Have you heard of the CHIP house?

Neither had I until I found it in this feature on Dwell.

What you need to know about the CHIP house:

1. Your instincts are correct: at first glance, it appears to be a giant quilted Chanel handbag:

2. Upon looking inside, we discover innovations in storage and maximizing its bizarre shape:

3. The project is one of the highlights from this year’s Solar Decathlon, an annual program by the US Department of Energy to challenge collegiate teams to “design, build and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy efficient and attractive.”

4. The CHIP home arrived to the Washington, DC, event with the help of a team of more than 100 SCI-Arc and Caltech students who designed and built it to promote a new kind of sustainability.

5. CHIP is an acronym for Compact, Hyper-Insulated Prototype.
6. The home is a 750 square foot wonder of tucked-in furniture made of foam for easy wall-lining storage

7. There’s also this great video about the concept and the build.

All images courtesy of Dwell online magazine.