Are you a single person (or bijou couple) looking for your own affordable, comfortable, modern accommodation with minimum impact on the environment?
Are you a former guardsman looking to expand your horizons after years in a sentry box?
Are you a cat seeking less room to share with humans?
If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then you should hurry to St Andrew Square where the Cube will remain on display until Sunday as part of the Science Festival.
Designed by Dr Mike Page – an engineer and psychologist from the University of Hertfordshire – the Cube is a living-space which contains a lounge/dining area, kitchen, loo, shower, double bed, wardrobe space, storage and room for a washing machine – all within 27 cubic metres.
[img_assist|nid=1707|title=Photo by Allan MacDonald, Edinburgh Science Festival|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=470|height=640]Amazingly, the 3-level interior is light and airy, with 2m head-height throughout and reasonably long sightlines between seating and windows and the views beyond.
LED lights, heat-recovery from extracted air, energy-efficient appliances and solar panels mean the building is also cheap to run. In fact it is designed to produce as much energy as it consumes (in northern latitudes) over the year, and could earn its owner £1000 per annum if plugged into the electrical grid and registered with the UK Government's Feed-in-Tariff.
The building doesn't even need mains drainage since waste is either composted or processed via a 'small reed-bed and soak-away'.
Dr Page would be delighted if a commercial entity took on the Cube and began to produce working copies in numbers (he estimates each would cost around £50,000 to build). He envisages them as cost-effective student, nursing or eco-tourism accommodation. However, all the technologies combined in this design could be scaled up for equal effectiveness in larger projects.[img_assist|nid=1709|title=|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=200|height=196]
'The Cube Project is an attempt to show that many of the technologies that we need are already commonly available and at an affordable price. The question is, why aren’t we using them?' This psychological question is addressed by Dr Page and colleague Nadine Page in their paper 'Green Behaviour Change: HOT Topics', available for download here (p. 65).
To find out more, visit the website at http://www.cubeproject.org.uk/.