Going on holidays with a house trailer is as square as can be. Major traffic jams of cars pulling a cabin behind them fill our tv-screens every summer. Not done, for architects. But...

In the year 1986 the city of Almere, a Dutch city on the new land of the Flevo-polder, did a competition on experimental housing. The houses were only allowed to stay there for 5 years, but because of the succes they are still there. And the first competition had two competitions following. About 25 projects found their place either on "the Reality" or "Fantasy 1 & 2", built by both architects and non-architects. One of the winners that was allowed to build his design was Eduard Böhtlingk. He's an architect from a little village under the smoke of Rotterdam. After studying in Delft, he started his own office in Maasland.

Inspired by the Biënnale for Dutch Architects for which he had to make an exhibition of his work in a standardized container in 1985, he developed a mobil home with the qualities of the architecture of Rietveld. Him you all know I guess.

Gerrit Rietveld was a former furniture craftsman that got world famous by his Schröder-house in Utrecht. Its living, situated on the first floor, is an open space only defined by some walls and furniture. Since Rietveld had his atelier on the groundfloor, the bedrooms also had to be on the first floor. He therefore developed a system of flexible walls that separated the different areas during the night. Open corners, infinite space and and the color-scheme red, yellow and blue makes it a wonderful example of the Dutch 'De Stijl'. Lateron Rietveld designed some social housing as well. He concentrated around a central humid cell, in order to make the houses as cheap as possible. Looking for the minimum of square meters, he developed collapsable furniture to save space. An ironing board suddenly appears from a closet.

In the tradition of the Netherlands functional spatiality Böhtlingk took a rectangular space as a base for his mobil home. The only openings that are visible when the thing is on the road, are the door in the front and the small window in the back. Once the cabin is at its destination, a surprising event takes place: both sides open up. Controlled by an electrical motor one totally transparant and one orange blind appear on both sides of the box. The walls become the floors of the little house.

Due to this principle his mobil home has a floor that is three times bigger than the normal ones have. The central space, that is defined by four floor-to-ceiling cupboards, has a kitchen and a collapsable dining table and dito chairs in it. At the moments that you do not need the tables, they are hidden behind the cupboard doors and an open space remains in the middle.

The orange blind encloses the sleeping area. Two times two beds can be folded out of the walls. Bookshelves and nightlights appear behind them. A sort of Japanese fan devides this side in two bedrooms.

On the other side of the central area, under the transparant blind, you find the living room. Two couches can be created there, with an integrated side-table. If this part is also extended an extra bed is formed. When the blind is closed you already have an excellent view. The transparant walls allow you to enjoy the surrounding landscape to all three sides. An extra facility is the fact that you can open the blind. All of the sudden you find yourself in a mobil home with terrace. Because it is not necessary to put blocks under the floors, this terrace can be over water, canyons or anything.

Last year this house trailor was nominated for the Rotterdam Design Award. It seemed so attractive to all the public that visited the exhibition in the Kunsthal, that it was given the Audience Award. Pity is, that there is no mobil home factory that is daring to take this wonderful design in production, though there's a list of people waiting to be able to buy one. Architect Böhtlingk is still the owner of the unique object and enjoys spending the holidays in it with his family every summer.

This mobil home shows there's an opportunity in anything. It makes me happy and look forward to this summer.