I was not a good student at all in school and college . What has always made me doubt what I can do or what I am. And I realized very, very late that it wasn't me who was the fault in the system, but rather that the system might not be perfect for me. I'm not saying the system is flawed, but I would say the system isn't covering all the talent that's actually there. [Music] I'm Kai from Berlin and last year, together with my neighbors, I started building a tiny house on the street in Berlin, Neuköln. On a truck that I would really like to drive around the world in next year. [Music] So the vehicle is a Mitsubishi Kanter. Nowadays it's called the Fuso Kanter and is sold by Mercedes. I chose the vehicle because it has been and is sold in 155 different countries worldwide. And I can have it repaired anywhere. That's why I looked for the darling for a year. I drove around all over Germany and also looked at vans because I no longer believed that I would even be able to find the vehicle. But it wasn't supposed to be a van because I really wanted to build the tiny house in the back. And after a year I found it around the corner from me in Berlin in Marinendorf. So my Kanter is a three and a half ton truck. Of course you could load a lot more tons on it, but I even had it unloaded so that I wouldn't go over the three and a half ton limit and get into all these discussions about tolls and all the costs. It has a loading area, as you can see. And I built a real tiny house on this loading area . I would rather say travel loft because that's actually the feeling for me. If I open all the windows, then I can live there, like in a loft, and can really be over. I would never have been allowed to build the tiny house with the vehicle like that because according to German law, a lot of the constructions that I used are not allowed and that's why I found out that if I just carry it with me as cargo, then I can do whatever I want want. And that's why you can see: There are two lashing straps that can only tighten 500 kg in this position as they are now. If you were to use them, I think at 40°, then they could even carry 5 tons and I could leave the house. So if the car ever breaks down or I want to put the house on a boat, I could just take it down with a forklift. The bottom is designed so that you can drive a forklift underneath and remove it from the loading area. The idea has actually been brewing in my head for a long time, but not as much as this house, but before Corona, in the years before, I traveled through Myanmar on my motorbike and thought a lot about what to do actually needs in life. And the result of these motorcycle trips was actually that I needed a bed. And uh everything about this... So the bed, for me it has to be that nobody who doesn't belong there is allowed in there. And that has to be safe. And I worked in the monastery school, taught there. And I also visited many other monastery schools to teach there. And I always got a place to sleep in a classroom there. And one night I woke up and I was lying in the middle of the ant trail. And then I decided: Okay, I need a camping bed! And as part of my work I really moved from village to village, worked with the people there, learned , taught. I then thought about what a more solid structure should actually look like. And this Mitsubishi Kanta, which I drive now, is the most popular car there for driving into the jungle and getting to really remote areas. And then I thought, it would actually be cool to have a house there on a truck like that, built with sustainable materials, built with local materials. This could actually be a kind of showcase for modern building in Myanmar, collaborative building. And as me wanted to get started with the project, first came Corona and then a very, very cruel war that is still going on there. And then I decided, okay, if I can't build the house there now, then I'll build it here and maybe use the time to drive there. Because that was my second favorite dream that I had. Visit all the countries that are on the way there and maybe try out what I wanted to try there on the way. Yes, as you can see, the house also has a lot of locks. The reason is simply that I built it on the street in Neuköln in Berlin, Neuköln, together with my neighbors and also had two break-ins on my construction site. And yes, I then had to secure the construction site and it was a really good exercise because I hadn't actually given much thought to burglary protection before and then I was forced to think about it. And now my neighbors, they also guard the house when it's there. But at night it just stands alone and... Well, the clue to the whole thing was that these locks usually all have different keys. And if you always have to unlock the thing in practice, you look for a wolf with these keys. And then two months ago I found identical locks at Hornbach, which are cool because I can essentially use the same key for all locks. But there were only four or five of these castles in each Hornbach. And so I drove around all over Berlin, browsed through all the Hornbachs, looked at where parts of them that had the same key were still there and ended up with really comfortable access to my house with €200. My father comes from Myanmar, I was born in Berlin, so I'm a real Berliner, one of the few and I actually didn't have that much of a relationship when I was young because my parents were also separated and I grew up with my German mother to the country. But it became very, very narrow when I started going there more often. And I started working there about 15 years ago , doing projects, innovation projects, educational projects... That was a time when there was a kind of democratic experiment in the country that gave people a lot of freedom that they had before weren't that used to it at all. And this transformation process from dictatorship to something that was similar to a democracy, that was an incredible space to shape. And I also had incredible freedom working there. This is how the idea for the house came about. So this is the entrance here. This is also the only entrance the house has. I actually wanted to have a closed front that protected the house but also didn't make it immediately obvious what was in there. Here's another castle. So here there is a sliding glass door, this is my entrance