The Futuro House

Tuesday, 10th February 2009 by

The Futuro House is a round, prefabricated house that was designed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen in 1968. About 100 of the kits were erected around the world, and you'd know if you saw one - because they look exactly like perfect little flying saucers from some 50s B-movie.

Royse City Fututo, one of three surviving in Texas

Built from fibreglass-reinforced polyester-plastic, Futuros are around 4 metres high by 8 metres across, and have super-cool airplane-style hatch entrances.

Waterside Futuro in Berlin, Germany

Suuronen's aim was actually to design a ski-cabin1, one that would be “quick to heat and easy to construct in rough terrain”, and in this respect he succeeded - a Futuro House can be placed on virtually any terrain, requiring only four concrete supports, and thanks to the integrated polyurethane insulation and electric heating system, even in the most extreme conditions it only takes around thirty minutes to achieve a comfortable temperature inside.

Futuro as part of the Canberra Space Dome & Observatory, Australia

Despite the obvious awesomeness of these UFO-shaped homes, by the mid 70s they had been withdrawn from sale - although this was mainly due to the 1973 oil crisis, which had sent the price of plastic skyrocketing.

Front and back of the Pensacola Beach Futuro House, Florida2

Around sixty of the original Futuros have been accounted for over the years, but there are still many that remain undiscovered. The most complete archive is at futuro-house.net (there's another with an embedded map at archinform.net), but it seems to have been left to stagnate for a number of years - perhaps Google Earth will provide the means for all of the missing Futuros to be rediscovered?

Double Futuro House, Franklin, Ohio

It should also be pointed out that the moulds for making Futuros apparently still exist... about time for a revival don't you think?

Futuro in Covington, Kentucky

Here's an article that includes a floor plan, some images of a Futuro being helicoptered into position, as well as some great shots of people inside.

  1. In fact there's still at least one existing Futuro that lives on as a ski-cabin in Russia. ↩︎

  2. Pensacola Beach is also home to the Dome of a Home. ↩︎

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Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.