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Property Porn

This high tech New Zealand 'man cave' is like something out of 1950s science fiction

Plastics engineer Jono Williams spent 3,000 hours outside his day job building the ultimate man cave.

JONO WILLILAMS, A plastics engineer and graphic designer based on the north island of New Zealand, has built the ultimate man cave.

Dubbed the “Skysphere,” his getaway is a stunning steel tower surrounded on all sides by glass.

The Skysphere makes an ultra-futuristic statement in a field ringed by trees. The tower’s lighting and security system can be controlled using an app Williams built for Android.

“I tried to keep every aspect of the design original,” Williams told Business Insider in an email.

I do live near a wind turbine farm, so maybe I got some inspiration from those?

Williams shared some photos from the tower construction:

man1 The tower certainly stands out in the sparse New Zealand countryside.

man2 Williams worked on the construction for three years, spending about 3,000 hours outside of his day job.

man3 Williams works full-time as a plastics engineer and a graphic designer, in addition to directing his own IT company. He did all of the construction on the Skysphere in his rare spare time.

man4 The Skysphere runs purely on solar power, and panels were installed discreetly at the top of the tower. "As the solar power system is designed to supply power for two days out of a week, the tower is designed as my weekend getaway," Williams said.

man6 Williams programmed the tower's lighting and security systems to be controlled by his phone. "I based the technology I used around an Android phone connected to a IOIO development board, which pretty much opened the door for me to develop a lot of new technology," he said.

man7 LED lighting can also be adjusted with voice commands.

man8 The Skysphere looks pretty amazing lit up at night.

man9 He even built a beer cooler that sits in the arm of his couch and can send him a notification when he's running low. "My favorite feature is my refrigerated in-couch beer dispenser that can hold 12 beers in the dispenser while cooling an additional 36 beers," he said.

man10 The arm has a cup holder that can be used when the cooler isn't open.

man11 The tower has just enough space for a bed to fit comfortably.

- Madeline Stone for Business Insider. All photos by Jono Williams.

Read: The ‘King of All Fun’ is selling his mansion for $95 million

Read: Johnny Depp’s private French village complete with chapel and skate park is up for sale

Published with permission from
Business Insider
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