GENOMICON

Now we’re talking:

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Something I’m definitely going to do when the finances improve is make a camper-van especially designed for tele-computer/digital-nomads like me. We need wifi, electricity, a view, and… surroundings that look a bit designery. Camper-van design at the moment is all itty bitty and not really the sort of thing you’d want to spend weeks on end slobbing about the place in, eating pizza and playing on the internets.

But this is getting closer.

I haven’t the slightest idea what any of it actually says of course. What is that? Portuguese? The original designer is from Belgium I think… which is where they make chocolate, and… Belgians, mainly, and there’s nothing wrong with that. And chips. And beer. Belgians, chocolates, chips, beer and caravans that look like the Sydney Opera House. Utter genius.

Ok, that’s a crap name. I’m not calling it that.

I’m still working (and by working, I mean sitting around and doing fuck-all) on my DIY camper-van idea… because every year I go on a grand-tour and… which tends to mean going up and living in Tallinn for a month… because you can get a whole posh apartment there for a month for the same price as a low-grade hotel across the water in Scandinavia costs for less than a week.

And for double that price you could make a campervan… and at the end of it, you wouldn’t just be left with a hole in your pocket. You’d have a campervan.

But I don’t like existing camper-van designs. They’re pokey and boxey and… well, there seem to be a lot of really nice designs for shipping containers around at the moment. I’m a web-dev. I need a view. I need quite a lot of space for lounging about in. I don’t need to cook, I do need a shower every morning.

So what I have in mind is something modular – to fit any sort of van… or in fact any sort of smallish space at all. A squat say. A portable squat-kit that is actually really cool, rather than being a bit crusty.

So anyway, I collect things that might be useful… and this would be useful because… it would be useful to have a bed where you can adjust the heights…. so it can still be flat when you park on a slope.

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I saw these other things the other day as well… modular cushions:

And (also via) these modular bathroom fittings have potential as well,

Or would have were it not for the arse-quakingly bad design of the originating site which means it would be easier to make your own out of your own hand-mined (using stone implements) iron ore, than it would be to find what you’re looking for on the web.

Off-Gridity innit. Connected Off-Gridity.

All of this stuff (however) is for (an by) design fetishists who pay maximalist prices for their minimalism. I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in getting people the fuck away from banks and landlords… although that said, the most expensive bit is still a bank of solar panels to keep your batteries topped up.

No, they don’t exist.

I’m quite interested in camper vans – I’ve spent 1/2 my life living in one for some reason… but I don’t like the decor of what’s on offer. Everything is a bit bitty, and cluttered. I want an Ikea version – I want Zen etc. Something like this

But with wheels.

It also has to be unobtrusive… ie: look like a panel van on the outside, so you can park it anywhere without people thinking you’re camping. Mobile squatting etc. And of course the other problem with camper-vans is that they now cost more to hire than fucking hotels.

I was thinking of doing something along these lines this year – before I wound up broke, living on a boat and then winding up in hospital and having to move back in with my folks so I could be looked after etc. I was thinking of getting a panel van and building a modular kitset thing so the essentials were covered (ie: shower, toilet, bed, electricity)(no, cooking isn’t as essential as it looks)(yes, you can live on pizza forever)(mmm pizza) but everything went a bit wrong so I’ve been watching developments etc from the sidelines.

This turned up recently. Natty concept etc. Like living in a luridly coloured concertina, modeled loosely around A. E Poe’s Masque of the Red Death.

(more pics here). What could possibly go wrong? Apart from being endlessly moved on by the cops etc.

Ok – something a bit more Urban and invisible… A dump truck (almost)

which is pretty cool, but it’s starting to get back into itty-bitty-land interior-decor-wise

(from via), and the prices seem to average around 400,000 US dollars – holymotherofgod. I mean they’re nice, but not as nice as the two houses you could buy for the same price.

So I think an idea that’s a bit of a goer is this sort of design asthetic:

(which is a shipping container) but made out of lego like stuff that you can use to line the walls of a generic panel-van.

In my experience, the most difficult thing about living in a van is temperature control. Security is a big one as well – I lived in a panel van in London for a month, and had two attempted break-ins, while I was in the van. The 3rd time they got lucky, and nicked everything.

A shower is crucial (solar, gas-heated hybrid). Electricity (probably solar/gas-generator). A toilet… less so, but when you need one, you need one – so I’d say that was pretty crucial as well. I also think access to daylight is fairly critical if you’re going to be spending long periods of time in it. You need some way of having big (like metre sq) windows or a skylight. The more I think about this, the more I’m thinking that ideally you need to be able to cut big holes in the van. You could achieve a lot using big neo-magnets and t-slot beams… but to really sort out the temperature control and daylight, you’re going to need to cut holes in things.

And to be honest, I have this nagging suspicion that what this is really about is a Child-Of-The-70s reincarnating the shaggin-wagon with ’00s minimalist styling. Shaggin Wagons were all the rage at about the same time that Star Wars came out…

And they had something to do with pornography, though I’m not sure what. It’s like the interiors were kindof like 70s porn decor, but with all the lust-filled fetishisation transferred from the porn-stars to the plush-velvet-over-everything obsession.

It’s like there was this weird transferal where the woman was no longer good enough for the fantasy (or was simply unavailable) so all the lust went into the upholstery. So to speak.

I can’t find any decent photos of just how extreme this got… but did find this rather lovely bit of paleo-futurism which kindof gets the point across etc:

This hasn’t gone away of course. The Japanese have gotten hold of it, and have (characteristically) pushed all the sliders up to 11, and created something way beyond what is remotely practical or workable. They’ve got an interesting take on super-normal stimuli:

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And there’s some tragic irony floating around out there somewhere, that the design aesthetic that I have in mind is actually Japanese… but the Japanese themselves have taken vans and gone so far in the opposite direction that it’s not longer measurable using normal scientific instruments.