It may not exactly be the ideal home, but a young man’s novel method of living within his means has put him in the spotlight as well as on the spot.

JUNIOR architect Dai Haifei built a 6 sq m mobile egg-house and stayed in it outside his office in Beijing for about two months.

With the average home in the Chinese capital selling for about 19,500 yuan (RM9,200) per sq m and likely to keep increasing, the small pad is the 24-year-old’s answer to the city’s expensive housing.

His novel way of breaking away from being a slave to home mortgage has turned the young man, who hails from Yiyang village in southeast Hunan province, into a hero of sorts in China.

Dai got the inspiration to build the egg-house from a housing design project undertaken by his company for an exhibition in which he was involved as an intern about one-and-a-half-years ago.

The project named Eggs of the City comprised a series of egg-shaped portable multi-purpose fabrications for karaoke, massage and mahjong sessions and goods stall, which were displayed at the Shenzhen & Hong Kong Biennale.

During his internship, Dai rented a small room in an apartment for about 900 yuan (RM425) a month which was too much for him to bear as his father only worked as a construction worker and his mother was a cleaner in their hometown.

When he became an employee of the company, he told himself that he would never rent a house again.

Dai walked the talk. He transformed a merely idealistic exhibit to a real home, and stayed in it, too.

“I thought I could make my own egg-house. I pondered over how to build it every day and decided to make a simpler version than the one at the exhibition which was made of fiberglass,” he said in an interview.

He and several friends used bamboo and steel to build the house and completed it in about two months. He spent more than 3,000 yuan (RM1,450) to transport his 6,400 yuan (RM3,018) egg-house from his village to the yard outside his company’s office.

The house, which can only fit in a bed and some book racks and washing facilities, is covered by a layer of jute bags filled with sawdust and grass seeds.

There is a window at the top through which Dai can watch the moon and stars when he lies down on his bed. The hanging lamp in his pad is powered by a solar panel.

The pad is nothing more than a place for him to sleep after work. To Dai, a house is not a must-have in his life at the moment and he will not put all his money or energy into renting or buying a home.

After he shared his experience on a website recently, Dai drew a lot of media attention and this caused a stir online with many netizens singing praises for his unique home.

“It is a good way of living but it feels sad,” a netizen said in a qq.com forum.

Others questioned whether the home would be legal or serve as a long-term solution, while some said it could just be a publicity campaign by Dai’s company to promote the egg-house.

Days after the media exposure, the city’s enforcement officers visited the egg-house and ordered Dai to move it elsewhere as the land where it was located did not belong to him or his company.

His boss, Zhang Ke, said initially they had thought of moving the egg-house into the office to avoid land ownership problems but the structure was too big and could not go through the office’s door.

Dai had no choice but to relocate his egg-house to a warehouse and he now stays in a friend’s house. He sought the advice of his friend who works as a lawyer on the legality of the house.

“He told me that a house is a fixed asset which comes with the land. But if you do not treat the egg-house as a building, then you cannot consider it occupying a land as an act of violating the laws,” he said.

Dai said he had received offers from some people to relocate his egg-house to their place but the locations were quite far from his workplace.

He said he was not ready to give up his egg-house yet and he would try to face the problem positively and find a practical solution.

When asked whether he would love to see others build their own portable homes, he said he only thought of solving his own housing problem when he first built it.

“But I think there is a chance that it can be promoted as long as it is good for the development of the city. I do not think this kind of house will cause any problem,” he said.

If he has a choice, will he still choose to live like that?

“I feel it is freer to live this, away from the woes of renting a house. I still prefer this way of living,” Dai said.

He loves his egg-house and worries it may deteriorate if left unattended in the warehouse.

“Next spring, we hope to bring the house out to the sun again and continue to water the lawn on it so that the grass can grow properly,” he added.

After being in the spotlight for the past week, all he is hoping for now is to get back to his normal work routine and, hopefully, return to live the life he has been used to over the past two months.

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