Jo-Anne Rowney looks at the future of sustainable living – and finds that it’s shrinking
T
here’s always that moment, when you first move into a new house or flat, of deciding where everything is going to fit and whether
you have just too much stuff. However, if you think your house is cramped take a look at ‘The Cube’. (And no, we’re not talking about the ITV game show here.) The brain child of Dr Mike Page, former engineer
and reader in Cognitive Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, the Cube is a living space which contains a lounge with a table and two chairs, a 4ft wide double bed, a shower and a kitchen all within a 3x3x3m cube. The focus is on sustainable living, with the structure itself designed as “a compact home in which one person could live a comfortable, modern existence with a minimum impact on the environment”. The cosy Cube, which has been showcased at the
Edinburgh Science Festival, aims to be carbon neutral and is thought to be one of the smallest eco-homes in the world – only beaten by a 2.6m ‘Compact Home’ built by Munich University. In keeping with its low carbon ethos the roof has solar panels that generate electricity, so that occupants could earn money from selling extra energy produced back to the grid, without losing any of their own supply. Despite its diminutive proportions, Dr Mike Page argues that it holds “everything you need, and is surprisingly comfortable”. The Cube stemmed from Dr Page’s work acting as a consultant. Working on a low carbon project he realised an example product would really help demonstrate new energy saving technologies.
After securing funding to cover the project costs, Dr
Page began researching what was really required for living and how it could be done in an eco-friendly way. “All the time I was asking myself ‘what do I actually need here?’ I was looking around my home thinking ‘what do you need?’ It’s a case of what the essentials are, rather than what we just want.” The Cube team had been in contact from a very early stage with Simon Gage, Director of the Edinburgh Science festival, who said that he would showcase the product if it could be made. Rising to the challenge Dr Page embarked on building the Cube, drawing on his original degree in Engineering. “I had to draw out and plan every last detail of the Cube. Everything was decided by us, down to the type of screw used to keep the plywood together. We were driven by the aim to have a low carbon footprint. That covered the heating, water, all the systems.” The Cube was made just in time for the Edinburgh
Science Festival which opened in early April, where it was met with great interest. To date, over 400 emails
One of the smallest eco-homes in the world
have been received enquiring about the structure, including people willing to buy one of the small homes. Despite the interest, is it really feasible as a comfortable living space? After receiving comments from the festival’s visitors, Dr Page is optimistic. “Most people that have been in the Cube think it appears larger than it is. We’re really encouraged that it will be possible for someone to live in the Cube. It may not be feasible to do so for all your life, but who knows, when you’re young and it’s just one person...” Dr Page emphasised that nothing they used to build the Cube was specific to a small building, so it is perfectly feasible for it to be scaled up to a larger low carbon footprint home. “The idea would be possible for any size buildings. The Cube encapsulates the essential criteria for a low carbon footprint home.” While demonstrating practically what can be done to achieve this, the Cube also served another purpose that was “half way between engineering and psychology.” Dr Page is interested in the mitigation of climate change as a psychology issue following a paper he had written called HOT topics – habits, opportunities and thoughts – that looked at why people are reluctant to take on energy saving technologies when they are readily available. “The technologies are already there, so it is a behavioural problem. People do have the opportunities available to them so we looked at behavioural change in relation to climate change - there is always a problem and a change. For example, if someone is smoking thirty cigarettes a day, the opportunity is to smoke nothing. There is a clear input and output.” “When it comes to dealing with carbon emissions, people are not aware of the problem and no idea what to do to reduce it. The Cube is about drawing attention to working the problem out and what to do about it.” He added, “It’s about changing our way of thinking.
The Cube shows what is possible and the opportunities we have.” Dr Page is currently talking to a company who would be happy to build the Cube. The interest has been overwhelming, with stories in the Huffington Post, Yahoo news and local newspapers globally. On Twitter a search brings up posts every few seconds in a different language – globally we’re all going mad for the Cube. So what’s the next stop? “Actually getting someone to live in the Cube for a serious amount of time, to do some trials if that was successful. We want to make it more accessible – it would be great if one day it can be made around the world.” f❵
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