MyHab: Big Mac Boxes for People

How appropriate that the week of the Live Earth global benefit shows, and hot on the heels of a deluged Glastonbury festival, we get word of a new solution to the problem of music festival tent-jam. You know, the problem of hundreds of thousands of people showing up in a field with incomplete tent equipment, generally leaving a mess and lots of broken poles and muddy, rained-soaked fabric around post-show. Yes, just like our family's July 4th picnic.

MyHab's portable event accommodation. Just add festival and stir.

Rising to the challenge is MyHab, a waterproof, recycled cardboard and plastic mini-hut for two, complete with PIN-secured locker for your valuables (Clif Bars, iPods, Red Bull), a cushioned floor, and interior lighting. The idea is that you book ahead and your MyHab is there waiting, all warm and cozy, in said muddy field, even pre-stocked with a welcome hamper. All you bring is your cardboard-tolerant, presumably non-smoking friend, and you can enjoy your experience, as MyHab puts it, without worrying about accommodation.

 
MyHab is just the latest blip in an emerging trend of small spaces for people, offering efficient use of space and resources, and convenience in a bundle. Following an accommodation theme that emerged first in Japan, the Pod Hotel recently opened in New York City on the site of the former Pickwick Arms, featuring various sizes of micro-rooms for your city stay. Even this new addition to the Gotham sleep scene is a late entrant, with easyHotel, a pod hotel by easyJet founder Stelios, Yotel, and Qbic hotels recently opening in the UK and Europe. Of course, the Japanese started the ball rolling with pod hotels for late-working (or partying) salarymen in the form of pod hotels like the Capsule Inn in Akihabara.

Of course, if you live in Australia and guests are coming to stay awhile, you can call PerrinePods and have a fully functioning living pod dropped on the side of your existing house. Lots of friends coming? They'll stack them up to 30 units high for an instant high-rise. 

What are the implications for furniture and fixtures in a smaller, pop-up world? Temporary furniture becomes more popular, in the direction of Ikea or Muji (which is coming to the US, by the way). Disposability would seem to extend to furnishings as well as structures. But houseguests? No, they tend to be permanent.