Mars Living Cabin

The MARS Case is a collaborative dwelling by OPEN Architecture and Xiaomi, unveiled on the south plaza of Beijing's National Stadium, the Bird's Nest, as part of CHINA HOUSE VISION, a future-life exhibition initiated by Japanese designer Kenya Hara. The project poses a question: when humanity has pushed itself to the point of having to emigrate to Mars, should we not rethink how we live today? Two hundred years ago, Thoreau lived alone at Walden Pond to reflect on the essence of life; today, amid environmental crisis and endless consumption, the experiment asks what life essentially is. HOUSE VISION gave OPEN and Xiaomi the chance to run that experiment under an extreme condition: human habitation on the distant, lonely red planet, where material life must be reduced to the minimum and resources recycled to the greatest degree, and where such extreme thinking may offer the most valuable lesson for life on Earth. When technology, art, product and architecture merge, what will the future home be? MARS Case goes beyond Xiaomi's internet-connected smart appliances to create a physical connection, making the home itself a large technological product that self-sufficiently cycles energy, water and air. Integrated with smart-home systems, a space of only 2.4 by 2 meters can support a complete living environment. Besides using light materials, the unit folds like a suitcase to minimize weight and volume in transport, then expands on arrival. In the words of OPEN founding partner Li Hu, living on Mars seems both possible and unimaginable; human impact on Earth over recent centuries has pushed nature's self-healing ability to the edge, and we need to re-examine what life and survival truly require. If high technology can deliver smart homes, then even a four-square-meter home can support high-quality living. MARS Case is therefore a self-circulating, zero-pollution dwelling and a flexible mobile home built around extreme transport dimensions, ready to travel anywhere on Earth, from city rooftops to forests and lakes, as an ideal home for those who pursue freedom and look up at the stars.