Hank Butitta turned an old school bus he found on Craigslist into a beautifully designed, multi-purpose traveling home and has embarked on a 5000 mile trip across the american northwest..
This amazing dud designed and build a full scale of his graduation project at the School of Architecture, University of Minnesota.
It is one of the coolest mobile homes I've seen!
The cost of a bus $3000 and materials that, while it all adds up to nearly $10000, is still less than a semester of college. “Some materials just came from every day, the floor is made from a reclaimed gym floor we found at a lumberyard in Minneapolis".
The whole project took 15 weeks, about seven weeks were spent on planning and design, and then the bulk of construction took six weeks. The "mobile home" can comfortably house 6 people.
"When you’re traveling in a school bus, not only does your awkward size attract strange looks (and a couple of cheers), it also limits your ability to travel and find parking"
The windows also contribute greatly to the open feeling in such a small space. Many bus conversions cover a majority of the windows to aid in privacy and insulation. This results in a dramatic reduction in natural lighting and obscures the fantastic panoramic views, not to mention compromising the embedded energy of the windows already in place. In order to mitigate issues of privacy and insulation, drop-down translucent insulation panels were built into the lower walls, and can be raised into place with the aid of magnets.
The sleeping space is comprised of two narrow beds, of equal width, on either side of the aisle. There are drawers beneath each each bed, deep storage underneath the mattresses, and built-in shelves facing the seating area. In order to accommodate varied sleeping arrangements, the port-side bed rolls into the center aisle, creating a queen-sized sleeping area, with a third mattress revealed in the vacated space. This allows for a total sleeping capacity of up to six adults.
Hank:“The goal is to continue with the bus, sharing it with people. Next spring we hope to upgrade it and drive around visit architecture schools to educate and share what we’ve learned.”
