Living Vehicle Creative Studio travel trailer takes working from home off-grid

The new Creative Studio travel trailer is Living Vehicle’s answer to working from home; take your home with you. 

Living Vehicle builds extremely high-end trailers. The California-based company was set up by Matthew and Joanna Hofmann in 2017, dovetailing their love of the open road with architectural training to create one of the most sophisticated trailers on the market, the ultimate blend of transport and technology.

Now, for 2023, the duo have doubled down on the trailer’s ability to act as a self-contained home from home, with new technology that extends the time you can spend off the grid.

Wallpaper* spoke to Matthew and Joanna about the Creative Studio and other enhancements for the new model. 

‘The Creative Studio is just one element of our 2023 launch which allows Living Vehicle owners to travel further for longer than ever before,’ says Matthew. ‘This is only made possible with technology that enables owners to generate their own utility resources, completely independent of the grid.’

The trailer was already well served with solar panels, and the LV energy/battery system can store any surplus. ‘With the debut of the Creative Studio option, owners who traditionally were tied to brick-and-mortar studios for technical jobs can now also enjoy the freedom that being off-grid brings,’ he says. 

The other key enhancement to the new models is the addition of water-generating technology. ‘The future of travel is changing rapidly, and the movement away from over-populated cities, campgrounds, and RV parks has led to a great need for off-grid travel to extend utility resources,’ says Matthew.

‘An endless supply of fresh drinking water is a game-changer and we’ve partnered with Watergen, using an AWG (Atmospheric Water Generator) system to produce pure drinking water directly from the air.’

The Creative Studio builds on Living Vehicle’s original mobile office concept with the addition of a suite of Apple technology.

‘Each Creative Studio can be customised with a range of configurable hardware including studio-grade equipment such as the Pro Display XDR, and a 16-inch MacBook Pro with Genelec “The Ones” compact studio monitors,’ says Joanna. ‘My favourite feature is that this entire two-person workspace can be lowered to reveal a queen-sized bed.’

Everything else about the new models is geared to off-grid living and working. ‘I was an early adopter of this lifestyle, and I’ve always been limited by how much water my tank could store,’ says Matthew. ‘Access to 24-7 potable water is so important. This is why Living Vehicle’s tanks are oversized to begin with.’

The American dream of a life of endless roaming is a romanticised blend of pioneering spirit and nomadic aspiration, filtered through a million carefully curated social media posts. Living Vehicle’s trailers aren’t pitched at vanlife-loving millennials, but those who want to take their careers on the road. 

‘More creative professionals are working from home than ever before,’ says Joanna, ‘and we saw an avenue to provide for those who want a fulfilling way to enjoy the outdoors whilst still working from anywhere. We are challenging the traditional notion of what an office looks like and reshaping what it means to be self-sufficient full-time.’

As well as self-employed people on the move, the couple believe that companies could benefit from having their own roaming creative hub. ‘Things like editing feature films and professional sound mixing have been reliant on traditional brick-and-mortar settings until now,’ Joanna says. ‘We want to empower nomadic professionals across an array of industries.’

As Matthew points out, ‘the technology and portability that Living Vehicle offers its owners have attracted both film sets and independent film editors’. 

The ultimate goal of Living Vehicle has always been to disconnect from the grid completely. ‘Unlike a traditional RV, Living Vehicle is built for full-time living instead of short-term travel, which makes it more akin to a luxury suite than a recreational RV,’ says Joanna.

‘Several owners found a home with our trailers after the devastating fires that California has endured over the last couple of years destroyed their permanent homes.’ The company will continue to blend architecture, technology, and industrial design, with rugged materials, off-road capable tyres and axles, and plenty of storage. 

‘This launch has gotten us closer than ever before to our ultimate goal of achieving a completely disconnected, net-zero offering,’ says Matthew. ‘With each new model, we are pushing the limits of modern nomadic living further through our functional and thoughtful architecture.’ While living and working in the great outdoors will always have a certain romantic lustre, the duo point out that America’s climate woes are only just beginning.

‘I see an increasingly unreliable grid, natural disasters being the norm, and ever-increasing unknowns in our modern-day world,’ says Matthew. ‘Having the best choices to travel independently when, where, and how we want, empowered by the many luxuries of our modern world: this is the goal of Living Vehicle. This is freedom.’

INFORMATION

livingvehicle.com