LOCUS UNVEILS PPoD AT FORM + CONTENT GALLERY JULY 30TH

PPoD (pronounced “peapod”), another flexible housing system designed by LOCUS (see SNUGhouse) offers a common sense alternative to current housing and lending gluttony. PPod builds upon the SNUGhouse idea of affordable living, but also allows families to modulate dwelling size according to available financial resources and changing needs.

Pay as you build.
Build as you grow.
Grow – or shrink – as you need.

Delivering a new pod

Contrast this concept with the prevalent build-now/pay-later system that, within our culture of unchecked consumption, produced the current housing crisis and ultimately the freefall of global capital markets. In America, we’ve come to accept the risk of leveraged debt without a second thought. Since we often get today what we intend to pay for tomorrow, our decisions are not constrained in real time. Big decisions – say, taking on a loan with a 30-year obligation – tend to be made in optimistic times. The influence of financial hardship in making these decisions tends to be downplayed and is significantly delayed, ignoring unexpected everyday events such as job loss, childbirth, heath problems, travel, second homes, death, retirement, and marriage.

Come see the show, and meet Jan & Jan (in the virtual world), and their family’s PPoD. You can also see seven other projects from collaborative teams.

Follow the Jans through 70 years of ups and downs to see how the PPoD concept responds to change. Starting with a compact core, The Dock, designed for a single person or couple, the Jans plug and unplug pods, responding to changing income, family size, and age. PPoD can grow – as most homes can – but more importantly it can shrink quickly and easily (“I’m selling Jenny’s bedroom on eBay!”) as family members move or income shrinks. The typical U.S. home does not downsize well. Even as the American family size dwindles, homes continue to swell to meet the perceived peak-space-need of the generation. This model cannot be sustained indefinitely. PPoD is tailored to fit dwelling needs over time, expanding and contracting in harmony with the dynamics of life.

Flexible.
Affordable.
Sustainable.

We’ll be releasing a YouTube video explaining more details of the PPoD concept after the show opening. Stay tuned!

TEAM PPoD

Locus Architecture, Ltd.: Architecture, Narrative
Adam Jonas
Viktorija Kristupaitis
Paul Neseth
Charley Umbarger
Wynne Yelland

Toss Film & Design: Video, Graphic Design
Paul Guthrie

Robert Meier – Photographs, Voice

Thanks also to these folks for their help with PPoD:
Wing Young Huie, Robert Feyereisen, Kevin Nelson, & Steven Rajninger