LittleDiggs

HAITI is WORTHY OF THOUGHTFUL, SUSTAINABLE, HABITABLE, AND STYLISH RE-BUILDING

Design can change Haiti with dignity and prosperity!

This is a perfect time to bring back the topic of emergency housing and community re-building in light of the Haiti earthquake (and the sunami and katrina disasters before that). Governments and organizations have spent countless days, hours, and money trying to address the logistics of bringing food, water, shelter, safety and health to disaster ridden communities...often times mired in red tape, politics, corruption and lack of imagination, while those who need it most suffer. Meanwhile, the world community awaits to see how the hundreds and millions of dollars will be spent with measurability and with foreseeable long term outcomes like sustainable community building, housig, schools, hospitals, economy, etc.

How can design can help to create socialability, sustainability, safety, and economical systems, one that facilitates the needs of society, community, and individuals, with dignity and cultural sensitivity? Does emergency housing and planning have to equate "temporary", "homogenous", "non-sustainable" and "colorless"? Instead, can it stand for design, dignity, and permanency, while delivering on immediacy, affordability, social sustainability, enviro-sustainability, and efficacy?

I think so, and so does SEED, an emergent housing investment that appreciates locally over time. SEED was initially conceived as a way to utilize some of the estimated 30 million shipping containers that were languishing in ports all over the world by turning them into homes for victims of hurricanes in both the Caribbean Islands and the United States. In addition to SEED, Habitat For Humanity is also embarking on a re-building initiative in Haiti which uses shipping containers to build homes.

Let's consider shipping containers for a moment. Container city projects have been sprung up around the world in: New York, London, Pakistan, Australia, Amsterdam, and most recently Mexico City; every one of them sustainable, affordable, stylish, and contemporary! Now fast forward to Haiti. Not only do Haitian's need immediate attention but it also deserves a thought past the mindset of "temporary shelters", not a tent city, and not a shanty that's made of canvas, card board or other materials that are not made very strong.

Littlediggs and other blogs (inhabitat, treehugger, and materialicious, etc.) have been postulating sustainable housing and communities for some time now but especially container homes. Why? Because shipping containers:

• Are available in abundance around the world (enough to circle the equator with an 8 foot wall (twice!)
• Are built to a universal standard which can be shipped any where in the world
• Already have a floor, wall, and ceiling
• Are made of steel frames which are able to withstand 140 mile/hr winds
• Are made to stack and can be configured in multiple ways
• Have a low environmental foot print
• Can operate off the grid (with solar panels for electricity/heat, and accompanying water tanks)
• Have multiple uses include homes, commercial, retail, schools, hospitals, and many others
• Are sustainable and inexpensive

Below are best case examples of how shipping containers are being used for homes, retail, artist studios, and various institutions.

KEETVONEN COMPLEX AMSTERDAM:
Billed as the largest container city in the world, Amsterdam's Keetvonen is a massive complex that houses 1,000 students, many of whom are happy to secure housing in the city's tight real estate market. Designed by Tempo Housing in 2006, Keetwonen is said to be a roaring success, with units that are well insulated, surprisingly quiet and comfortable.

Each resident enjoys a balcony, bathroom, kitchen, separate sleeping and studying rooms and large windows. The complex has central heating and high speed Internet, as well as dedicated bike parking.

TEMPORARY SCHOOL BUILDING, AMSTERDAM:
This is actually only a temporary measure for this schools kindergarten while they wait for a real building to be built. It’s the best take on the portable that I’ve ever seen. Usually those trailers are one of the most miserable classrooms around, but these multicolored shipping containers stacked on top of each other are a great alternative to a your typical building.

 

CONTAINER CITY, LONDON:
This is the Container City I project, located at Trinity Buoy Wharf, in the heart of London's Docklands. Completed in 5 months in 2001, Container City I was originally 3 stories high providing 12 work studios across 4,800 sq ft. After high demand, a fourth floor was added providing three additional live / work apartments. As well as being very cost effective Container City I is environmentally friendly with over 80% of the building created from recycled material. Installation took 4 days, and 25 containers for a total of 15 live/work and studio spaces.

 

FAWOOD CHILDREN'S CENTER, LONDON:
Completed in 2004, Fawood Children's Centre provides 3 blocks of space to create a nursery, office space and an adult education centre. Set over three floors the blocks of space are interconnected by external walkways all housed within a colourful meshed shell designed by Alsop Architects. Commissioned by the Stonebridge Housing Association Trust this innovative approach to building was rewarded by being short-listed for the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2005.

 

UTRECHT-U-CONTAINERS, NETHERLANDS:
Utrecht is home to the largest university in the Netherlands (Utrecht University), so it's not surprising that the region would face a housing crunch. Here, modified containers help take up some of the demand.

 

COLORFUL CONTAINER CITY, MEXICO:
This hip, colorfully painted shipping container city recently sprung up just outside of Mexico city. Created by a small community of businesses, the project features restaurants, gallery space, bars, funky stores and even living spaces constructed completely out of recycled shipping containers.

