Ocean Builders: Exclusive Look Inside the World’s First Self-Sustaining Floating Home - Architectural Digest

“This is simply a gathering that is being designed from the wrong out,” Koen Olthuis, the SeaPod’s designer and laminitis of Waterstudio.NL, tells AD. Incredible views and expansive windows were 1 of the astir important plan elements, helium explains, hence the pod-like form. However, the circular signifier is besides mostly inspired by level engines, since “these kinds of shapes are not influenced excessively overmuch by the wind,” Olthuis continues. Furthermore, a circular operation eliminates a beforehand oregon back, which is integral successful this benignant of location wherever owners participate done stairs astatine the base.

The interiors thin much minimalistic, though these could easy alteration arsenic owners decorate successful their ain style. “I truly wanted to beryllium capable to person a feeling of openness wherever you conscionable locomotion successful and relax,” Romundt says. The introduction stairway leads to an unfastened conception room and surviving country area, and the chamber and bath are astir the country connected the different broadside of the pod. Storage abstraction and a washer and dryer are downstairs, and the extortion is besides accessible for further outdoor space.

The Dutch designer designed 2 SeaPod models: the SeaPod Flagship, an 833-square-foot and three-level pod, and the SeaPod Eco, an 845-square-foot and single-floor home, which was the mentation displayed astatine the event. Ocean Builders besides plans to motorboat 2 Greenpods—both a flagship and eco model—that visually lucifer their h2o counterparts, lone designed to beryllium built connected land. Each SeaPod includes panoramic windows, an outdoor patio space, and 3 customizable outriggers that tin adhd a blistery tub, outdoor eating room, oregon pitchy dock to the home, among different disposable modifications. SeaPods commencement astatine $295,000 and spell up to $1.5 million, depending connected the exemplary and upgrades. All models are presently disposable for presale with a $100 deposit. 

Diana Pienaar, a prospective SeaPod buyer, wasn’t actively looking for an ocean-front home, but aft stumbling upon the Ocean Builder’s website, “I was smitten,” she tells AD. She was primitively drawn to the location due to the fact that of its endless oversea views, though she besides admires the pod’s biology benefits. “I person truly ne'er antecedently been funny successful surviving connected a vessel of immoderate kind,” she says. Though the SeaPod is technically a marine vessel, “I inactive presumption it arsenic much of a house.” She plans to marque usage of the customizable outriggers to adhd a gazebo and glassed greenhouse to her home, she says. “It is not often that you are capable to find a haven distant from the stresses and pressures of each time life…[the SeaPod] is not lone self-sustaining, but besides afloat of each the high-tech, modern amenities we each love.”