September 28, 2006 If there’s a vacant block without a building on it, people notice – valuable real estate doesn’t stand vacant for long. But there’s plenty of prime real estate sitting vacant out there and the owners in most cases are completely unaware of it – it’s called the free space on the roof of many city buildings and there’s an industry fast growing up to cater for it. The Aisslinger-designed and built Loftcube is a 39 (or 55) square metre penthouse designed to be helicoptered to the location of your choice – as long as it’s on a rooftop. Once it is airlifted into place, it can be fully functional inside 2-4 days according to the architects.
There’s also a 55 square metre version and the relative prices for the 39 sqm version are EUR89,000 (US$ 112,830) without kitchen and bathroom and EUR 109,000 (US$ 138,185) with both. For the 55sqm version, it’s EUR 124,000 (US$ 157,196) without and EUR 144,000 (US$182,570) with. As the building can be picked up and moved somewhere else at a later date, it’s an interesting proposition to wrap one’s brain cells around.