Greg Kloehn - The Custom Elite Dumpster Home

September 12, 2011 5:24 AM

Greg Kloehn - The Custom Elite Dumpster Home
posted by Meatbomb (33 comments total)

However, if one designs to construct a dwelling-house, it behooves him to exercise a little Yankee shrewdness, lest after all he find himself in a workhouse, a labyrinth without a clue, a museum, an almshouse, a prison, or a splendid mausoleum instead. Consider first how slight a shelter is absolutely necessary. I have seen Penobscot Indians, in this town, living in tents of thin cotton cloth, while the snow was nearly a foot deep around them, and I thought that they would be glad to have it deeper to keep out the wind. Formerly, when how to get my living honestly, with freedom left for my proper pursuits, was a question which vexed me even more than it does now, for unfortunately I am become somewhat callous, I used to see a large box by the railroad, six feet long by three wide, in which the laborers locked up their tools at night; and it suggested to me that every man who was hard pushed might get such a one for a dollar, and, having bored a few auger holes in it, to admit the air at least, get into it when it rained and at night, and hook down the lid, and so have freedom in his love, and in his soul be free. This did not appear the worst, nor by any means a despicable alternative. You could sit up as late as you pleased, and, whenever you got up, go abroad without any landlord or house-lord dogging you for rent. Many a man is harassed to death to pay the rent of a larger and more luxurious box who would not have frozen to death in such a box as this. I am far from jesting.

-Walden, HD Thoreau
posted by The White Hat at 5:33 AM on September 12, 2011 [6 favorites]

Wow, I would really have preferred just some photos and plans. I don't need to see the 'eyes' convulsively open and close twelve times set to cliched '60s 'rebel' music.
posted by leotrotsky at 5:48 AM on September 12, 2011 [10 favorites]

Sorry, but all I can see is some hapless Winnipeger waking up one February morning with his tongue stuck to his bedroom wall.
posted by Mike D at 5:56 AM on September 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Hip tip. Dumpster divine. Needs more newspaper and croissant on the balcony.
posted by pracowity at 5:59 AM on September 12, 2011

That was an awful lot of shakycam for one kind-of-clever idea.

I think that Shipping-container repurposings is going to be a Real Thing, though, and much more interesting than art-project dumpster shacks.
posted by mhoye at 6:13 AM on September 12, 2011

Great. Now we got shipsters.
posted by hal9k at 6:20 AM on September 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Or I could actually link to the site I intended rather than just back to this thread like an idiot.
posted by mhoye at 6:21 AM on September 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

The artist as living garbage. Interesting concept.
posted by swift at 6:23 AM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

The artist as living garbage.

I refuse to accept this as art. He's a homeowner, no matter how he tries to spin it.
posted by Meatbomb at 6:29 AM on September 12, 2011

I don't need to see the 'eyes' convulsively open and close twelve times set to cliched '60s 'rebel' music.

It's Gimme Shelter, junior. Ha ha, get it?!
posted by adamdschneider at 6:30 AM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's Gimme Shelter, true, but they cut right to the "Rape! Murder!" bit, which makes me wonder about the dumpster's security systems.
posted by echo target at 6:37 AM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is what gentrification looks like if you're a Grouch.
posted by Rhomboid at 6:38 AM on September 12, 2011 [5 favorites]

I originally saw this video linked from TDW. He lost me here.
posted by DU at 6:40 AM on September 12, 2011

And havin' all that room, they decided that they didn't
have to take out their garbage... for a long time.
posted by MtDewd at 6:44 AM on September 12, 2011

A bad solution to a non-existent problem. Perfect for architects.
posted by jimmythefish at 6:44 AM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Not your daddy's dumpster. With this kind of innovation we can rest in the knowledge that our children will truly have it better than we had it. ON TO THE ROARING TWENTIES!!
posted by nola at 6:47 AM on September 12, 2011

From the link :The result is as smart as it is efficient, suitable for a family of four and a pet to live off the grid in comfort and contemporary style.

