“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole and that meant comfort.”
That’s how The Hobbit author J.R.R. Tolkien first described what’s gone on to become one of—if not *the* most—iconic domiciles in all of fantasy literature: a cozy, subterranean home that conjures a sense of innocent well-being, and back-to-the-land-ish simplicity. It’s a structure that has inspired its fair share of home builders, who have used Tolkien’s fantastical architecture as the model for their own, custom-built houses.
Now, a company called Green Magic Homes has taken Tolkien’s idea one step further, offering do-it-yourself prefabricated modular micro-houses designed specifically to exist under a layer of soil and turf. In other words: flat-pack Hobbit-Holes.
They explain on their website:
Green Magic Homes is a prefabricated modular building system, with structural elements in FRP (Fiber Reinforced Polymer), which contains pieces carefully designed to generate multiple possibilities of spaces, access, lighting, ventilation and connection. The modules that make up the geometry are optimized in its measures to be sent in containers around the world.
Ok, that’s the “Homes” part, but where does the “Green Magic” factor in?
The magic of the “green” and the effect of heat insulation, is provide by the earth side embankments with geo-textile, complimented with a vegetable layer on top. Both embankments and top layer are wrapped in a geo-textile weft open and covered entirely with grass or other vegetation that stabilizes the Earth in the long term by the action of the rooting.
Check it out:
[vimeo ratio=”0.5625″ position=”standard” ][vimeo https://vimeo.com/129680674 expand=1][/vimeo]
According to the company, it usually takes three people around three days to build one of Green Magic Homes’ modular bedrooms, with a three-bedroom house taking around five or six days to construct. To that end the company offers a list of suggested designs of varying shapes and sizes; From simple one room homes, to larger, more complex multiroom layouts. There are even panels which can be used as gazebos, or semi-open-air car shelters.
Of course, living in a prefabricated bubble covered in soil and foliage isn’t necessarily everyone’s idea of a “dream home.” But for those of you out there who wish your neighborhood was a little more like Middle-earth, this just might be the house for you.
