In today’s changing economic climes, it is sometimes necessary to relocate across vast distances. For these occasions there are moving companies. For those who move often, one viable alternative is the mobile home. No packing required, just hook-up to the pick-em-up truck and move form one dust bowl to another. The previous sentence makes clear the unfortunate fact that the mobile home carries with it a stigma of great proportions. There is also always the danger of a tornado whipping through and taking most of your home, or at least your new hubcaps with it.
A simple design with easy-to-assemble, standardized hotel service connections, the modular home offers all of the moving advantages of the mobile home without the stigma of mobile home ownership or the threat of tornadoes. Arranged in urban areas and looking from the outside like a normal apartment complex, the modular home will give apartment dwellers the pride of ownership and the knowledge that you can take it with you.
I am imagining an open frame structure with standardized connections for electricity, gas, water and waste. Into which several modular homes can be inserted. Each modular home will have these hook-ups in the same place to allow them to be interchanged with each other or moved from one structure to another. When complete, the entire structure would look like any condominium or apartment complex. Unlike traditional mobile home parks, these structures would be located in urban areas. Convenient, inexpensive, no tornadoes. What more could you ask for?-- ato_de, Jun 05 2003 Modular Homes [jutta, Mar 03 2005] (?) Modular Refugee Housing http://www.halfbake...20Refugee_20Housingby [UnaBubba] [Jinbish, Oct 04 2004] (?) 42 person LEGO (like) dormitory... http://www.atcostru...f/42person_dorm.pdf [Tiger Lily, Oct 04 2004] (?) Advanced Modular Concepts http://www.steelcastle.com/ [phoenix, Oct 04 2004] (?) Capsys http://www.capsysco...om/our-product.html [phoenix, Oct 04 2004] Whitley Professional Modular Buildings http://www.whitleyman.com/gallery/ [phoenix, Oct 04 2004] (?) Samson Homes http://www.samsonhomes.com/Structural Insulated Panel (SIP) housing manufacturer [phoenix, Oct 04 2004] Modular House Configuration (Sekisui Heim) http://www.wtec.org/loyola/kb/c2_s3.htmHouse is constructed of interconnecting units [TitaniumZ, Oct 04 2004] Habitat '67 Moshe Safdie (Montreal) http://www.imiuru.c...ages/Habitat67.htmlIllustration immediately reminded me of this. [Zimmy, Apr 24 2005, last modified Oct 22 2005] Silodam Amsterdam http://www.brianros...silodam/silodam.htm [kinemojo, Nov 14 2007] (?) pics from Sci fi book "Ready Player One" http://readyplayero...he-post-apocalypticThe flip side of modular housing. [popbottle, Jul 16 2013] "Container City" system http://www.containercity.comContainer City I, in London, was completed (in 15 days) in London. Many similar exist all over the world [CraigD, Jul 18 2013] I can't believe this hasn't been thought of before...until anyone proves it has you've got my croissant (+). Well Done!-- silverstormer, Jun 05 2003 <squeek> - baked - </squeek> [linky]
But if you can come up with snap-on; balconies, sun-decks, woodshop, art studios, etc., I will happily give you my snap-on croissant. <g>-- Tiger Lily, Jun 05 2003 Quibbles, I think, but i'll take that mfd off. And it's still somewhat Baked - modular housing is something every developer on the planet thinks about.-- DrCurry, Jun 05 2003 I saw [unabubba]'s concept. Each of those is a self contained temporary living space. This is not self contained and is not ment for temporary habitation.
[Tiger Lily], The Lego type dormitory comes closer but, again, it is designed as a temporary structure. As a "Modular Home" owner, you can select from a wide variety of floor plans and accessories including, but not limited to, balconies, decks and bay windows.
This would be a multi-room living space, owned by the occupant, temporarily mated to a permanent structure. (picture a CD rack, each unit can be plugged in anywhere in the rack.)
The AMC link provided by [phoenix] comes very close, but does not have the portability that I was imagining.-- ato_de, Jun 05 2003 + for 14 uses of the word 'modular' (well 15 now)-- modular, Oct 23 2003 This has been thought of before. It's briefly described in The California Voodoo Game, a novel by Niven and Barnes. I forget whether it had been successful or not, but people did basically have modular apartments that could be shipped and slotted into buildings. To be honest though, I imagine that you'd still have to pack if you shipped one, in order to avoid furniture or objects falling or moving in transit.-- cpt kangarooski, Jan 15 2006 The homes could be slotted into special cruise ships equipped with these standardized racks and cranes for lifting the homes.
You could have a rack in every coastal city and holiday resort of the world, built on pillars in the water and accessible by cruise ship.
You could stay in your home while it is being shipped.-- kinemojo, Nov 14 2007 random, halfbakery