Affordable Housing--Shipping Container House Make It Modular Challenge

Hello, my name is Riley Palm, and I am a Junior. I go to North Point Highschool Located in Wentzville, Missouri. I used the Autodesk software Revit to design my affordable house. I really love modeling in any 3d design software, and especially love the designing and modeling of houses. Ever since I was little I have always loved to sketch things out and didn't even realize that some of the things I did were things you learn to do in these types of courses and fields.

This is an entire house made fully of just 3 Shipping containers. The goal for this house was to keep it affordable (on the small side) and still be able to have at least 1 person live in it. The house I designed is made for 1-2 people. It would be possible to fit more people into the house, just utilizing the living room area as the "guest bedroom". Normally in tiny homes, there aren't full appliances and furniture inside, however, the house I have designed does. There is a full kitchen, dining table, couch, queen bed, and a walk-in closet. I wanted this house to be so similar to a normal drywall house, that you wouldn't even feel like you're living in shipping containers.

Below you will see the steps listed in order. Each Step is not necessarily how I modeled the house, but more the order in which you would see the house. When you view any house you first will see the floorplan, which I have provided for you as "Step 1:". Once you have seen the floorplan/layout of the house you would then view the house, assuming you start from the front door and then continue throughout the house (front to back). This being said, my step 2 would be from the exterior, step 3 would be from the door, and so on and so forth.

While I could have done a simple rectangular shape with the containers, I chose this easy but complex design. Most people prefer an open floor plan in their home, and personally, I do as well. For that reason, I chose this shape/layout to be the best for what I wanted and needed to do. It allowed me to have enough closed-off space to fit more items in, but enough openings to make the spaces seem larger. Also, placing the door all the way to the side of the house gave me a chance to make each shipping container its own main room, without having to worry about blocking the main entryway.

Image 1: This is a little flower bed that I designed for multiple reasons. In the model I made, there are no flowers in it but it is more than capable of holding them. The main reason I created this was to fill empty space. Along with filling the empty space, it creates a nice-sized, appealing garden for a great aesthetic and peace of mind. It is not hard to take care of and even while keeping the bushes in, there is room for anyone to add anything that makes them feel more at home.

Image 2: The driveway I made is meant to be the garage. It fills all the empty space between the garden and the door, while also giving you a place to park your vehicles. This also makes it easier to do the landscaping, keeping it as minimal as possible. Not only is the house itself affordable, but the outside is also easily maintainable and very cost-efficient.

Image 3: Extending off of the driveway, connecting the garden, is a space for any large, outdoor items. In my design, I made this area dedicated to the citywide garbage bins. The space is small enough to be its own area, but big enough to actually put a good-sized item there. For example, you could replace the bins with any outdoor furniture set. This could consist of a table and chairs, or even exterior couches. There are also wall lights around the entire front of the house for easy sight at any time of day.

Image 4: Lastly, we have the roof design. I went through a couple of roof shapes in this model before finding the perfect one. The first design I wanted to do was a simple shed roof, all slanted to one side. This was not only inconvenient for certain weather conditions, but also not very appealing. The second design I tried was a gable roof. This was convenient for the most part, except that it made a giant zigzag shape, which was not very nice to look at. The third and final design I chose was a hip roof. This allows proper weather protection and looked the best out of all of the roof types.

Walking right into the front door the first thing you come across is the office. This is a space where you can do any of your work right here in your home. You have your own computer, computer monitor, keyboard, mouse, and printer. This allows you to be able to do anything you could possibly need for the basic at-home work. Next to the desk, on the wall, is a hung painting of the Mona Lisa. Behind the desk, next to the front door there are some coat hooks as well as a nice decorative plant. Moving farther along is the living room. The living room is more on the simple side, containing only the necessities. It has a nice big couch, tall shelf for storage, a rug, tv and tv stand, end table, and a lamp for lighting.

The kitchen itself is designed to be fully efficient. Having a functional kitchen is a key part of any house. Because of this, I wanted to make sure that this house had as close to a full kitchen as possible. I even made two of the kitchen walls a darker color to not only add a touch of different paint, but make the kitchen area seem more separate from the living room.

Every appliance here is full-sized, even the refrigerator. There is plenty of storage for things and even a glass cabinet for anything special you would want to be displayed. You may be wondering where the pantry is because it isn't in an obvious spot. The pantry would be located in the corner tower of the cabinets. This gives plenty of reachable space for anything you would put in your pantry. Along with the pantry, there is an even bigger corner cabinet below it. It could be used as more pantry space or for any large kitchen Tupperware.

Directly next to the kitchen, in the same room, is the Dinning room. The table seats four people, however, the full table may not be used. This allows there to be guests and enough space for them to eat. With the modern design of the house so far, the modern chandelier above the table adds a nice touch to the ambiance of the house.

The bedroom of the house is made very basic. Throughout the entire house, I wanted to only include necessities in each part, to help keep the house "affordable". While keeping the necessities in each room, I was able to spare some time and add a few extra things to the house, like the kitchen. The main reason for this was the bedroom. You don't need much in a bedroom to call it a bedroom. A bedroom is really just a place to sleep and maybe go for a quiet area. That is exactly why I was able to keep the bedroom simple.

In any house, it is nice to have a big closet, especially a walk-in. Because of the simple bedroom, I didn't need much space, therefore I was able to use the extra space to create a decent size walk-in closet. I made sure the closet was walkable and had tons of space for an average person's wardrobe. With this, I included 3 wire shelves, spaced enough to hang clothes on all three. There is also space to place pants and or buckets for other items on top of the shelves. The very top shelf is more of a storage shelf which would be for things like bedsheets and or things not used often, since the ceilings are pretty high.

This bathroom has everything you need in a bathroom, and combined with what you need in a laundry room. This bathroom includes everything in full size. There is a full vanity, toilet, shower/bathtub, washer and dryer, and even extra cabinets for bathroom and laundry supplies. The walkway is about 15 inches in front of the toilet, and wider in front of the vanity. Therefore, there is just enough space to walk through without bonking into everything.