designated area, the pod shifts the interior to create the space desired.

Now, say you had the pod in work mode, which is accessed by a 240-degree rotation of the interior, and want to switch over to the previously mentioned lounge area. When you send the command to the pod, it will rotate back to zero-degrees and arrange the lounging area before you. As for accessing the sleeping area, 120-degrees is the rotation requirement for that function.

As for the self-sustaining bits, we’ve already mentioned the solar panels which are used to convert sunlight to electricity for running appliances. But what about water? Well, the team at Nau have installed a number of channels along the shell that direct rainwater into a filtration and storage space to be used for drinking, bathing, or to water your plants.

Another energy this pod can capture is wind. The tips of the pod, those tapered off and pointy ends we see outside, are mini turbines that capture wind and transform it into energy. In addition, inside the capsule we also find a couple of channels that direct some of the wind towards the inside in order to moderate temperatures accordingly.

The size of the pod also has another benefit, transportability. Because of a relatively small size in comparison to modern-day homes, this pod could be transported nearly anywhere. But how? That's a good question because aside from breaking it down and putting it up again, we can't think of any other way. This isn’t an aspect covered by the Nau team.

To sum things up, the Living Roof may be absolutely all you need to enjoy a decent, basic life. Work, sleep, eat, repeat. For me, it seems just a bit cramped and way too “this is your life now.” So a two-bedroom apartment will do just fine for my claustrophobic self.