The Utopia 6 will be the sixth in a series of shelters designed and constructed from cultural waste materials and a do-it-yourself motivation. Previous structures have ranged from stationary social shelters, floating studios, to mobile enclosures deployed in urban environments.

While previous Utopia(n) structures have been limited to the use of waste material and a singular design deployment, the Utopia 6 will differ by developing over several months and the use of sustainable building practices and materials, in addition to recyclables. This project will also differ by constructing and performing a series of shelter structures, that will mirror the process of pioneering and homesteading, and in course, will incorporate themselves into the proceeding structure. Of which, the principal shelter structure will be a variation on the historic Nebraska House style building.

Using hay bales as a primary structural building material, as with the Nebraska House style, the Utopia 6 project revives a regional building practice, but also explores the potentials of affordable and sustainable building practices. This project has a cross strategy of working from the act of homesteading, a process of self-sustainability and self –sufficiency, and the need to develop sound and secure shelters, for homeless or emergency situations, both an expression of the architecture of necessity. The Utopia 6 project, and in particular, the Nebraska House variation, will attempt to express relevant social issues, embedded in the historical and contemporary realities, ensnared in the process of the western expansion of the United States and projected through the lens of our current socio-political landscape.

Go To Omaha World-Herald Article

supported in part by the Nimoy Foundation

The Utopia 6 covered wagon

This van, which will facilitate and transport the project westward to Wyoming, was purchased at the Omaha Police Impound Vehicle auction.

site of the Nebraska Variation the bigger picture