that I use to get into the house. And when I built it, I thought: No, you have such a big front here. I first built it with just small windows back here , then tore it down again. And I thought glass had to go in there too. And glass is a problem in a vehicle like this. So if you take insulated glass, there is gas in it. This cannot be adjusted to different heights because all the windows that I installed in the house are actually windows from when the house was built. So I also knocked out the glass on this door glazing here and installed plexiglass there. And because the door here was so beautiful, I thought I would make the whole area in glass. And then I thought about how to construct it for a long time. I experimented a lot and then decided that I should build a terrace for myself. And I did this in two parts . And this construction here, I've been tinkering with for a long time. Because at first I thought, how do you make this fold-out patio so that it is stable? I first had something here with a stand structure and stuff like that and somehow it all didn't really work because the ground behind the car isn't usually that flat. And then a neighbor came over with me in Neuköln and said: Why don't you make fold-out brackets like that? And yes, that works perfectly. It works so well that I can actually use this back here as a terrace and can walk freely on it. And now I actually need my hanging chair. So of course I also look at other trips. I copied a lot, including in the building process of the house; the decision to build a tiny house and not to build a van was also a very conscious one. Because I want to drive through different climate zones and have a pleasant indoor climate. And as I said before, I really thought about it, what is essential for a life on the road in a house like this when you have a project like this in front of you? And I also want to do it a little differently than the other travelers. So for me it's not really about seeing as many countries and seeing as many places as possible, I actually want to work with the local people I meet. I would like to get to know their lives, I would like to learn something from them, I would also like to see whether we could get ideas there for alternative lifestyles. I'm already doing this on a small scale. I'm currently testing this house in Poland, I travel to Poland a lot. Find out how little we actually know our neighboring country. And it's not so much about hard facts, for me it's actually more about developing skills. How do you deal with other cultures? How do you approach each other respectfully? How can you collaboratively develop ideas together, no matter what ideas they are. So it's actually more about how than what. And that's why I'm not traveling at all at the moment, it's a test phase at the moment. So I built it last year, this summer I'm going to really try out whether this is the ideal basis to make this dream come true and start this journey. I already know, it already is. But there are a lot of things that can be improved and changed to make it a little more pleasant, because of course, I want it to be pleasant too. These four windows also have the advantage that I can ventilate very individually. So I can cross-ventilate, I can cross-ventilate, I can ventilate from front to back. This means I have an extremely good indoor climate in the house. So I built it so that it was open to diffusion anyway. This means that it is insulated with hemp and with a vapor-permeable foil, so that no moisture can get in, but all moisture can go outside. And last summer when I did the first tests with it. When it was 36° outside, it was still 20° at midday on the floor. So I'm in both heat and cold now... I installed a diesel auxiliary heater, a 2kW heater. I just have to run it on the lowest setting and it heats the thing up really well. Even at min. 10° and I actually have extremely good insulation in there thanks to the shutters and the replica double glazing made of Plexiglas in the windows. I actually had the impression that I planned it really well, but that was just an impression. So when I put the first four bars on the loading area. So while I was happy that I had the car at all, I had no idea what was in store for me. And here too it is a mixed blessing. So I think if I had known, I would have been so bored by it that I might not have done it at all . In the construction process itself, I have to say that I worked through it very systematically, topic by topic. It was very pleasant that last summer I also had the space, i.e. the financial space, so that I could just do that. It was an alternation between building from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and doing research in the evening and then continuing to build the next day. And generally speaking, I think I was in a state of intoxication. I was in a building frenzy and I learned so much from it. So how to build a framework, how to make insulation, how to make it sustainable. I was very I had to deal very intensively with the weight of such a vehicle and I also paid a lot of empty money by having to dismantle things that didn't work. This is the Mi, which more or less came to me. She's a bit handicapped, she only has two fingers and can't retract her claws. And the one who was supposed to get the cat didn't want it because she was disabled. So she ended up with me. And because I can't leave her home alone, she always comes with me. That's why the house has a litter box and that's why the trip must of course always be designed in such a way that it is cat-friendly. Unfortunately, she is still an indoor cat, so she has a long or even longer leash when we are out and about. And I hope that she might be able to run free in the future. We'll see if we can manage that. The house was initially built just for me. As you can see, it's as tall as I am, 170. It's also 173 wide because, as you can see, I sleep crosswise in there. I really thought a lot about the spatial concept. It was extremely important to me that it was modular, so that I didn't install any electrical cables because I'm simply afraid that the hut could burn down. I 've seen far too many vans burn down if you don't build it properly. But the much more important reason is that if something breaks, I don't want to be standing somewhere in the steppe and then no