The architects from MIT have announced the first model of an inexpensive low-cost home constructed under the “1K House” project of the institute, an endeavor to construct homes for the poor for a total cost of $1,000.
The interior of the house designed by Ying chee Chui as part of MIT's 1K House project. Credit: Ying chee Chu
The idea of constructing $1,000 homes was first conceptualized by Tony Ciochetti, the Thomas G. Eastman Chair and Chairman of the MIT Center for Real Estate who was inspired by the One Laptop per Child, the foundation chaired by Nicholas Negroponte a Professor at MIT.
Ying chee Chui, a graduate student at the Department of Architecture in MIT, first designed the Pinwheel House prototype for the 1K house as her design attempt for a class project in 2009. The project was aimed at offering affordable housing at natural disasters hit areas such as earthquake in Sichuan, China in 2008. The designed prototype house became expensive at $5,925 but comparatively inexpensive than other houses.
According to Chui who works as architectural practitioner in New York City, the project cost was escalated due to an increase in floor space from 500 sq ft. to 800 sq ft, which otherwise would have cost around $4,000. In 2009, her house was one among the 13 plans that came out from the first 1K House Studio. The house with a modular type of layout has rectangular rooms circumventing a central courtyard space. It was built utilizing hollow brick walls reinforced by steel bars and wooden box beams and it is designed to endure an earthquake of 8.0 magnitude. The house has good ventilation and light.
Source: http://web.mit.edu