MIT's $1,000 House Challenge Yields Results 203
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."
Not in the US... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Mit is the problem, not the solution (Score:4, Interesting)
For people who
(i) are sufficiently intelligent to enter MIT (or similar); but
(ii) are interested in application of technology to benevolent causes rather than application of technology to their bank account
to refuse an acceptance or to leave the university and instead do what they believe is right on their own?
If you want to force any organisation to change its behaviour, as any fule kno, you withold labour. Top universities exist on the reputation of a tiny minority of dedicated academics, but their business is processing journeymen who either stop at graduation or do a small amount of research work to launch them into a high-paying commercial job.
To take an example, the director of my MSc programme resigned in angry disgust at the increasing commercialisation of higher education but most academics are too scared to leave the security of their tenure (or quasi-tenure). His action encouraged me as a student to take a look at politics in the university and higher education in general, and I aborted my research plans out of principle. Interestingly, my cousin at the LSE did the same as a final year PhD student.
What's the point? (Score:2, Interesting)
The design in the PDF broke most of the build cheap rules. Things like if there's a kitchen and bathroom you put them back to back to share plumbing and drains saving on pipe. If there's no traditional kitchen or bathroom then why call them out in the plans as if they aren't included? There's options like Lorena Stoves that are basically built out of sand and clay so other than metal exhaust pipes and burner covers they require little money. Unless you are building what amounts to a shack basic plumbing and electrical will run more than a grand. The same with windows. A structure can be build with little cash other than for things like fasteners, as in nails and such, if there are materials like wood or bamboo on the property. You can do your basic dirt floor if you have linseed oil to stablize it but even that will run you a few hundred. You can build a basic house for $2,500 to $5,000 if the bulk of the materials are gathered rather than being bought but making one for a $1,000 that has plumbing and windows let alone basic wiring is impossible.
Not for colder climes (Score:4, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
The devil is always in the details (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a cute student project, but most would be considered "seasonal" shelter in even basic developed countries. I applaud the creativity, especially of the pinwheel house. Other houses sounded a bit more like a scavenger hunt that could have been done by any 5th year studio student in US architectural schools.
I would certainly hope that, given an entire year of studio work, there is more to the final product than the marketing brochure that came out of the pinwheel house. Part of the practice of architecture (which these students, we presume, would like to eventually be) is making buildings which are buildable. That means detailed drawings of each part which is not OTS hardware - but I see nothing. Does the robotics team get to draw a picture of a walking robot, or do they have to actually do piece drawings and wiring diagrams to actually build the robot?
To be fair, with skilled assembly, it is certainly better than most slum housing - but without skilled labor it may not be much better. None of the designs, save possibly the concrete roof, could be considered water tight for any length of time as initially reviewed, and few appear to have any chance of surviving a 50 year environmental event, much less protecting the occupants. I guess if they're cheap to build (just 6 years of the average 3rd world persons salary, by the website's count), you could see them as disposable and just build them again after each typhoon or earthquake.
From one of the linked sites:
"MIT 1K House is partnering with Skanska and Next Phase Studios to construct three exhibit 1K House prototypes in on MIT campus in Cambridge, MA. The project is moving forward, and the goal is to construct the prototypes by MIT Commencement on June 4, 2010. "
What I want to know it - if Skanska supposedly built 3 of these prototypes on the MIT campus in 2010, how much did it cost? I didn't see pictures, so I presume that the Skanska bid came in somewhere north of $3000 (or even the $6000 estimate for Philippines construction). IT doesn't appear that any of these houses has actually ever been built.
Re:House plus site, services, foundation, etc. (Score:5, Interesting)
"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. (Score:5, Interesting)
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. [wikipedia.org]
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.
Re:Solution? Talk to those you are trying to "help (Score:4, Interesting)
Ghana is not nearly as bad off as many other sub-Saharan African countries, and yet still there is much poverty. People living in the region (their equiv. of a state/county) where I used to reside are finding themselves pushed out of their houses as rents rise from $25-40/month to $100 or more per month due to an influx of oil contractors (now that Ghana has offshore oil pumping as of 2011). The problem is not $100 rents, or even $1000 rents; the problem is that some can afford such rents, and some cannot. In short, the problem is inequality. I am not so naïve as to expect the world will be perfectly fair, but surely we can strive for some basic assurances for all humans — adequate food, water, medical care, social productivity, and basic economic security.
Excellent post. But I would like to point out that if I can build the $1000 house in Ghana for $5000 and rent it out for $40 a month, I am getting a 9.6% annual return on my investment. That is a great return these days. I wouldn't claim to know how to solve the problems of inequality, but a stable home at what appears to be an affordable rental rate is surely a good start. Why not start a benevolent landlord NGO that matches capital looking for a good home with residents looking for a good home?