A $300 House?

I picked up the recent edition of “The Economist” as one of the cover stories caught y attention; The $300 House. The article outlined the concept of the project and suggested that this $300 house be multi purpose house; from providing alternative safe housing to the world's poorest population living in haphazard shelters to providing effective emergency housing to disaster victims. As I read the article, I was under the impression that the project was already well under way. I pulled up their blog and website only to find that after almost a year, this amazingly brilliant $300 house conceptional project is just that...still a concept.

They are however, looking for idea submissions and are holding an Open Design challenge (closing date: 31 May 2011) with prizes for the winning designs. There is a massive buzz surrounding this story at the moment so you will have no shortage of blogs and forums to browse through!

So what do you think? Do you have any ideas on how to functionally house a family in a small space? If you were in need of emergency housing after a disaster, what do yo think you would need to survive? Check it out, give it some thought and submit your idea on www.300house.com.

who knows, yours may be THE IDEA that improves the very way of life for an impoverished family on the other side of the world!