 

FUTURE SHACK:
Designed by architect Sean Godsell, Future Shack is the prototype for mass-produced, relocatable emergency and relief housing. The house has applications for a variety of needs – post flood, fire, earthquake, typhoon, or similar natural disasters; temporary housing; third world housing; remote housing. The main volume of the building is a recycled 20-foot shipping container, a universal module that is mass-produced and inexpensive, robust and durable. As a basic unit the container can be stockpiled for use as required by aid-coordination agencies, or in locations prone to disaster. It is designed to be shipped, and is easily transported by road and rail. All infrastructure for handing the module is available throughout the world.

RED EMERGENCY HOUSING, ZSECHUAN:
Though the Red Emergency Housing project is not container based, I'm including it as design worthy and because its thoughtfulness to social-sustainable and enviro-sustainable, and clever furniture components. Red Emergency Housingis designed by obra architects to commemorate the first-year anniversary of the sichuan earthquake for emergency architecture,on emergency housing exhibition at the NAMOC. The design has been developed as an in-progress embodiment of the following 10 points of architecture on the edge of survival, they are: universal application, effective performance, economical, transportable, ease of assembly, renewable materials, digitally pre-fabricated, open work, urban/rural, and flexibility of use. Red Emergency Housing proposes an approach that tries to incorporate both the advantages of fast-response solutions, such as the deployment of military tents, with those of slower and more considered responses such as neighborhood reconstruction efforts involving local traditions and user construction.



Universal application: this prototype aspires to universal applicability. its development contemplates a series of simple modifications that would make it a useful solution anywhere in the world: add insulation and a stove for cold climates; remove doors and windows for tropical climates; replace materials according with local availabilities, etc. Eransportable : all parts are collapsible to flats and can therefore be easily packed and transported.



Ease of assembly: all connections are a simple friction bond of male/female parts which are then secured with a minimum of fasteners.



Renewable materials: in china the project is proposed almost entirely in bamboo plywood, one of the most renewable of materials. the cover fabric can also be considered as woven out of waterproof bamboo fibers. Digitally pre-fabricated: digital pre-fabrication makes the project economical in its speed of production and also easy to assemble due to the precision of its fabrication.



Open work: the cruciform house, while iconic, retains in its biaxial symmetry a certain ‘indifference’ that allows its easy recombination with other locally and diversely made structures. Urban/rural:the geometry of the crosses, when deployed together in groups, defines in-between spaces of infinite flexibility that can suggest an ‘urban’ context for a field of houses. likewise, if a house is erected by itself, the exterior of the cross creates spaces that mediate between interior and exterior providing a context for people to spend time outside.

flexibility of use: the geometry of the cross allows the inhabitation of the house as either 1, 2, 3, or 4 different units of housing.

Support Non-Profits that support Shipping Containers for Housing:
- SEED
- Boxworks, Inc.
- Habitat For Humanity, Int'l

Donations for Haiti can be made at the following organizations:
- OXFAM
- UNICE
- Habitat For Humanity, Int'l

Here are some other articles on shipping containers as housing:
- Science Daily
- Inhabitat
- BoingBoing
- Architecture Australia
- Tonic
- FastCompany

EGG HOUSE POD

Architects: dmvA
Living Area: 215 sq. ft (20 m2)

Belgian architectural firm dmvA designed 'blob VB3', a mobile unit for the office of xfactoragencies as an extension to the 'house'. the  space - egg house consists of a bathroom,kitchen, lighting, a bed and several niches for storage. the nose can be opened automatically and functions as a kind of porch. It's easily transportable and can also be used as an office, guest room or garden house. Polyester was the primarily material used in construction of the 'blob VB3'.

+ From Designboom
+ Photos by Mick Couwenbergh/Rini Van Beek & Vercruysse Frederick

A Functional 182 sq ft Studio

128 sq ft (17 m2)
Location: Unknown
Architect: Unknown

Per the article from MarieClaire Maison:

 

A former maid's room has been restructured around a block of contiguous, which are embedded kitchen, bathroom, staircase and mezzanine.

View of living room, where the structure étonnate fit in a single block of medium, a cabin with water, a micro kitchen, a staircase and a mezzanine. A straight staircase lit by a skylight leads to the loft-room. In the kitchen, the high table-shaped bean is used to both bar, dining and work plan. Below, we housed a storage locker.

 

A fireplace and nineteenth floors are original features. At left is the high table block kitchen housed in the mezzanine. Behind the staircase, the first step serves as a small bench, is an ingenious piece of furniture in medium with each step contains a drawer or storage box.

 

A fireplace and nineteenth floors are original features. At left is the high table block kitchen housed in the mezzanine. Behind the staircase, the first step serves as a small bench, is an ingenious piece of furniture in medium with each step contains a drawer or chest of rangement.Sous the mezzanine, the booth water is separated from the kitchen by a Japanese paper wall. In this micro-part that contains a shower and toilet, it has a built-in stainless steel bowl in a plate of medium as a sink.

