This Portable Folding House Will Soon Let You Live Anywhere

Need a guest house set up in your backyard within minutes? Want to build an entire hotel in a snap? On the market for a home you can pick up and move anywhere, at any time? There may soon be a solution — and it’s one that can stand the test of time. 

Over the last several years, TenFold Engineering, a company out of Springfield, Vermont, has been busy crafting the next generation of prefab buildings with its TF-20, a folding structure that expands at the push of a button. 

“The TF-20 is the perfect solution for any business or organization that needs a relocatable structure that can be set up quickly and easily,” the company explains on its website. “Its versatility, combined with its customizable options, result in a space that will deliver new opportunities and expand your organization’s reach.” 

As TenFold explains, it’s almost too easy to set up one of its products. The TF-20 is built to shipping container standard sizing, making it simple to transport just about anywhere using preexisting shipping methods. And it “can be relocated at any time in the future without hassle.” 

Then, when it does arrive, the company promises it can be constructed in under one hour. “Simply unattach the transit straps and remove the security pins from the sidewalls. Automatic deployment is then initiated via the TFE app.” The building will even lower itself to the ground and self-level to ensure you don’t roll around inside — excellent for setting up a TF-20 on uneven ground, like in fields and rocky environments.

Once it’s in place, all that’s left is for the building to unfold its ADA access ramps. The unit is then “ready to be plugged into shore or solar power, and hooked up to standard RV fresh and waste water connections.” 

It all sounds fantastically easy — and it will be when they go into mass production — but a monumental amount of work has gone into crafting these tiny buildings that can be used for extra income, more space, additional family members, or even to build out an entire hotel if you want. But for now, there’s only one out there, and it’s traveling the world on the Formula 1 tour with Red Bull.

“We’ve spent the last three years trying to take the essence of that unit and reduce it down in complexity and cost so that regular people can afford it,” David Jaacks, the engineering president of TenFold, shared with Travel + Leisure. “It’s similar to the analogy of a Formula 1 car versus a car you would have with air conditioning and pick up your kids from school in. It’s a very different problem to solve.” 

Those “problems” include ensuring the unit is affordable — and legal — to transport to new destinations (which is why it’s the exact size of a shipping container), easy to set up anywhere (hence the hydraulic legs), and has minimal impact on the environment. As for the latter, Jaacks has a fantastic solution for that, too. 

“The part I’m most excited about is when we sell each unit, we intend to collect an annuity fee of about $3,000 that goes into a fund that, at the end of the life cycle of the unit — in 20 or 30 years — will pay for shipping back from any place in the world to our recycling center,” Jaacks explained. “It will be the first closed-loop construction product offered,” he added. “We’re really trying to create the democratization of architecture.” 

Jaacks is also the brains behind Mamava, the lactation pods you see in airports around the U.S., ensuring mothers have a comfortable and stylish place to rest, pump, and feed their babies. 

Once the product is in full manufacturing mode, customers will be able to kit out their building as they see fit, including picking out a kitchen, a bathroom, a living room space, a Murphy bed, and even a washer and dryer. And hopefully it won’t be too much longer. As Jaacks shared, “I’m hopeful that within the year, we can start taking orders.”