Great, a family of four living in a hipsterized trailer. All they need is a rusting carcass of an american vehicle up on blocks in the front "yard" and a few broken washing machines. Hipster trailer trash, yeee-haww!
posted by c13 at 6:47 AM on September 12, 2011

I'll take two.
posted by Sailormom at 6:58 AM on September 12, 2011

If they'd left the camera on the sticks in the lock-off shot, the time-lapse would have been enough, but the pointless c/us and the edits didn't help. The dumpster is cute, though.
posted by Ideefixe at 7:13 AM on September 12, 2011

Cute till the garbage truck comes on Tuesday. Then you have to sorta start over.
posted by hal9k at 7:17 AM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I took a bag of trash out to a dumpster last week. As I turned around, a dumptruck entered the lot at about 35 mph, rammed his fork perfectly into the sides of the dumpster and tipped it overhead into his truck. He dropped the dumpster and drove away at high speed. The whole thing took about 20 seconds of loud noise, and he was gone before I got back in the building.

There's no way I'd want to live in one of these things unless it was already indoors.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 7:22 AM on September 12, 2011

It is a fun and funny projecct, but I do have to say the beginning of that video is a little distracting.
posted by fake at 7:31 AM on September 12, 2011

I invite people to dinner at my home and they get upset when I throw the leftovers on the floor, but if I lived in a dumpster that would be cool, because I could say "hey, I live in a dumpster, so it's OK to throw garbage in the house."
posted by twoleftfeet at 7:33 AM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

"they get upset when I throw the leftovers on the floor"

The Dog stated that she would NOT laugh and wonders why she hasn't been invited to dinner.
posted by tomswift at 7:42 AM on September 12, 2011

all the dumpster gives you is the convenience of the prefab metal box - however, the dimensions are so small that it'd be hard to put insulation in the interior, and putting insulation on the outside means you have to cover THAT layer with something, so why have the dumpster inside unless you really wanted to say "hey, my house is a dumpster"?

an uninsulated metal shell just seems like a poor idea in anything but the most temperate climate.


He lost me here.

um, the whole "lower the roof so no-one knows you're living there" bit? If you're parked in a location where dumpsters are common, you're gonna get hoisted up over a truck, and if you're somewhere that dumpsters normally aren't, the "house" is obvious. so what's the point?
posted by dubold at 7:46 AM on September 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

When I was working catching queens in Hawaii, one of my fellow wage-slaves lived in one of his cars and drove the other to work. My friend was trying to sell him his club cab truck with a stakebed as a two bedroom with a lanai.
posted by Bitter soylent at 7:48 AM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

MetaFilter: I am far from jesting
posted by ostranenie at 9:15 AM on September 12, 2011

Please stop giving the Oligarchs more ideas. They're getting stupider, we'll be able to fool them soon but not if you let them start down the path of, "Look! That famous guy you model your lives around is living in this deluxe, luxury box! Give us all your money to be like that guy!"

Oh wait...
posted by Slackermagee at 9:53 AM on September 12, 2011

Even with this innovation, I still can't afford to live in SF.
posted by Western Infidels at 10:29 AM on September 12, 2011

When I was working catching queens in Hawaii, one of my fellow wage-slaves lived in one of his cars and drove the other to work. My friend was trying to sell him his club cab truck with a stakebed as a two bedroom with a lanai.

I was working catching queens in Hawaii

working catching queens

catching queens
posted by rusty at 11:47 AM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

shittiest Scorsese movie ever
posted by nathancaswell at 2:20 PM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

catching queens

Someone's got to go and fetch HRH when she gets hopped up on goofballs. The days where they could just send Prince Philip out with a butterfly net are long gone.
posted by dubold at 2:12 AM on September 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

It's nitpicky of me, I know, but he lost me with the claim to be a 'direct decendant of Abraham Lincoln'..... 3 of Lincoln's four sons died young & childless; 1 of his 3 grandchildren died childless; 2 of his 3 great-grandchildren died childless, and the third & last (Robert Beckwith) was sterile after a vasectomy in 1962 and went to court to prove his wife's son (Timothy Beckwith, born 1968) was not his.....

so how is Greg Kloehn related, and why should I listen to anything he says? (yeah, yeah, I know: what's that got to do with living in a dumpster?!?)
posted by easily confused at 8:17 AM on September 13, 2011 [2 favorites]