MIT's $1,000 House Challenge Yields Results

An anonymous reader writes "MIT's $1k House Project is an extraordinary challenge to provide safe and healthy homes for the world's burgeoning population. The Pinwheel House (PDF), a student project which helped serve as a catalyst for the challenge, has been completed in China by architect Ying chee Chui. Students have come up with a dozen or so designs to meet the challenge and improve living conditions for not just emerging economies but larger nations as well."

Comments

Not in the US...

[Anachragnome]

This wouldn't fly in the US.

Some construction union would intervene claiming substandard construction or what-not, code violations etc, etc just to protect their jobs.

The pipe-fitters unions did the same thing when PVC piping came out--they lobbied for code changes that required copper tubing, changes that ruled out Joe-Homeowner doing the work himself. Most building codes make it very hard for the do-it-your-selfers, sometimes requiring them to actually get a contractors license. There is no reason for this if the work passes inspection--it exists simply to protect the jobs of people that need to get with the times, adapt and get on with their lives rather then holding back the rest of humanity.

Not for colder climes

[Son of Byrne]

I understand that the project was formed with the developing world in mind, but I think that the concept is worth pursuing in the developed world as well.

The trouble is that all of the concepts that I read about sounded like ideas for a cabana on the beach. While that may work in spots where temps stay moderate year round, the rest of us could never make that work. Also, most of the ideas I read about sounded pretty light on engineering and heavier on design (architecture).

I'd like to see this project expanded into something resembling the next generation of manufactured/modular homes. We're in sore need of reasonably priced structures that are within the realm of an average person's abilities that retain style and form beyond an ugly box.

I agree that the developing world needs cheap ways to house their citizenry, but let's not forget to solve some of the problems that we still face here at home (in the US).

Re:What is the point

[antifoidulus]

Depends on what you are trying to do. For instance in China a huge problem is the massive fight of people from the rural areas to the cities(whether they move legally or not, China still uses the hukou system to basically force people to stay in the area they were born in). This creates huge problems in both the rural and the urban areas. In the urban areas you have a lot of poor, usually uneducated(and often times single male) people flooding into the cities, increasing crowding, making competition for jobs even more intense, etc. Meanwhile the rural farms are left with labor shortages, shortages of young people to take over the work, etc. This in turn helps to drive up food prices which places a lot of pressure on the Chinese government.

As a result the Chinese government right now is trying to find ways to make rural living more palatable to young people so that they will stay in the countryside instead of moving to the city. Affordable, comfortable housing could go a long way towards that goal.

Re:House plus site, services, foundation, etc.

[Lumpy]

"Then there's the cost of getting services to your chosen site. It costs a bit to get electricity, water, and sewerage to a building site, or to provide a drilled well and septic system in a site that's too remote for municipal services."

Mostly due to corrupt laws. Yes a pit Privy can be done properly, but a simple septic leech field is not that hard to engineer and build. Electricity is easy enough to do with very low cost scavenged parts to make wind power and heating can also be done simply by making the place solar efficient.. in Texas you really dont need heat just insulation and a central fireplace for the 2 days a year it drops below 60.

LAW states you must have X outlets per room, and XX amp of electrical service in the house. Hell they even dictate the number of Cable TV outlets required nowdays.

A 500SQ foot pinwheel home is large enough for a family of 4 to live comfortably. If you are not the typical american slob you can get away with a pair of $200.00 Harbor Freight Solar panel kits and a couple of deep cycle batteries for electricity to give you lighting for the entire home and a couple of outside lights, and if you are lucky you can charge that OLPC laptop that is used for the rich kids. if your well is properly sized you can run it also off of the solar+battery system. a propane tank outside will supply cooking, heat for home and water.

Very comfortable and sustainable.

First off... It's a $5,925 house.

[denzacar]

Which is a funny way of writing $1000.

Second, that is slightly over a $1.5k more than the Chinese per capita GDP of about $4,382.
Compared to the average US per capita GDP that is about as much as a $60k house.
Do I really need to comment that?

And all that is before even getting a building permit.
Which is often the greatest single expense when building a house in the third world and other "growing democracies" due to inefficiencies of the bureaucracy and the built-in culture of bribes and corruption.

Now... as this is apparently hailed as a "low-cost home for the poor", let's go see what the really poor make.
You know, countries where that imaginary $1000 is approximately around or over the per capita GDP.

Even at a $1000 per house an average Nigerian could not afford it - regardless of the picture all those CNN commercials for Nigerian banks are trying to paint.
At $5,925 he might as well start making plans for a house made out of gold.

I just like house the house can be infinitely expandable, building larger pinwheels around the outside until it becomes insanely difficult to reach the center.

See? This is why Lex Luthor is such a brilliant criminal mind.
He knows (as did his father) that the land is the only resource they are not making more of.
Well... other than time. They are making even less of that one. But time-travel is not really his thing.

You expand UPWARD - not outward.
Expanding out wastes space. That is why all those big population centers, I think they are called cities, have all those tall buildings.