Remembering Wandering Home, a World-Famous Tricycle-Based Mobile Home

The idea of mobile homes as a solution to urban homelessness is not new, but it's seeing a resurgence in the spotlight due to the post-2020 housing crisis. Companies like Boxabl or Escape Tiny Homes are working with authorities to build tiny home communities or are offering their units as a solution to those not able to afford rent, let alone monthly payments for a mortgage.

Mobile homes – and we're not talking here about those custom, blown-up-to-size units that are more like palaces on wheels than tiny houses – could work in a variety of scenarios, homelessness being one of them. The smaller the mobile home, the more suitable for that purpose it would be.

That was an idea that Hong Kong-born artist Kacey Wong also focused heavily on in his work. The artist, who is now living under self-exile in Taiwan, specifically dealt with the theme of homelessness and city living in his late 2000s art, specifically in the 2008 piece he called the Wandering Home.

We're bringing it up today because it's still very relevant even after all these years and, with some adjustments, could even be used for a real build. Bicycle trailers and campers or even bicycle-based mobile homes are also having a moment right now, though not specifically as an alternative to homelessness. Instead, they're riding the wanderlust wave and are presented as excellent, more mobile, and more affordable variants to full-size RVs.

The Wandering Home was designed as any of these things or all of them at once. It's a home that sits on a tricycle, of the kind that was then (and is still) popular in mainland China. It's also a full DIY (do it yourself) build, with a compact footprint of just 3 by 4 feet (0.9 by 1.2 meters) but considerable headroom and all the basic creature comforts of a home.

Designed out of metal sheets and lightweight plywood, this mobile home was 290 cm (9.5 feet) long and 220 cm (7.2 feet) wide, with a height of 278 cm (9.1 feet) when parked and in camp mode.

Mind you, this isn't a home in the sense that proper towable is. It pales even in comparison with some modern bicycle trailers, if only for the fact that its height makes it rather unstable or that it can't offer space to lie down unless you fold down the extension – in which case the lower half of your legs is outside of the private space.

These are valid objections, but context is essential here: Wong designed and built the Home for himself as a way to "explore the idea of minimal dwelling," questioning "the basic unit of urbanity." He imagined the smallest, most compact unit that could mimic a home yet offer complete freedom in the city landscape. All the while, he wanted his project to bring attention to living conditions in the city.

The result was Wandering Home, a small mobile home with a lounge, which was also a bedroom, which was also the kitchen, which was also the dining room. But hey, at least the cramped interior was rendered airy by means of the higher ceiling and several windows, a couple of them awning to allow for a cross-breeze.

Power to move the Wandering Home came from the rider's legs, and their legs alone. The year this project was presented to the public was 2008, and electric bikes were not yet an industry mainstay. On the bright side, the lightweight construction didn't pose any issues during transport other than stability on tighter corners.

In "camp" mode, the Wandering Home offered a bed for one by means of a fold-out expansion. It was a most creative solution to the space problem, but also a rather inconvenient one because it meant loss of privacy and maybe even the risk of getting your feet wet in an unexpected downpour at night.

Realizing the real-life applicability of the Wandering Home, Wong would later propose it as a conceptual study for alternative housing for the homeless.

It was tested on street sleepers in Sham Shui Po and traveled to Venice, Italy, representing Hong Kong at the 11th International Architecture Exhibition. The Wandering Home also appeared in the Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism Architecture in Hong Kong that same year and spanned a series of similarly-themed works by the artist.

In today's ongoing discussion about – if not downright obsession with – tiny living and mobile homes, the Wandering Home serves as a stark reminder that less really is more, in some cases. It also shows that if freedom of movement is the desired goal at any given point in time, you don't really need that much to achieve it. A tricycle and some basic construction skills, as well as a complete disregard for personal comfort, will do.