I have written several times about the idea of a 'wearable home' -- a self-contained environment that would allow the 'wearer/resident' to live comfortably 'outdoors' anywhere on Earth. The standard human solution to the problem of inhospitable climate is an extravagant invention called the 'single family home', which contains as many as a dozen different single-purpose unconfigurable 'rooms', must be abandoned in favour of another model when the occupant's lifestyle changes, and consumes huge amounts of fossil fuels to keep the entire structure at a comfortable temperature, even when the occupant is away from it.

There are several more economical solutions in widespread use. The most enduring of these is the deer-and-harehide suit of the aboriginal peoples of the Arctic, which allows the hunter-gatherer tribes to travel long distances comfortably, and requires the construction of only a simple, inexpensive and temporary dwelling for the few activities that cannot be carried out comfortably out-of-doors. These natural suits are, for the Ihalmiut, the perfect house.

In areas more hospitable to us naked humans (the tropics), the few gatherer-hunter peoples that have not been exterminated by Agricultural Man build only temporary structures and abandon them as their communities migrate across their hunting and gathering range. They lead the most leisurely lives of any humans on the planet, spending most of their lives 'outside' and hoarding nothing.

So I'd like to propose a collaboration: Let's create, together, the Wearable Home. The three steps in doing so are:

1. 1. Develop a complete specification for the Wearable Home -- what it would have to be able to do.
2. Research current and evolving technologies that meet these specifications.
3. Design it.

Here's a very incomplete start to the specification:

• It would have to be comfortable and allow full freedom of movement in any weather conditions
• It would have to be, if not fashionable, at least not ridiculous-looking
• It would have to incorporate the portable communication, information and entertainment technologies that we now take for granted, built-in, without having to carry around bulky or heavy 'peripherals'
• It would have to allow us to see and function in the dark, using either built-in lighting or some other optical technology
• It would have to be either easy to clean or keep clean, or self-cleaning
• It would have to be comfortable enough to sleep in, ideally without the need for bedding
• It would have to be customizable both stylistically (we don't all want to look the same) and functionally (e.g. temperature could be regulated to personal preferences)
• It would not replace the need for a place to store and cook food, but would obviate the need for every other room in the modern 'single family home' except the kitchen and (probably) the bathroom

WELCOME to Cold War City (population: 4). It covers 240 acres and has 60 miles of roads and its own railway station. It even includes a pub called the Rose and Crown.

The most underpopulated town in Britain is being put on the market. But there will be no estate agent’s blurb extolling the marvellous views of the town for sale: true, it has a Wiltshire address, but it is 120ft underground.

The subterranean complex that was built in the 1950s to house the Conservative prime minister Harold Macmillan’s cabinet and 4,000 civil servants in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack is being thrown open to commercial use. Just four maintenance men are left.

Property developers looking for the ultimate place to get away from it all need not apply. The site has a notional value of £5m but there is a catch. It is available only as part of a private finance initiative that involves investing in the military base on the surface above.

"To think in terms of building a sustainable village, like the Anasazi dwellings, we have to think of designing not a house, but a village. We can not longer afford to think in terms of single family dwellings, but think about what is good for the entire community. When one thinks of all the refugees throughout the world as well as the one's who became refugees through environmental disasters like what happened to New Orleans or the millions of homeless people in the United States, we need to think in terms of building villages within villages, an arcology for millions of people.

What I am visualizing is a mass exodus occurring from our dying civilization to a more evolved, holistic developmental pattern that allows us to have individual freedom along side of the responsibility of the collective. I'm seeing the labor force of the world turning around and moving in a new direction that brings us back in balance with nature by building a network of arcologies.

I'm excited with the idea of arcology as a center of culture, a place where arts are not on the side lines of civilization but are the life blood of the people. Such a vision gives the children of the world a future of human dignity, a future where they can enjoy the revival of now-threatened plant and animal species, and have the time and resources to pursue the adventures of the mind and heart, producing great art, advancing miraculous science, and living with the beauty of star light forever."