Living the Dream

This is a utility vehicle, an RV – a recreational vehicle. Depending on how you look at it, it’s a vehicle with some accommodation added, or some accommodation that’s mobile. It can move from place to place and perhaps hook up to some infrastructure when it gets there. Here’s a quick guide to RV terminology, courtesy of Happy Camper.

This next is a top-end motorized called an XP Camper.

Utility vehicles aren’t architecture for they don’t – can’t – articulate the possession of property. It’s something to do with them having wheels. What utility vehicles can do however is have an excellent use of internal space. Interiors are tightly designed to accommodate specific functions. Life boils down to sitting, shitting, showering, cooking and sleeping. Some have separated bathrooms and some like one of the above right have pop-up roofs for improved aerodynamics.

Planning-wise, the trend seems to be towards less multipurposing. A table and chairs might morph into an extra bed-space but not the main bed. This is good. It makes going to bed special although, in all honesty, there’s little else the space above the cab could be used for. Sometimes things work out how they should.

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In terms of accommodating basic life functions, you’re better off in an RV than a Nakagin capsule. You’ve also got more windows.

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Several current trends seem to be converging on the R in RV coming to mean Residential rather than Recreational. These trends, in order of how much they’re in-our-faces, are …

The glamorization of tiny houses.

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 The architectural assimilation of tiny houses.

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The private monetization of tiny houses.

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The corporate monetization of tiny houses.

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Tiny house co-housing filling a real housing need

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vs. the corporate monetization of co-housing.

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Tiny houses meet the representation of a mobile lifestyle

vs. tiny mobile houses meeting a real housing need. 

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Vehicles have no problem escaping the tyranny of property. That’s what they do. The downside is that it’s difficult to sustain a concept of architecture if there isn’t any property to articulate possession of. While it’s unlikely utility vehicles will ever be considered architecture, they can still be used to represent its traditional signifieds.

They can be functional and aesthetically austere like this one that’s widely misrepresented on the internet as being the sole home of origami artist Won Park.

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Or they can be post-modern utility vehicles laden with meaning even though nobody’s sure what it all means.  

My guess is that the ‘cabin-in-the-woods’ aesthetic popular with tiny travel trailers is all about using a representation of a building to represent having the rights to enjoy land as if one were a landowner. It’s a desperate look for desperate times. Our new mobile lifestyle didn’t turn out how visionary visionaries of yore envisioned it. Two decades ago though, and not knowing why, I scanned this next image that nailed it. Rear porches seem important. If you just woke up and went outside and stood on the porch with the mist clearing and the early morning sunlight filtering through the trees, it’s quite possible you could suspend disbelief for a few seconds.

This next image, also from decades gone, could be our future suburbia.

The principle is already a reality in Los Angeles as both legal initiatives and as not.  It’s an issue, and designating car parks as temporary campsites seems to overcome it. Unsurprisingly, there’s considerable local resistance.

There’s no such problem with these artists-in-residence who are doing much the same thing, except not for real. People can smile or smirk, and go by.

Some people however, are already living the dream with neither compromise or affectation. Decades ago, the elderly were early adopters of co-living. Retirees are now early adopters of mobile living. There’s a few reasons.

Cost: A decent parked RV house costs about $30,000.

Job Mobility: Retirees don’t have to worry about job mobility and, if they don’t want to live the full-on gypsy life, can drive from one RV camp to another according to season and whim. Living in Wisconsin or Cape Cod in summer, and Florida in winter is a popular choice.

Property tenure: Park model mobile homes are still classified as recreational vehicles which means they can be set up on leased sites in campgrounds and RV parks and used as weekend retreats or seasonal vacation dwellings. There’s already a legal framework for understanding this as a way of living. This is one of the properties run by Yukon Trails Camping.

This type of vehicle parked on land in leased campgrounds is not without its disadvantages that include depreciation of the ‘vehicle’ itself, lack of actual mobility, lack of control over what happens to the land, and laws that favour landlords over tenants.

These risks are reduced by limited equity housing cooperative in which residents don’t directly own a piece of land that’s theirs alone but instead have a membership in the corporation that owns it. This makes them both lessees and owners entitled to a long-term lease and a vote in how the corporation is run. They have control over the rents and have a vested interest in community upkeep. Importantly, the risk of redevelopment by profit-driven landlords is reduced. Judging by how nicely the hillside has been mown, I’d say this below is a limited equity housing cooperative but I’d be wrong – it’s a field monetised as a tiny mobile house hotel farming campers.

It’ll always happen, but the rules are gradually changing to bring part-time Recreational Vehicles into play as full-time Residential Vehicles. Social acceptance isn’t changing as fast but a sea-change isn’t required. We’re more than halfway there anyway. This last image is Quartzsite in Arizona, US. The town is a popular campsite for RV owners. Its permanent population of about 5,000 temporarily increases to about 1.5 million in January and February. Thanks to Daniel [of OfHouses] for letting me know about this. It’s very relevant.

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