In the kitchen of 27 sq ft (2.50 m2), all appliances - fridge, two washers and four from among the smallest in the market - is stowed under the plan. Above the cooking point, a strip in medium hides a hood and a neon. In the upper part, an opening was created to take advantage of natural light that illuminates the stairway.

+ via MarieClaire Maison

BOX HOUSE ELEGANCE

Architects: Alan Chu & Cristiano Kato
Location: Ilhabela, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Project year: 2008
Constructed area: 36 sqm
Photographs: Djan Chu



The building has 2 floors, a white suspended box, where the bedroom is and it is possible to see the continent and the São Sebastião Channel. Under it, at street level, are the living room, kitchen and bathroom.

The wood used on some doors and windows, staircase, shelves and furniture are leftovers of material used to make scaffoldings and molds for the white box reinforced concrete structure.

The 3.00 m x 5.00 m white box is supported on one side by an existing retaining wall and on the other by a wall built with stones, a characteristic of local constructions.

This movement shapes the other 3 spaces of the construction, the access yard, between the box and the retaining wall that curves following the parking lot ramp’s floor, the courtyard, between the box and the rock and the void created under the box, where the living room is.

+ NOTCOT.ORG

+ ARCHDAILY

63.02 DEGREES OF LIVING

Nakano, Tokyo
24.58m2 (264 sq. ft.)
Sshemata Archtecture

63.02°, is built in a densely residential area in Nakano, Tokyo; a small building with an office and an apartment for rent. In order to fit this house into the existing propert, the facade of 63.02° is inclined 63.02 degrees toward the front road, so that a wide and deep view is acquired. From the large windows that are opened on the inclined facade, you can see neighbor's cherry tree and the cityscape.

+ Sschemata Architects

SMALL APARTMENT WITH SENSE OF GLOW & CURIOSITY

NYC
462 SF + Sleeping Loft 56 SF= 518 SF Studio
Victor & Soeun V.

"We love New York City, but we do not like the filth and the crowed conditions. We set out to make a small loft space seem clean, uncluttered, and open. Our concept word was cityscape. Our intention was to bring the romantic aspects of New York City into the design, such as glowing buildings at night or a sense of discovery that one feels as to what may lie around the next corner."

"Our favorite element in the home is probably the washer/dryer tucked away in a translucent closet. Few people in New York City have a washer/dryer in their apartments."

+ Apartment Therapy

INTELLIGENT LIVING SPACE

UK
347 sq. ft.
Abito

Driven by a purity of thought; abito is dedicated to the elimination of dead space.  The central pod becomes the hub of the apartment, housing and hiding all the utilities to liberate space and create a circular walk that makes the flat live and breath every one of its 347 square feet. Physically there is a freedom of movement.  Visually there are unhindered views in every direction.  And the sturdy walls ensure that your freedom is private freedom.  abito is about creating a living environment that is multifunctional, inventive and easy to live in.  It’s about quality not quantity.

+ Moco Loco
+ Abito

Stylish Gut DIYer Gut Renovation on the Cheap

New York City
400 sq. ft.
Architect: DIY'er Mark Robohm

NEW YORKERS are forced to make the most of small spaces, but it is unlikely that many have done it as gracefully and inexpensively as Mark Robohm, a drummer and Web designer, and his partner, Stephanie Doucette, who, you should know, is expecting a baby.

Their home, which doubles as an office for Mr. Robohm, is a studio in Chelsea measuring about 400 square feet. Mr. Robohm did the gut renovation largely by himself for less than $12,000. more...

+ New York Times: ''Gut Renovation on the Cheap''
+ Fred R Conrad (photographer NYTimes)

SUITCASE HOUSE

Two people surviving thousands of feet up on El Capitan on a sleeping platform hanging from a rope, living through blizzards in an incredibly small space under impossible conditions. Their equipment held out, and this treehugger considered what it would be like if our home furnishings were so well designed, so efficient, so multi-functional.

Thus we were thrilled when Ricardo Flores and Eva Prats Arquitectes sent us pictures of their "House in a Suitcase"

There is so much about this that we like. The bed slides into a drawer rather than being a Murphy-type fold-up- murphy's require good discipline, make the bed and tie down the straps and fold it up- a drawer is so much better- when the doorbell rings and your mother is behind it, shove it closed and everything is hidden. And the kitchen- so many of us have a New York Fridge- nothing in it but a grapefruit and a bottle of champagne- why does it take up so much space?

Ideas like this have so much promise- Instead of taking what the developers offer you, take space and add your personal mix to it. It is the urban equivalent of camping equipment- find a space and inhabit it.

Story from Sunday NYTimes via Treehugger

RETRO FAB RENOVATION

One person's apt. design from drab to retro-fab. Creating depth, scale, texture, and interest doesn't have to cost a lot of money as evidenced by this apt.













I especially like this trick. By extending the interior floor towards the outside terrace, you create the illusion of more living space. An additional detail, simple but effective, are the white river stones that frames the outter edge; creating a zen terrace.



Photos from Retrodesign Fan