The full BXBX microsite
bxbx.m1nd.co · the complete practice site
The standalone BXBX site with the full deck system, product portfolio, fabrication notes, and the studio's working method. Several weeks of design work, now live.
→ Enter the BXBX site
The thesis

Why commodity envelopes

Conventional tiny-house construction reinvents the envelope. Builders design from scratch — walls, roof, foundations — and the result is bespoke, expensive, hard to ship. The studio's bet is different: the world has already commodified small envelopes, and most of them are mass-produced to known specs with known suppliers.

A U-Haul U-Box container is 95" × 56" × 83.5" interior with a 2,000 lb load limit. Available at 2,000 U-Haul locations across the US and Canada. Designed to load onto a U-Box trailer. Cost: $800-1,500 for purchase or long-term lease. If your dwelling fits inside one, it's shippable anywhere.

The same logic applies to garden sheds (4×6, 6×8), shipping containers (20', 40'), trailer envelopes (cargo, utility, equestrian), and architectural off-the-shelf forms (Quonset huts, kit cabins, prefab panels). The studio's catalogue contains dwellings sized to each.

Active products

The BXBX line

BXBX-005 · FLAGSHIP
Hako
U-Box dwelling · 37 sq ft
The studio's catalogue capstone. A complete dwelling spec'd to deploy inside a U-Haul U-Box envelope. Sleeps, cooks, stores, works. Off-grid capable summer; grid-supplemented winter. Production-depth reference.
~$20–28K v0.1 · build-ready
BXBX-006 · YADO-S
Yado-S
Smaller envelope variant
A smaller dwelling envelope below the Hako flagship size. Spec pending; expected as a Phase 2 product after Hako Phase 0 mockup validates the architecture.
TBD Phase 2
BXBX-011
Kago
Pre-Hako studio concept
Earlier BXBX work; spec at /BXBX-011-kago-spec. Documented for catalogue lineage.
Archived Reference
BXBX-012
Kago-V
Variant of Kago
Earlier BXBX work; spec at /BXBX-012-kago-v-spec. Documented for catalogue lineage.
Archived Reference
BXBX-016
4×6 Greenhouse
Backyard production envelope
Studio-designed interior for a commodity 4×6 shed/greenhouse envelope. Spec'd for GROW + SPORE deployment at small backyard scale.
~$3–5K Spec v0.1
BXBX-017
Palram 6×8 Greenhouse
Larger commodity greenhouse
Studio-designed interior for the Palram 6×8 polycarbonate greenhouse envelope. Larger version of BXBX-016 with year-round capability.
~$5–8K Spec v0.1
The deck system

A shared visual register

Every BXBX product ships with a presentation deck following a shared visual system. v0.1 vocabulary (locked 2026-05-14): paper+hanko palette with light/dark parity, Space Grotesk + Inter + IBM Plex Mono typography, 1920×1080 frames, frame numbers top-right, brand mark top-left, mono caption strip bottom. FPO wireframe boxes labeled "IMAGE · TBD." Pricing references shared bxbx-pricing.xlsx.

The deck system is BXBX's contribution to the studio's cross-practice design coherence — products are spec'd in a shared visual language that makes the entire BXBX catalogue feel like one studio rather than separate products.

The deck family

The deck system spans the practice brand plus product-specific decks for each major sub-line, each addressing a different audience and stage of the conversation:

All decks share the same v0.1 visual vocabulary. New decks can be created from the shared template without re-establishing the visual register.

Note: Laneway and Method decks marked "rebuilt" were reconstructed 2026-05-19 from their original build scripts after the source HTML was lost. Content is verbatim from the scripts; SVG illustrations are simplified approximations of the originals.

Tools

Two live browser tools

BXBX maintains two small browser-based tools, both at v0.1, both free to use. Together they cover the two recurring tasks at the start of any BXBX commission: sketching the rack layout for the envelope, and generating the printed labels that organize the result.

Rack Sketch · STD-08 layout tool

A free 2D sketching tool for blocking out STD-08 rack layouts before building. Enter your footprint dimensions, pick from presets or roll your own, click in the plan view to drop in 2R or 3R racks, click an existing rack to cycle through modes (shelf · closet) or remove. Drag racks to reposition. Live BOM updates as you go. Isotype-style pictograms.

→ Open Rack Sketch

Label Tool · STD-09 generator

A pouch-label generator for the STD-09 organizing system. Enter your inventory, pick a label format, print to Avery-compatible sheets. The companion to Rack Sketch — once you've laid out the rack, the labels that organize what goes on each shelf come out of this tool. Used internally and externally; the studio's own first software, now shared.

→ Open Label Tool

The mockup method

How BXBX translates a brief

BXBX's working method takes a client's brief and produces, in sequence: a verbal scope confirmation, a hand-sketched plan, a digital plan at scale, an isometric mockup, a parts list with sourcing notes, a fabrication plan, and a finished deck for the client. Each step is reviewable and stops cleanly if the project needs to pause.

The method is deliberately physical-first — every project starts with measured drawings of the envelope (whether U-Box, shed, condo room, or laneway pad) before any digital design work begins. This catches dimensional surprises early and grounds the design in real material reality. Most failed prefab projects fail because the designer never measured the envelope. BXBX measures first.

The method also surfaces sourcing decisions earlier than most design firms. By the time a client sees an isometric mockup, every major material has been priced from a real supplier (Home Depot, Rona, specific lumber yards, the studio's standing trade accounts). This means the deck a client receives includes an actual cost figure, not a designer's wishful estimate.

The interior systems

What BXBX actually designs

BXBX's design work is interior systems — the integrated set of millwork, fixtures, storage modules, lighting, plumbing, and electrical that turns a commodity envelope into a working dwelling or workspace. The envelope (U-Box container, shed, laneway suite, condo room) is chosen for cost and availability; the interior is where the studio's value-add lives.

Three recurring system types across BXBX projects:

Business sequencing

The Year 1 commercial path

BXBX is currently sequenced as portfolio-then-commission rather than direct-to-consumer. The Year 1 path: complete 2-3 hero projects at-cost or low-margin (Hako pilot, a laneway suite, a Space-deck commission) → photograph and document them as published case studies → use those case studies as the credentialling layer for paid commission work in Year 2.

The studio doesn't manufacture BXBX projects in volume. Each is custom, sourced from commodity supply chains, fabricated by a small set of trade partners the studio has trade accounts with, and delivered as a finished space or product. The economics work at low volume because the studio's overhead is small (one designer plus contract trades) and the per-project value is meaningful ($15-60k typical).

The catalogue at bxbx.m1nd.co serves both audiences: the design-curious public (who finds the work through editorial channels) and the commercial buyer (who lands on a specific product like Hako and wants to commission a build).

Sister practice

BXBX and T1NY

BXBX is the build practice. T1NY is the research practice that operates at the same scale — the editorial sibling that contextualizes BXBX dwellings within the broader market for tiny, modular, conversion, and micro-dwellings. A reader interested in tiny dwellings encounters T1NY first as research, then BXBX as the studio's own dwelling offerings.

→ T1NY · the research counterpart