Space age holiday home

When Finnish architect Matti Suuronen was commissioned to create a transportable ski cabin in the late ’60s, he landed on a blueprint that he saw as the future of affordable, portable housing. Designed for mass production and easy assembly on rough terrain, the Futuro houses’ ellipsoid form and use of fibreglass-reinforced plastic were unconventional for the time. The mobile pod was made of 16 segments that could be delivered separately and bolted together, while the durable, lightweight material offered excellent insulation. In a period defined by a fixation with space exploration, the finished product resembled a flying saucer.

But when the cost of plastic tripled in 1973 due to an oil crisis, Futuro production waned, ceasing completely by 1978. Fewer than 100 were constructed and only about 60 are left.

The Futuro made its comeback in the ’90s as a feature in art installations, books and documentaries: a visual representation of a bygone era. McQuoid, a key player in the Futuro revival, has owned five of them over the years. After the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, he was left feeling hopeless, and he turned to his childhood memories for inspiration. He airlifted his Area 51 Futuro, originally a fishing hut on the west coast, by helicopter to Ohoka in 2018. It took a full year to restore it after it had been sitting out in the wilderness for 40 years – grinding off the mould, repainting it and sourcing the decor. He had a penchant for ’70s interior design and aimed for as accurate a recreation of the original Futuro as possible – or, as he puts, it “a giant encapsulation of awesome”.