hows this for instant house?

[Amanda_931]

For a minute I thought you were kidding.  No!

Did you read the comments?  alternating "how tacky" and "please, where can I get one now" and one person mentioning the kit houses in the U.S.--Sears, for example.  

When the hospital my dad worked for back in the 50's needed new employee housing, they went with Lustrons.  I remember them as being pretty nice.  Probably warmer in winter than the lovely old frame house we lived in.

May not have been saying much.  They were, after all all steel houses.

Collector's houses now, only 2500 built.

http://www.wosu.org/tv/lustron/house.php

4th part of a story of moving one here:

http://www.oldhouseweb.com/stories/Detailed/12273.shtml

[glenn kangiser]

It looks interesting.  Don't know if  they'll get here or not but other countries are going for them.  I think all housing projects  (even half million dollar ones) look like cookie cutter projects so whats the problem with the Ikea's.

If it's what our kids or grandkids can afford after our bloated government finishes ripping us and them off, then I say "Bring them on."

[Jens]

container housing could be used effectively for the hurricane victims.  A lot of the houses in N.O. are 15 by 40, thats two containers side by side.  Of course, we still have more vacant houses in this country than we do homeless people.

[DavidLeBlanc]

FEMA usually (used to) ships in a gazillion single-wide house trailers for displaced housing... Uuuugly.

[Mark]

In one of our labs at work, we have been experimenting with fabricating structures using 'concrete' dispensed by essentially a large inkjet printer head set-up like a large X-Y-Z plotter.   The concept isn't original.  There is a company in California that has been developing this technology for construction of homes; print your home from CAD in a day or so they claim.  I'm not sure how fully developed their technology is yet.  The system we have still needs some technology development before it can be deployed for use.  Some of you may have seen an article on this in the press (maybe Popular Mechanics but I can't remember).    

[John Raabe]

Very interesting. It certainly would open up design possibilities!

Maybe the 1970's domes will have a comeback.