Backyard is itself the offspring of Airbnb's design studio Samara, which launched in 2016 to explore "the future of human connection." In the case of Backyard, the company is thinking about the future in terms of the fact that new construction is a massive contributor to greenhouse gases, but still a necessity given our growing population and the need for migration due to climate change itself. To that end, Backyard hopes to develop a prototype that will leave a much smaller carbon footprint and create less waste. The 'human connection' element of Backyard is the fact that these homes will be designed to be shared. The details of how they'll be shared remains vague.