This Micro-Cabin Is Unlike Any Other Mobile Home, Rotates to Reveal Rooms

The tiny house / downsizing movement took roots in the early aughts and has seen an incredible boost in popularity since. Over the past couple of years, tiny houses and mobile homes have moved out of the novelty niche, as people of all ages and from all walks of life embraced the switch to the new lifestyle.

Mobile houses, unlike their brick-and-mortar counterparts, offer more freedom of movement, a reduced footprint and reduced living costs, and the chance to live more intentionally. Their more compact form factor doesn’t limit creativity of expression, as we’ve seen in the countless units we’ve discussed here, too. Mobile houses, whether they’re tinies or van conversions, overlanders and even larger RVs, are brilliant examples of creativity and skill, and can even offer more functionality than a standard home.

But what about standard homes, what does the future have in store for them? If this concept is any indication, they might embrace some degree of the mobility of mobile homes, as well as the more compact footprint in a bid for more sustainability credentials.

This is 3 Scenes of a Home, a relatively new concept for a micro-cabin from international design collective Studio Supra-Simplicities. Unveiled publicly earlier this year on the occasion of Buildner’s 2023 MicroHome Competition Edition, this concept earned the studio an honorable mention by the jury. Us non-jury folk can look at it as a home from a potential alternative future.

The micro-cabin is a mobile home, but unlike tinies and van conversions, it doesn’t change location as it moves. Instead, it spins in place – not just to keep the residents entertained and make them dizzy but to reveal access to any one of its three main living areas. These would be the same ones as in a standard home, and of comparative size: the kitchen and dining area, the bedroom, and the washroom, but they now go by the moniker “scene.” Hence, the name of the concept.

The micro-cabin is actually a wooden cylinder divided in two parts, Front of the House and Back of the House. The names really do say it all in terms of the nature of these spaces, so the only mention still needed here is that Front is well-lit and open-aired, whereas Back of the House is dark and hidden from view. The Front of the House is a shoebox-like volume bathed in natural light, doubling as entry point by means of a simple ladder. Since this micro-cabin is a cylinder, the main living area floats above the ground.



At the center of the cylindrical volume (the house, that is) sits a rotable three-scene mechanism similar to a theater stage. The spinning platform holds all three “scenes,” bringing each one into the light by the rotation movement. When one scene is brought forward to the Front of the House, the other two remain in the Back, hidden from sight and inaccessible to the residents.

According to the design studio, there is reason behind the apparent madness of creating “disappearing” spaces inside a home – and no, it’s not to make the residents crazy dizzy. The idea is to do away with transitional spaces like corridors and hallways that are otherwise useless. At the same time, the design aims to achieve the smallest footprint possible, while infusing a very distinctive and dynamic character to the home. This way, the micro-cabin gets maximized internal mobility and flexibility of living, but with the smallest footprint possible.

We’ve seen rotating homes before, and even rotating floating hotels, but this one puts a more dramatic spin, if you’ll allow the pun, on the idea of alternative housing.

The 3 Scenes of a House is focused on sustainability as well. The designers highlight the rainwater harvesting and collection system on the roof, which is propelled by gravity and comprised of a holding tank, a vortex filter, and drainage pipes. Reverse-osmosis ensures that collected water is drinkable, and as such, usable for all three “scenes” of the home. Wastewater goes into an underground septic tank, “for storage and further treatment,” possibly for later use.

This being just a concept, other specifics haven’t been detailed as of the time of press. The study could benefit from further development, if only to specify just how fast the revolving movement would be. It’s not the most important aspect about the micro-cabin concept, but it’s definitely the most eye-catching. Here’s to hoping it’s nothing close to the speed of what’s in the GIF below. That would be pure torture.