Futuro House, North Carolina

This particular example of the relatively short-lived experiment in prefabricated, space-age, modular housing known as the Futuro house, is thought to have landed near Frisco in the Outer Banks area of North Carolina, sometime in the early 1970's. Since then it has had a number of owners, as well as having functioned in a variety of ways. Designed in 1968 by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen, and initially envisioned as a portable ski chalet, the Futuro was soon embraced by promoters of low-cost housing. Despite original Finnish manufacturer Oy Polykem Ab licensing a number of companies to produce the Futuro, no more than a hundred had been installed worldwide, when production ceased in 1973. Today around fifty are thought to still exist, and instances of the Futuro diaspora may be found in but not limited to the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Estonia, Japan, France, Germany, and Africa.