Nick Newman helped design a modular construction system so anyone with just a mallet and a drill can build their own home. Since co-founding U-Build in 2020, he has built- and watched others build- furniture, garden pods, tiny homes and full-sized houses, so it makes sense he’d use the flat-pack box system to turn the company work van into his full-time home.
He started using the fully-electric Sprinter van as a temporary home while on overnight work trips. The U-Build system involves assembling CNC-cut, formaldehyde-free plywood boxes as building blocks which then bolt together to create a rigid frame for a structure.
The system is completely demountable so the boxes can be reused over and over so it was easy for Newman to take the boxes he was working with daily and rearrange them in the van to build a bed, kitchen (U-Scrub), storage and toilet (U-Poo).
Newman left a shared warehouse where he was paying £800 for a tiny, windowless bedroom for vanlife in central London and because the van is electric he doesn’t pay congestion charges (£15/day). He has tricked out the van to appear in drive mode so he can use the vehicle’s battery and air conditioning and heating while parked.
The U-Build (and Studio Bark) team recently bought an abandoned warehouse in Stroud (Gloucestershire) for less than the price of a tiny studio in London. While they decide what to do with the space, they have installed U-Build pods (build in a half day) to use as bedrooms and private offices. It’s the same model as the SHED Project where they worked with a London-based guardian company to provide quick-build homes from U-Build kits to provide housing for those in need in exchange for building surveillance.
https://u-build.org/
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