During his coursework for a masters degree in architecture, Hank Butitta was frustrated that his ideas never made it past the rendering phase. To satisfy his impulse to work with his hands and actually see a project through to construction, he started designing a cabin for a rural plot of land his grandfather owned. When a pesky building code and a too small budget made that project unfeasible, Butitta realized that a similar structure built inside of a bus would be exempt from the local law and cost much less.
A few months later, when it came time to start his final thesis project, Butitta pulled the bus idea from the back burner and purchased a decommissioned school bus for $3,000. Over the course of the semester he designed and fabricated an interior that could sleep a handful of passengers, and planned a 5,000 mile road trip to test the design. That road trip, which started in Minneapolis, is in progress right now, with the bus somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.
Check out the travel log, and see a few photos of the restoration below.
