Beautiful Virgin Islands

Sunday, Sep 21, 2025

Would you buy this spaceship home?

Would you buy this spaceship home?

Could this 1960s space ship be your future guest house or garden play house?

We've seen a lot of striking tiny homes over the years, but this retro (yet futuristic) portable home for sale has us speechless.

Designed in 1968 by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen, the Futuro was originally intended to function as a ski cabin or holiday home. It's estimated that fewer than 100 Futuro homes were ever constructed, all throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s. Now, only a small number remain in reasonable condition across the globe.

This UFO-shaped home has been listed in a sealed-bids sale, in Christchurch, New Zealand, after being in storage for years. It comes with a guide price of £155,600.

                

The current owner inherited it from a step-grandmother who lived in it for 15 years (although it's currently set-up as a museum piece, pictured above).

            

At eight metres wide, the Futuro is being sold as-is. Included in the sale are couch units, a fibreglass kitchen bench, shelving wall units and the original custom-shaped mattress.

            

Partial restorations have been undertaken, although it still needs a gel coat so the new owner will be able to select their own shade as part of finishing the outside shell.

                

Originally intended as a transportable ski cabin / chalet that would be easy to built and heat, with a structure that could be dismantled and reassembled in two days, the Futuro was designed to be compact.

            

Just 140m3 in capacity, the space efficient spheroid heats quickly. The shell was transported in pieces and could be put together from a kit-set in just two days. Due to its relatively light weight (2,500kg), the Futuro is portable, opening a range of 'landing options' to the prospective holidaymaker or homeowner.

            

When the Futuro was introduced in 1968, it was met with fascination. After 1970, with international demand for unique dwellings strengthening, manufacturing rights were sold to developers outside Finland and Futuros soon characterised landscapes all over the world. The 1973 oil crisis, however, caused the price of plastic to triple. Too unusual (or perhaps just ahead of its time), and ultimately too expensive to market to the masses, production of Futuro homes waned and eventually ceased in the mid-1970s.

The Futuro captured the attention of many artists, and visitors included the princes of Kuwait, Andy Warhol, Arthur Paul, the publisher of Playboy magazine, and Christo, the artist. Christo even transformed a Futuro into an artwork by wrapping it up.

            

Without restrictions on overseas buyers, the Futuro can be relocated to anywhere in the world for an extra cost - as long as a cradle is installed for it to rest on.

This Futuro house is for sale in a 'deadline sale' which means would-be buyers should submit confidential offers until the fixed date of midday (NZDT) on Saturday 5 December.

The guide price is £155,600 ($300,000 NZD). Interested buyers should contact futurochchnz@gmail.com.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
EU Set to Bar Big Tech from New Financial Data Access Scheme
China Bans Livestreaming and AI in Religion Amid Crackdown on Shaolin Temple Scandal
Documents Reveal Mandelson Failed to Declare Epstein-Funded Flights as MP in 2003
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
Harris Memoir Sparks Backlash from Democrats for Blunt Critiques in ‘107 Days’
Germany Weighs Excluding France from Key European Fighter Jet Programme
Cyberattack Disrupts Check-in and Boarding Systems at Major European Airports
Japan’s ‘Death-Tainted’ Homes Gain Appeal as Prices Soar in Tokyo
Massive Attack Withdraws from Spotify Over Daniel Ek’s €600M Defence-AI Investment
Björn Borg Breaks Silence: Memoir Reveals Addiction, Shame and Cancer Battle
When Extremism Hijacks Idealism: How the Baader-Meinhof Gang Emerged and Fell
Top AI Researchers Are Heading Back to China as U.S. Struggles to Keep Pace
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
Trump Orders Third Lethal Strike on Drug-Trafficking Vessel as U.S. Expands Maritime Counter-Narcotics Operations
Trump Orders $100,000 Fee on H-1B Visas and Launches ‘Gold Card’ Immigration Pathway
Why Google Search Is Fading and AI Is Taking Its Place
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Federal Judge Dismisses Trump’s Fifteen-Billion-Dollar Suit Against New York Times, Orders Refile
France’s Looming Budget Crisis and Political Fracture Raise Fears of Becoming Europe’s “Sick Man”
Three Russian MiG-31 Jets Breach Estonian Airspace in ‘Unprecedentedly Brazen’ NATO Incident
DeepSeek Claims R1 Model Trained for only $294,000, Sparking Global Debate Over China’s AI Capabilities
SoftBank Vision Fund to Cut Nearly Twenty Percent of Staff in Bold AI Strategy Shift
Intel’s Next-Gen Manufacturing Gets a Lifeline from Nvidia’s Strategic $5B Deal
Erika Kirk Elected CEO of Turning Point USA After Husband Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
×