Bangkok-based architecture and design team Apostrophy have created one bizarre, and perhaps genius, residential space that is offering to promote an entirely new and unique construction process in addition to a full term lifestyle shift.
With a design concept that is a capitalist’s perfect dream, the Thai designers have created a billboard home. That is, simply enough, a residential dwelling that sits on the back of a fully sized billboard.
While it may be a clever and certainly new concept, is this simply an example advertising and media domination gone too far?
That is of course debatable. What is not is the fact that the designers came up with the building concept as a response to the economic trouble that the Thai floods have caused the country, in addition to the need for new, low cost, dwellings in their population dense capital city.
Population density has been shown to cause designers to do some crazy and innovative things, with France constructing rooftop office buildings and Hong Kong home to the 24 roomed 32sqm apartment.
Aesthetically, the building’s front wall is fitted with the billboard and specific ads and the back wall jutted against a building front covered in moveable, self-patternable Thai-style iron panels. The multi-storey dwellings are slim in their design, with a trailer based flooring system that aids in the buildings transportation.
The interior layout holds one key element at its foundation: functionality.
The interiors have been designed to be functional and efficient, utilising all offered spaces. Interior storage and pantries are tucked away in the walls and under furniture in a linear layout that maximises space. The building has an open-air nature with large voids holding metal staircases connecting the levels together.
Cleverly, the dwelling includes sustainable features such as rooftop solar cells and built in hydroponic plants to aid in self-sufficiency and a removal of on grid energy reliance.
The genius behind the economics is that the client, advertiser and homeowner benefit monetarily from this innovatively designed home. The advertiser and client gain positively from the added promotion and newfound relevance of their billboards and the homeowner receives lower rent prices due to a percentage of income from the ad, in addition to the money saved on energy and some fresh produce costs.
The designers have managed to incorporate one of the world’s most overt symbols of capitalist greed into a building that is economically, socially and environmentally sustainable. The juxtaposition is so great; yet so seamless the global industry would be insane to ignore this clever problem-solving project.
Check out the great images at the source website.
Source: http://designbuildsource.com.au/building-home-billboard
Not so much a new idea. A hotel many years ago in Sydney built a billboard replica room just outside of Sydney airport and had someone live in the room for week or so. Was a great advertising gimmick and attrated a lot of media attention. From memory it might have been one of Jamie Packers investment hotels.