longer be able to use half of my infrastructure, but I want to be able to throw out the broken parts and simply put something new in. That's why I didn't install a water pipe or a power line. I have a refrigerator in here. It's installed down here, so it's a cool box. Yes, all my supplies are in there now. And I have here next to the refrigerator. Of course it's not possible now. If you want to show it, it's always like this... Down here is my toilet, which is also from Boxio. I can also take it out and because I don't want to carry my toilet around, which is my personal problem, I put it on wheels and can use it anywhere... It's usually here at night when I have to go to the toilet , it's down here in the corner and doesn't bother you. And I can then drive it back in here when I no longer need it . Of course the cat also has a toilet, which is here and is important. Because I didn't want to have a litter box standing around here in the house and my electrical system actually only consists of a large power station that's down here. I have this big power station, it's a 1000 now, I think. Or 1024s. I have this large power station and I have a small power station because I noticed that in winter, when the sun doesn't shine and my solar fields that can be set up don't produce any income, then I have to be able to organize electricity somehow . And that's why I got myself a small power station and have worked it out so much that I can charge it anywhere with the small power station, even via USB if necessary. At a fast food restaurant that everyone knows, I can basically charge the electricity I used during the day back into the large power station . This means I don't have to carry the large power station around or plug it in anywhere. I've been a freelancer my whole life, except for the time after Corona, because it just wasn't possible then. I was a journalist a long time ago, then became a photographer, was an artist in between, then professionalized photography and was also able to work great jobs. Was in Paris, was in London, worked for fashion week in Berlin, was allowed to work for the Berlinale. But at some point I realized that when I knew these atmospheres, these people really well, there was always something missing. And I have to say that at school and at university I was not a good student at all, which always made me very doubtful about what I could do or what I was. And I realized very, very late that it wasn't me that was the error in the system, but perhaps that System is not that perfect for me. I'm not saying the system is flawed, but I would say the system isn't covering all the talent that's actually there. And that led to me becoming very involved in education. First theoretically, then I went into the innovation area and saw what... Nowadays it's called liquid leadership, which means working without a hierarchy, learning without a hierarchy, and also learning on different levels. Being a teacher and a student at the same time and all that rat tail of respect and yes, how should I put it, that thing that is always so desperate for recognition, that you can just leave it out. And just move forward with curiosity. I was lucky enough to be able to teach in Southeast Asia, to get to know a completely different approach to education, to the way people interact with each other, and to be right in the middle of it all. And then I always carried it back and forth, between Southeast Asia and Berlin. And that was a damn interesting time for me, which basically laid the foundation for how I ended up building the mobile tiny house. So since the house is really going to be my home in the next few years, it is also important to me that the design is also my home. As you can see, there are a lot of things from Myanmar hanging here. For example, my family up here, my grandparents, who are no longer in this world. But also lots of souvenirs. What was also important to me, as you can see here, these felt panels, I experimented with for a long time. Because it was damn cold when I sat here against the walls. The wood is nice, but it's really cold when you lean on it. And then I found these felt panels in the hardware store in Poland that are really great. And what was also important to me, for example, is the wooden ceiling and the wooden floor, which you can't see now. Throughout all of this, I always had to keep the question of weight in the back of my mind because I didn't want to exceed the three and a half tons for the vehicle, plus the house. And, for example, real wooden floorboards, which I really wanted, are damn heavy. Ultimately I took light timber and sanded and oiled it myself. I did exactly the same thing here with the blanket. This is plywood and oiled. I just wanted to have that natural feel here in the room. I really wanted a shower in here. But given the space available, how do you do that? I researched, asked around, watched more videos, I didn't want a shower cubicle . Then, after a long search, I found a shower bag in Spain. This is the part here. You can unfold it. Then I can hang it up here on the ceiling . I put magnets on the ceiling here at the front so that I can remove them. There's a drain down here with a gardener hose that I can then lead outside or into a bucket. For the shower itself I have a 3 liter flower sprayer. I can boil one and a half liters of water and add another one and a half liters of cold water and pump a little here. Well, how does that work? Here like this. Now of course there is no water in it. I have a BD shower part from Asia and can shower with it. I think it's really important to start thinking about what you want. You don't have to know this completely, you just have to start. And I didn't have many of the skills that I needed to build this house right away, but it's incredibly exciting to try it out and even if you... Before you start, you have no idea how it works. It's so incredibly exciting to watch yourself learn and go through this process and I have to say, although there were really many challenges that sometimes made me think, there's no solution, there's always a solution! I also took this insight with me from Southeast Asia, because there are n't that many ready-made solutions. A lot of things have to be improvised and... the improvisations are sometimes better than what is bought. [Music]
