Interior Layout Design and Prototyping

Planning the interior was an extremely time consuming process.

On the advice of an architect friend, rather than thinking about the space as a small apartment, I began instead by considering the sight lines — the viewpoints out of the space through the windows and doors — since after all, the Airstream belongs out in the wild. The whole point is to escape to somewhere beautiful.

From there I sketched out various options on a notepad, then moved them into CAD. Once I had a layout that looked like it would work I built the whole thing out of cardboard to double check.

If you're thinking of doing a project like this I highly recommend this approach to make the best use of the space and avoid designing yourself into a hole. I've seen a number of Airstreams online where they've made unfortunate packaging mistakes but discovered them too late to do anything about it. That's why designers build low cost prototypes — to test their ideas quickly and cheaply, and avoid expensive mistakes down the road.