Building the dream
“It all began with just a few printed images from the internet and a vague idea of how I wanted the end product to look,” Lucas explains. Two containers (12m L x 2.4m W x 2.7m H) were welded together to create his home. “As with most construction projects, what was supposed to take two months turned into a four-month endeavour with plenty of blood, sweat and tears!” Lucas says.
Challenges included the fact that the plot is situated on the side of a hill; that it is far from the main infrastructure of the farm, so everything had to be brought up by tractor; and that for a long time there was no running water or electricity, so a generator had to be utilised. For Lucas, the process was all trial and error.
He didn’t want to cut into the side of the hill to create the unit’s foundations, so the container was placed on pillars positioned deep in the ground and secured with concrete and bricks. This resulted in the cabin’s elevation in front. Inside, the container was insulated with mineral wool – heated materials spun into non-combustible wool, coated with a resin and compressed to become the finished product. The interior was then clad with recyclable MagnaBoard and the deck was created using a welded, square steel tubing frame and durable, low-maintenance balau.
Lucas named the unit Copia, Latin for “abundance”, and is in the process of adding a few more units to grow his new business venture. >>