Silo Living

A six-and-a-half-meter-tall feed silo, nearly two meters in diameter and weighing 750 kilos, transformed into a tiny home: that’s Silo Living by Stella van Beers. With this striking graduation project, she completed her studies at the Design Academy Eindhoven and won the 2021 Kick That Ass Award from Maarten Baas and Lowlands.

Tall grain silos are a familiar sight in rural Dutch landscapes. Less well known is that many of them have become obsolete due to agricultural optimization and now stand unused. They’re expensive to remove and impossible to recycle, so farmers often simply leave them in place. Inspired by a childhood fascination, Stella van Beers converted a nearly seven-meter-tall feed silo into a two-level cabin. This vertical human shelter is accessed via a spiral staircase and includes a bright living space, a lofted sleeping area, and a lookout porthole. The use of standard components allows for endless customizations.

After winning the Kick That Ass Award, Stella is focusing on building her own design studio. She began searching for new silos, talking to potential collaborators, diving into material research, and developing the next step beyond her graduation piece. At Lowlands 2022,2023,2024,2025, visitors could explore the silos in person.