Bloomberg reports on micro houses that may provide a solution to the global housing shortage.
The tiny 22-square-meter (237-square-foot) prototype, on display on United Nations Plaza, is designed for a family of four. It’s self-sustaining, producing drinkable water from the air, energy from the sun and food from a vertical vegetable garden embedded in the exterior walls. And at an expected price of about $35,000, it may provide an affordable answer to a global housing shortage.
“In this climate, this home would produce enough food for a family of four for about 260 days” out of a year, said Anna Dyson, a professor of architecture and forestry and environmental studies at Yale University. “In better climates — in Africa, for example — it could actually produce a surplus of food.”
Yale’s Center for Ecosystems in Architecture and New Haven, Connecticut-based Gray Organschi Architecture collaborated with UN environmental organizations to design, build and install the house, called an Ecological Living Module. Before the three days of construction on UN Plaza last month, components of the home were manufactured offsite over about four weeks.
In high humidity — think Manhattan in August — the house could produce about 20 liters of drinkable water a day. Around the globe, about 844 million people don’t have access to clean water, according to the World Health Organization….
You can read the full story here.