I bet you thought you’d never want to live in a mobile home? Me neither, until now! As it turns out, mobile homes are not just for trailer parks. In fact, they are popping up on gorgeous mountainsides, on the water, as guest suites, and on wheels. These unique home concepts are actually on the cutting edge of design. The mobile home presents alternative ways of living and innovatively offers solutions to sustainability and economic issues. The best designs are not only functional, but also beautiful. So, aside from living responsibly, they also look awesome!

The Mehrzeller Caravan

You can park this home on wheels anywhere! Created by Nonstandard, these German designers wanted to match the on-the-go nature of modern life in their campers. Each caravan is custom designed with the client using complex computer-generated configurations – they call this technique “mass customization.” This allows for easy customer accommodation and completely unique designs. [from Mehrzeller]

If you haven’t heard, there is such a thing as the small house movement and this home surely fits the bill. The overall goal of the movement is to live a simple life with a small ecological footprint. Small house dwellers emphasize efficient design over size, often incorporating dual-purpose furniture pieces and appliances. In addition to its green design, a common draw is the small price tag. The thought is, the need for only a little income and the ease of mobility will result in a higher quality of life.

In addition to providing shelter to small-house dwellers, the Mehrzeller caravan also suits vacationers and travelers looking for luxury camping.

The Lake Union Floating Home

Designed by Vandeventer and Carlander Architects, this private dwelling floats on Lake Union in Seattle, WA. It boasts amazing water views and equally stunning architecture. [from Vandeventer and Carlander Architects]

Despite its small footprint, this floating home truly maximizes space. In this home the traditional layout is swapped – most of the communal space is upstairs for easy access to the rooftop deck, and all of the bedrooms are downstairs.

In addition to the smart use of space promoting indoor/outdoor living, this home is also designed with the environment in mind. The home features sustainable bamboo floors, passive solar designs, energy-saving systems, and low-maintenance materials.

The weeHouse

Designed by Alchemy Architects, the weeHouse is a prefabricated modular housing system built to amaze. Though this is a prefab home, each one is custom designed to match your site, size, layout, and budgetary demands. Essentially, the concept of this modular home is like using building blocks. One unit is a studio, put two together for a larger space, and three is even bigger… [from Alchemy Architects]

Below is the Arado weeHouse built in Pepin, Wisconsin. With everything you need this efficient home is just 336 square feet and cost $60,000.

A big perk to the weeHouse is its green design. The home can be customized to produce as much energy as it uses. It offers rainwater collection and passive solar design. In addition, building the home in a factory allows for more accuracy, and in turn, less wasted material.

The approach to the weeHouse is quality over quantity. Through effective use of space and large glass windows, the home claims to have a “big house feel in a small package.” Though most of the world is no stranger to small living, in the US the average home size in 2010 was 2392 square feet. Even with the weeHouses largest 3-bedroom package, at 1400 sq ft., these homes are nearly half the size with all of the convenience. Alchemy offers an alternative lifestyle and a sustainable solution.

For added convenience, if you are ready to move, you can take your home with you!

Though most of us will never call these mobile marvels home, we can use their inventive designs as a reminder that there are alternative ways of living. Perhaps we can incorporate aspects of their utopian and design-minded goals into our own homes.

What do you think of these mobile homes? Are you gearing up to move? Share your comments below!