FEMA Cost: $60,000
Cost: $60,000
Generic
Contextual
Disposable
Permanent
Mass standardized
Mass customizable
How to rebuild?
The Dry-in House is a mass customized affordable housing system proposed for the reconstruction of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. The Dry-in house is designed to get families back to their home sites quickly by providing the infrastructure the occupants need (shelter, water, electricity) while at the same time providing the opportunity for each of the returning families to customize their new home. The project addresses inefficiencies and redundancies in emergency housing currently provided by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency). It is designed to meet the $60,000 cost of the currently provided temporary housing, the notorious FEMA trailer and improving upon it by providing a solution that: a) is permanent rather than temporary. The house can be finished and further customized over time rather than disposed of. b) reoccupies the owner’s home site rather than a “FEMA ghetto” getting the community back together and functioning. c) is mass customized rather than mass-standardized allowing the owner to have input on the design of their home. The design is a “starter home” rather than an inflexible and over-determined one size fits all solution. This also has the benefit of giving variation to the reconstruction of New Orleans as opposed to the monotony of mass-production. d) allows the owners to further customize their home over time with additional exterior finishes and the subdivision and fit out of the interior.
The Dry-in House is sympathetic to contemporary trends in consumer products that use automated manufacturing platforms to provide for greater personalization. The design proposes a system that once in place, and constraints determined, provides a level of design input on the part of the owner that is currently unavailable in affordable housing in the United States. The design seeks to give the owner maximum customization “with minimal intervention of the designer”(1). The outcome being the designed interaction of the owner and a contemporary rapid manufacturing platform, much like Droog Design’s Signature Vase and Issey Miyake’s A-POC (A Piece Of Cloth) clothing line. In each of these cases the design system uses a readily available fabrication platform as a point of departure and “styles” a design interaction between consumer and product giving the end user a level of customization and personalization previously unimagined in contemporary manufacturing. The Dry-in House utilizes plate truss technology and associated parametric modeling software, to engineer and fabricate highly customized trusses to meet individual preference. This mass customization technology is employed to create the customized building section of each family’s house. The truss is not used in its typical manner, spanning over the house, but rather, it forms the section and superstructure of the house (roof, wall, and floor). The Dry-in House allows the owner-designer to “draw” the section of their new home through a simple to use web based design program in which the plan of the home is fixed but the section is flexible allowing the owner to customize the section to their specific needs and desires. Because of the narrow lot configurations in New Orleans, the design maximizes the roof as a source for natural ventilation and light for the interior of the house. In addition, the house is one room deep providing cross ventilation in all rooms minimizing reliance on artificial HVAC systems. In contrast to the one size fits all approach to emergency housing the Dry-in House proposes a mass-customized shell to get residents back to their own home sites in a timely manner. With the Dry-In House the owner is supplied with an inhabitable shell that is able to be customized before it is fabricated as well as onsite as the project is fitted out over time. Primarily the Dry-in House as its name implies provides a timely dried-in space which doubles as a customized infrastructure for the reconstruction of homes and neighborhoods. This customized infrastructure gets residents back to their property and can then be finished by the resident over time according to each family’s preferences, timeline and means giving the residents a part in the reconstruction effort with a personalized solution. 1. Droog Design, http://droogdesign.nl/, 2006.
dry-in house
The Dry-in House has a fixed plan but flexible section, allowing the homeowner to customize the section to their needs, sites and desires. Can we really draw our own home? That is cool mom!
The porch/entry can be fitted out over time to express the unique identity of the owners.
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dry-in house http://www.dry-inhouse.org
The dry-in House is founded on the idea of bringing the same level of empowerment to the design process that currently exists in the construction process of a Habitat home. The silhouette of each house can be as unique as the silhouette of each owner. The owner will customize the configuration of the roofline and also the ceiling line of their house.
a mass customized affordable house for new orleans
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vrml
engineer
1100 sf
1300 sf
Roof and ceiling planes can be designed by the owner to respond to varying program and site considerations, creating a house unique to each owner. Because of the narrow lots in New Orleans and the customization possible in the dry-in house the roof and ceiling can be designed to provide natural light and air to the interior of the plan.
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natural light 16' 12'
air
7'
air living
kitchen
The interior can be subdivided over time to meet the individual needs and preferences of families.
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0' section
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porch
screened porch
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details
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Memphis Atlanta
Little Rock Birmingham
Savannah
Jackson
Jacksonville
NOLA
Orlando
The Dry-in House is a mass customized house. The displaced residents can design their new house which is fabricated as they prepare for their return home.
The data generated by the engineering software can also The data generated by the engineering software can also be used to quickly fabricate a scale model of the design, allowing the home owner and architect to visualize the engineered to order the superstructure.
The data from the Dry-in House can be sent directly to a regional truss plant and be engineered in 15 minutes or less
The truss is also projected onto the table with a laser to facilitate layout. The connector plates are placed by hand and then machine pressed into the lumber.
Mom, there goes our new house!
The truss sections that will form the house are delivered to the site as the residents are also returning home.
Birdseye view of a typical block in New Orleans, showing the variety of possible mass-cstomized designs. The concentrations of returning families promote a greater collective spirit among the community. The construction process is akin to a barn-raising, making possible the drying-in of multiple houses in less than one day.