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Help Us Build a $300 House

7 points by cwan 16y ago

dmm 16y ago
Check out: http://www.undergroundhousing.com/ http://www.undergroundhousing.com/ He built a house for $50, albeit with many salvaged materials and in the '70s.
kovar 16y ago
I've researched building spaces with conex containers. I've not actually pulled the trigger and done it, but a lot of other people have. It is fairly likely that I'll build a semi-mobile office into one before too long, but I'm not a mechanical/electrical hacker, alas. If anyone is and would like to explore this, please drop me a line.
- brudgers 16y ago
  You would be better off buying a used mobile home. Not only would you save money over converting a shipping container to a dwelling but you would have a far more habitable space.
  - kovar 16y ago
    The integrity of most mobile homes is subpar for my desired application. I do, among other things, IT consulting and computer forensics. We were working on a project to deploy to disaster zones to provide ISP services, data recovery, and other related services. Packing our entire operation into a container that could be shipped to the area via normal shipping options would reduce our deployment costs and logistical complexity. (And, as always, anyone interested, please drop me a line.)
brudgers 16y ago
A tablet computer but no place to shit? Give me a fucking break - the iPad's magic won't cure dysentery. I'll add that the whole ownership theme is in Marie-Antoinette-let-them-eat-cake territory because it ignores the most basic fact of urban poverty - people typically don't own the land beneath the slums and are occupying it illegally.
- kovar 16y ago
  The link is currently invalid, but I distinctly recall an outdoor toilet in the diagram. Why is land ownership relevant to the posting? If they're told to pick up and move, they can do so very easily. Or, a benevolent land owner (government, commercial, other) could offer them space at low or no cost, particularly if they're willing to live in something such as this, rather than a typical dwelling for the area.

7 points by cwan 16y ago

dmm 16y ago

Check out: http://www.undergroundhousing.com/ http://www.undergroundhousing.com/ He built a house for $50, albeit with many salvaged materials and in the '70s.

kovar 16y ago

I've researched building spaces with conex containers. I've not actually pulled the trigger and done it, but a lot of other people have. It is fairly likely that I'll build a semi-mobile office into one before too long, but I'm not a mechanical/electrical hacker, alas. If anyone is and would like to explore this, please drop me a line.

brudgers 16y ago
You would be better off buying a used mobile home. Not only would you save money over converting a shipping container to a dwelling but you would have a far more habitable space.
- kovar 16y ago
  The integrity of most mobile homes is subpar for my desired application. I do, among other things, IT consulting and computer forensics. We were working on a project to deploy to disaster zones to provide ISP services, data recovery, and other related services. Packing our entire operation into a container that could be shipped to the area via normal shipping options would reduce our deployment costs and logistical complexity. (And, as always, anyone interested, please drop me a line.)

brudgers 16y ago

A tablet computer but no place to shit? Give me a fucking break - the iPad's magic won't cure dysentery. I'll add that the whole ownership theme is in Marie-Antoinette-let-them-eat-cake territory because it ignores the most basic fact of urban poverty - people typically don't own the land beneath the slums and are occupying it illegally.

kovar 16y ago
The link is currently invalid, but I distinctly recall an outdoor toilet in the diagram. Why is land ownership relevant to the posting? If they're told to pick up and move, they can do so very easily. Or, a benevolent land owner (government, commercial, other) could offer them space at low or no cost, particularly if they're willing to live in something such as this, rather than a typical dwelling for the area.