Airbnb wants to ?reimagine the design of homes? A leader in the home-sharing industry, California-based Airbnb has big ambitions. Two months ago the company announced new initiatives aimed at the corporate travel market, and in 2016 Airbnb built a community center in a small Japanese town as the first project of its ?innovation lab? called Samara. Airbnb has also taken an increasingly hands-on role advising development companies that are building customized complexes for home-sharing.
Today, the $31-billion company announced Backyard, an ambitious but so far vague new project from Samara. As the company?s co-founder, Joe Gebbia, puts it, Backyard is ?an endeavor to design and prototype new ways of building and sharing homes.? Airbnb wants to use sophisticated manufacturing techniques, smart-home technologies, and its experience in the vacation rental industry to ?reimagine the design of homes.? In order to accomplish this task, Airbnb says it has assembled a team that ?includes industrial designers, interaction designers, architects, roboticists, mechanical and hardware engineers, material specialists and policy experts.?

Courtesy of Samara
Architectural models as part of the Backyard prototype.

There?s no indication what the Backyard prototype?reportedly in development?will look like. Photos from the Samara website show a tarp, tents with construction equipment, and (rather bizarrely) a llama. Fast Company, which interviewed Gebbia, sur...