A great day out yesterday was had at the Grand Designs Exhibition at the London Excel Centre. Of most interest to myself was the Grand Village. On display fully constructed was the Pad. Also on show the Micro Compact Home and the Huf Haus. My company is responsible for saucing land for clients of Padlife. Finding land to develop is no easy task and as the Pad becomes more well known finding land for it is likely to be difficult too against the conservative views of those who prefer houses made of baked mud. (See my last post). I had an interesting chat with Billie Lee, Director of the Micro Compact Home after half a dozen of us had clambered into one of his modules. He must have been making his 15 minute presentations all day as by the time I got to talk to him he was on the edge of suffering from cabin fever! However, the MCH is in demand and has been employed as accomodation on universcity campuses and into people's back gardens as extra living accomodation. An excellent marketing ploy of theirs has been to photograph their unit next to a Micro Car. Minalimalist living at it's best! With regards to the Pad the Times have been running their competition to win one worth £100K. Their winner was announced at 15:30 hrs though I don't have a name or know whether it has been announced in their paper today. However their link to Grand Designs follows below. One thing about the Pad. Last year our local council, Thanet District, suggested developing a green wedge not zoned for development, by our hospital for nursing accomodation. Doubtless they were thinking along the usual lines of the non-descript chalet style accomodation that would then fall into disuse when staffing was again cut. I wrote to the head of the council suggesting they try the Pad. What better than to be able to add accomodation and then remove it as needs arose and have less impact on the actual land since only a cental concrete block would be needed and not a mass of foundations under every part of the building. Sadly I never heard back from the council.

That aside and back to the exhibition. I also had a look at the Huf Haus...so did my wife and I fear she now wants to knockdown and replace our house. Should be interesting as we're an end of terrace!

http://property.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,14049-2206460.html

http://www.padlife.co.uk

http://www.microcompacthome.com

http://www.huf-haus.com