Foldable Emergency Home

My inspiration for this foldable home was sparked after hurricane Melissa struck the island Jamaica. Hurricane Melissa stuck on October 28, 2025 . This caused severe damage to Jamaica and its people. but approximately 24,000 homes were destroyed because of this natural disaster and cost about 8.8 to 10 billion US dollars. This caused many families to end up being homeless on the destroyed island.

Another cause for my inspiration for foldable homes was the constant destruction of homes overseas. The homes that are destroyed or being destroyed because of war affect normal citizens who are victims of political violence. With many homes gone for children and families I believe small affordable homes could save families by giving them a roof over their head that can be affordable too. Also since these homes are small they can be place decently close making a refugee camp with many homes for people in need. Since these homes can be built quickly and transported quickly this would save the government money and save families. This temporary homing has sufficient room to cover a family of 4. This home doesn't just have to be an emergency home this home can also serve regular people. Proper housing in the US has increased over 200% since the year 2000. If this house doesn't have enough room for your liking it can always be stacked on top of each other making it 2 stories tall or even 3 stories to accommodate your customs.

Not only that, this house can be transported anywhere. This house can be shipped overseas or on a small camping trip since its foldable it takes up a small amount of space and can be hitched up on a trailer. So wherever you want to go you can bring your house and call anywhere home.

Material needed:

-cardboard

-paper

-glue

-tape

-pencil

-pen (with different colors preferably)

-razor knife

-ruler

-set square

-cotton balls

-dead branches

-green acrylic paint

-white acrylic paint

-eraser

-tape measure

-architect scale ruler

-scissor

-toothpicks

-hot glue gun

-colorful cardstock

-crayon

-Styro foam

-drywall mud

-Autocad

The first step of the journey is to first figure out how much you want your base to take up after that you can then decide from where to go. another think you have to take in consideration is how it would look like when it expands since it expands from left then from right.

Now it's time to decide what the container should have and how the rooms should be divided up. this doesn't have to be the permanent structure since there is always room for change and improvement. So take a piece of paper out and start sketching on how you imagine it you can just you a pencil and eraser so you can alter your hosue

now find a bare space in your room and add a foldable staircase that sticks onto the wall then a hole where it ends at the top and some reasonable height for yourself to get through comfortably. To prevent falling of the edge of the staircase stick toothpicks. after that try to calculate how much space it will take up with rise and run rise increases by about inches and run by about 10 inches.

Now its time to decide where things go so for me I added the kitchen and the bathroom on the base and the expanding room with 2 bedrooms on the right and on the left I added the living room, staircase and part of the kitchen. This can change for you depending on how you would prefer your rooms. One reason I chose my kitchen and bathroom on the base since its on the center of the house and is accessible to everyone from every side making it more convenient for the people living inside the house.

Now that you have done step 1 and 4 you can now make it into real life blue prints because this house isn't limited to just a model! so pull out a piece of paper, set square, pencil and your architectural ruler and use the 1/4" or 1/4 inch side of the ruler. After that you should grid your paper by 1/4 inch(every 1/4 inch on the ruler is 1 foot in real life). You can use a set square and a ruler on the side of the paper to guide every stroke of your pencil for better precision. Now you can transfer furniture and other things into your home and see what is priority. and if everything doesn't fit you can stack another house on top of your current house for more room. But writing in pencil is

If you need some assistance on how it should look like or some inspiration my Autocad blueprints can guide you with real life measurements so you know what will fit.

Look for a decently size piece of cardboard and use your paper blue prints to guide you along the cardboard.

Using your blue prints you can outline your roof onto some cardboard and put a cut in the middle of it. after that you can plop it down on top of your house the unique feature of this roof is that their is an extendable balconey if you want or you would like a regular roof to cover your head this roof allow the house to continue stacking like layers of cake.

Stick toothpicks on to the edge of the roof but first connect them with toothpicks that move horizontally and stick them onto the vertical toothpick with hot glue. after that you can stick some left over cardboard with a 90 degree angle so down it can fold out whenever.

Now that you have created your miniature house you can color it I used card stock and glued it onto the walls and roof giving it a solid color. for an extra touch you can cut out pieces of paper and color it with crayon and over lap the color to give off a well blended gradient.

now get a big board of cardboard preferably a thin one so its easier to score. I used 100" * 93" and now find a place for your house. For better support on the bottom of the cardboard I glued the pencil in a grid pattern to better support the cardboard.

I added a road on my ground so that you can see how easy it is to fold your house and leave. What i used was some black card stock to represent a road. to find the width of the road you can use your architectural ruler and go to 24 and make it as long as necessary.

now don't waste the extra cardboard and cut them into fun curvy shapes for hills and slowly decrescendo them into smaller fun curvy shapes. then stack them and glue them together so that they are fixed onto the ground have fun with it. then once all of it is fixed on the ground you can put drywall mud and making it smoother once it drys you can add green pain for a more grassy tone

now that you have your shapes glue them on to your board. green paint make i

look for dead branches then trim them to desirable height. After that you can get cotton balls and fluff them up so they take up more space and glue them on to the branches. After that get a chunk of Styrofoam and crumple it so you get little ball and paint them green and glue them on your cotton fluff and wait for them to dry. This would make a realistic little tree with texture giving your house a better feel. now plant your tree wherever you feel like.

If you would like you can remove your furniture once all of your furniture has been removed you can now fold up your home. Once your house is packed up you can call over your friends or get a crane and place it on top of a trailer and hook it up to a truck and go to where your heart pleases to go.

Now repeat step 1 - 10 to recreate your previous house. you can have a second story or even a third story. The sky's the limit!

If you would like you can always experiment with cool geometric shapes so that you can make your own dream foldable home stick out.