Invisible Studio Architects have created in Bath a self-built, relocatable prototype home using construction waste and locally grown unseasoned timber. Built with a budget of £20,000, the small living space can be legally transported on a public highway and used as temporary or permanent accommodation.

It moves using a removable wheeled ‘bogey’ that slides out from under the steel chassis, which was driven to site. The bogey was also used to transport all of the prefabricated timber frames to site for construction, which lasted for over three months. This project has been entered into the AJ Small Projects Awards.

The trailer is covered in corrugated fibreglass and steel and lined internally in used but cleaned shuttering ply. The joinery and the two staircases are made from plywood offcuts, while the handrails are made from offcuts of blue rope that were spare from the Studio in the Woods project. The building is protected by a scavenged insulation. The doors were sourced from a skip and the rooflights were traded as ‘seconds’. Both gable ends are glazed with interlocking polycarbonate sheets and can provide natural light.

The milling was very economical as only 125 x 50 mm timber was used. This effective method of using timber ties in with the forest management plan for the use of timber in the woodland that Invisible Studio manages.
The aim of this project is to provide a super low cost, versatile, usable space that could act as a kit of parts for any self-builder to improvise around or easily adapt. Although it was conceived as a domestic space, it could also function as a workspace or anything else.

Invisible Studio is an innovative and award winning architecture practice founded by Piers Taylor. It strives to be a different organisation and create something extraordinary. Their work encompasses a number of seminal buildings from ecologically sensitive self builds through to schools, community and public buildings and large scale urban environments.