The prefabricated home you’re looking at in these photos is no longer in Tasmania.

It was there, after being ferried from Melbourne, Australia, trucked to a remote location in Tasmania’s Tarkine Forest, and craned into place to capture panoramic sea views. But as of this writing, the house is on a ferry back to Melbourne, from where it will continue by truck for about 1,600 miles to another remote site near the small town of Grafton.

Built by Australian manufacturer Spacecube and customized by Breathe Architecture, the home offers a fresh perspective on flexible, remote living.

Founded in 2012, Spacecube got its start creating high-end temporary structures, often for corporate retail clients. But they were more architectural than a simple tent, say. “Something more premium, something highly engineered that could be deployed quickly and essentially become a permanent building overnight,” says the company’s founder, Jeremy Fisher.

He describes Spacecube not as architecture but as a kind of habitable architectural building block: a steel-framed glass box that can be multiplied and customized to order.

“We wanted to make sure that it was simplistic enough that brands or clients could overlay their design and transform what is essentially Lego blocks into whatever they want,” Fisher says. “We never really see ourselves being a full permanent home builder as such, because our whole vision is to allow people to evolve that design over time.”

The Spacecube Adaptable Living series, like the company’s other flat-pack temporary buildings, doesn’t rely on any load-bearing walls, because its structural support is provided by steel framing and connections. That means there is no front or back side to a Spacecube, allowing designers to pair several together (each is 20 square meters, or 215 square feet) to create new configurations.

Just as importantly, though, these houses, or building blocks of houses, can be disassembled, folded back into flat-pack form, and trucked out again. For Spacecube, expansion and disassembly are meant as part of the same idea: that this is a continually customizable structure.

“If that landowner wants to move, they can take that with them,” Fisher explains. “Or they might say, ‘We’ve been using it for a holiday home for ourselves, and now we’re having a couple of kids so we’d like to add on another wing or another room.’” According to Fisher, there are about eight different configurations that you can create by just removing one of the sections of walls.

Spacecube had already sought out Breathe for this collaboration when Jeep, which had previously worked with Spacecube on brand-activation structures, came calling.

“Our whole vision is to allow people to evolve the design over time.”
—Jeremy Fisher, Spacecube founder

“They were looking for a home they could put in a the most remote location they could as part of a campaign,” Fisher remembers. “It was all about working from home and showing people that they could work from anywhere in a nice luxury environment off the grid. We were already designing a demonstration house with Breathe and saying, ‘Where are we going to put this?’”

Breathe also helped select some of the individual interior and exterior materials (including doors, hardware, walls and hardwood flooring) that customized the space, including an optional pergola. The firm also worked with Spacecube to select a photovoltaic panel and Tesla battery system to turn it into a net-zero energy unit.

Australian-made products were used throughout, including all fixtures, fittings, hardwood-timber doors, and double-glazed windows. Breathe and Spacecube worked side by side to seamlessly integrate the off-grid energy solutions so as to maintain the unit’s sleek aesthetic. “It would have been very easy to have gas-run everything,” says Breathe’s Bettina Robinson. “Instead, we increased the solar battery capacity to run all appliances ensuring the project was completely gas free.”

Not everyone is looking to move their house from place to place. But Fisher believes the relative ease with which Spacecube’s Adaptable Living units can be deployed, especially in natural settings, make them an increasingly attractive alternative for vacationers, or those looking to work from a more exotic locale. “We feel like there’s been a massive shift since quarantine and COVID,” says Fisher. “For people with busy lives, it’s a natural progression to want to get out and switch off and connect with nature.”

Related Reading:

This Off-Grid Prefab Is All About Location, Location, Location

A Trailblazing Prefab Will Soon Woo U.S. Buyers

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Breathe Architecture / @breathearchitecture

Interior Design: Breathe Architecture

Manufacturer: Spacecube / @spacecubemodular

Builder/General Contractor: Carringvale Construction Management

Structural Engineer: Phelan Shilo Partners

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