Earth Friendly Container Houses

Uploaded on Mar 4, 2010 The recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile killed thousands of people and have left hundreds of thousands homeless. Today, poverty has left up to 3.5 million Americans in need of temporary housing. Haiti, Chile and the US, have 100,000s of empty ISO shipping containers sitting dormant. My idea is to use local labor to convert one of these shipping containers into a safe, low-cost, eco-friendly home for temporary housing to those in need. ISO shipping containers are rugged, weatherproof, and plentiful. Local artisans and craftspeople will design and convert one of these shipping containers into a livable and safe home. Because building materials are unavailable to the poor, the design and build will focus on using scrap and recycled materials. Also, all build techniques will be done in a manner that is easily replicable by individuals with little or no construction skills. The final product will be instructional videos for NGOs to build these homes locally, with local labor. My idea to use Bay Area artists and craftspeople (machinists, carpenters, welders, you name it) to design and convert a shipping container into a livable space for natural disaster (Haiti, Chile, Katrina, etc.) survivors and the poor. The idea is not only design and build a prototype, but to use French and Spanish language students and film students to create a multi-language instructional video on the build, so that NGOs can replicate these shipping container conversions in-country, with local labor and resources.