Today the idea of a living module is recurring and it requires to take into proper consideration industrial processes, logistic organization, the limits of the ordinary transport systems and, not at least, the living comfort.

The typical architectural responses to such a challenge consist in two opposite living concepts: the single house (happily placed in a not yet contaminated natural context) and, on the other hand, an intensive beehive-like settlement imagined for the urban scene.

In both cases, we face extreme situations: these represent a sort of mono-cellular or multi-cellular organisms, both pursuing a self-sufficient existence, independently from the swarming existing city. Frequently, such high efficient modules have to face extreme preconditions (climatic or related to natural disaster ones) and, more often than not, these modules seem to achieve  a sort of dystopic goal, where “living” becomes merely a function like any other.

Few years ago, a very interesting project was presented in Italy: Casazera consists in timber living boxes to be inserted (literally, like a drawer) in existing disused industrial buildings (http://www.casazera.it/). Coupling two modules (2,50 meters wide, because of the standard trucks’ dimension), allows to obtain sufficiently spacious rooms. In this project, the most valuable feature is the relationship with the surrounding context: using abandoned buildings, capitalizing their existing shingles, beams and pillars is a smart way to recover suburban areas.

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