The off-grid news; local architect, international architecture; and more

A luxury off-grid trailer - but you’ll pay for it

Living Vehicle is a luxury off-grid trailer. A team of LEED-accredited professionals and architects with expertise in sustainable design and high-end home building founded the company in 2017. They combine modern architecture and advanced automotive-grade technology to create what they claim is the ultimate luxury living space, with adaptable spaces allowing off-grid living, travel, work, and adventure in any environment and climate.

Of course, plan to pay for the luxury. The trailers will set you back about $460,000, which means I won’t be seeing the inside of one anytime soon. Still, it’s nice to dream….

These puppies are huge, the size of Airstreams, but more rugged looking. I particularly like the dual solar awnings that open up on either side of the roof to soak up the sun’s power.

Each unit is custom-built and offers multiple bedroom configuration options capable of sleeping up to eight adults. The flagship Queen or King Suites features over 150 square feet of storage space and a six-foot full-height closet. The zero-gravity lounge pairs perfectly with the 4K Home Theater system and integrated Hi-Fi wireless audio. A mobile office features an 80" dual workstation and folding bed system. The trailer comes with a Starlink Flat Satellite dish that provides a dedicated WIFI network.

Living Vehicle, an off-grid luxury trailer.

The luxury trailer creates an “endless” water supply while traveling off-grid by extracting humidity from the air and storing it in the freshwater tank, allowing infinite time away from the grid.

The Flagship HD PRO model offers 72kWh of energy storage and 18kW of power, which runs all onboard electrical equipment, including electric heating and cooling. With the air conditioning system relocated to the basement, the 2024 Living Vehicle HD PRO features a wall-to-wall solar capacity of up to 6kW.

The solar-powered trailer boasts four-season capability and can thrive in below-freezing temperatures, down to an industry-first sub-zero, -4°F, thanks to the dual-zone 240V Mini-Split electric heating system. The Living Vehicle is fully insulated with 100 percent rigid closed-cell foam insulation, which keeps the inside cool in environments that reach 120 degrees.

One of Unyoked’s off-grid cabins.

Unyoked raises $19 million, providing off-grid as a travel experience

Unyoked, a startup that operates about 100 cabins in Australia, New Zealand, and the U.K., has raised $19 million for further European expansion. Unyoked is focused on building eco-friendly cabins unconnected to modern systems, according to Skift, a travel website.

Skift reports that Unyoked’s cabins measure around 9.8 feet by 29.5 feet (three meters by nine meters) and include a compact kitchen and bathroom. The cabins use only solar power, are heated with a wood fire, and have their own rainwater tank and composting toilets.

“We believe in a world where people see and use nature like they do the gym. Spending time outdoors is an important balance to our lives in an increasingly noisy and hectic environment. Many of us still don’t understand just how powerful it can be,” said Chris Grant, co-founder of Unyoked, in a statement.

Off-grid, anywhere: powering the future

Over at Corporate Knights, the publication that calls itself the world's largest circulation magazine on clean capitalism, Diana Fox Carney’s Carbon Hunters podcast talks to the CEO of Clear Blue Technologies. The Toronto-based company uses smart off-grid technology to monitor and power devices anywhere in the world, according to Carney.

As Carney notes in the introduction, “as the energy transition kicks into full swing and we electrify much of our lives, the demand on electricity grids is expected to swell. And observers say off-grid solutions will play a big role in taking strain off the traditional grid and keeping electricity affordable.”

Enough house.

Home town hero

A small crowd of about 100 people recently gathered on a rainy Thursday night at the Lunenburg School of the Arts to hear a local lad lecture about his work. It’s not often, though, that the local is an architect of international stature.

Brian MacKay-Lyons was born and raised in the village of Arcadia in Southwestern Nova Scotia. He received his Bachelor of Architecture from the Technical University of Nova Scotia in 1978 where he was awarded the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Medal. He received his Master of Architecture and Urban Design at U.C.L.A.

Summit Horizon Neighbourhood.

Since then, MacKay-Lyons has received a few accolades, shall we say. He partnered with Talbot Sweetapple to form MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects Ltd. The firm built an international reputation for design excellence confirmed by 140-plus awards, including the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) Firm Award in 2014; seven Governor General Medals; three American Institute of Architects (AIA) National Honor Awards for Architecture and two AIA Housing Design Awards; 13 Lieutenant Governor’s Medals of Excellence; eight Canadian Architect Awards; four Architectural Record Houses Awards; and 13 North American Wood Design Awards.

In 2015, MacKay-Lyons was awarded the RAIC Gold Medal, Canada’s highest honour for lifetime achievement in architecture.

While a number of monographs have been written about MacKay-Lyons’ work, he hasn’t penned anything himself until now. The talk he gave was based around his forthcoming book titled Dwelling. Dwelling will examine his domestic architecture and his ideas around it.

As he clicked through a slide show of one stunning project after another, MacKay-Lyons joked about his work, but also gave a number of insights into what informs his architecture. He combined references to literature along with place and sustainability, and talked about the back and forth between tradition and modernity in his work.

Brian MacKay-Lyons.

All of his homes begin with a quick sketch on the spot with his clients. Talking about drawing, MacKay-Lyons noted that it is becoming a lost art, replaced with computer-aided design. His drawings, at first impenetrable, quickly resolved themselves into domiciles, individuals and landscapes once he parsed them for us.

A sketch for one of the homes.

As he ran through the homes he’d built, he moved from those built in the immediate area, to ones further along the South Shore and in Halifax, and then within Canada, and finally those he’d built and is working on internationally. It neatly formed a summation and timeline of his career as well.

Many of us will never live in the minimal, iconic, international spaces MacKay-Lyons designs; in some of his homes echos of such great architects as Louis Khan and Richard Meier can be seen. But for those of us fortunate enough to live in Lunenburg County, we are surrounded with sublime examples of MacKay-Lyon’s masterful works.

What I’m reading

American writer Gene Logsdon writes on farming, homesteading, forestry and related subjects from his home in Ohio. He’s produced a steady stream of non-fiction books that in terms of quality could be characterized as uneven. A Sanctuary of Trees would be one of them. Partially a memoir of how he became a journalist and writer and partially a how-to book, A Sanctuary of Trees is at its most interesting when Logsdon is relating stories from his personal life. The moment he begins to lecture us on firewood, and other practical essays, however, he turns into that well-meaning, old uncle who traps you in the corner at a party and bores you to death. Writing an entire chapter of a book on how to light a fire in a wood-burning stove is a stretch, to say the least. It’s not rocket science. And by the time Logsdon has parsed his wood stack in every conceivable way to measure the BTUs he can squeeze out of it, your eyes will have completely glazed over. Read the first half of this book; skip the second.