Rural Housing Instructable for Make It Home Student Design Contest

About: I’m a 6 grade student at a small rural school. I was introduced into 3D printing this year and my teacher encouraged me to enter this competition, because I really enjoy designing.

My idea for Sustainable Rural Housing with Farmland Preservation:

I wanted to find a way to increase housing in our rural area without losing farmland. Our area has lost a lot of farmland from the solar farms. Modular housing would be a good way to avoid losing more land. Built in a cluster style, this type of building would increase housing in our area and be a good way to support housing for local families.

To create this project model and design, I used Autodesk’s Tinkercad program.

Using a cluster housing model: I would group homes on a portion of land that is unusable or not good farmland while keeping the rest for agriculture. Site selection shows areas of not good farmland.

Using a low-impact, energy-efficient design I chose to use the following ideas in my design:

1. Green roof and wind turbines to capture natural energy.
2. Modular home to reduce construction time, waste and costs.
3. Each floor could be built off site and then the housing could be as big as needed.
4. Install rainwater and water recycling systems.
5. Windbreak using trees and landscaping.
6. A wind wall like POIREINGANBA LOKTONGBAM created for another contest.
7. Steep, metal roofs for snow and rain collection.
8. Shared garden and yards.

Image 1 shows the rainwater capture and it shows how it is getting into the collection tank to be distributed into the building shown in Image 2.

I created this design using tinkercad. I stacked a few of the starter models on top of each other to make modular housing and the trees near the garden will stop some of the wind from coming through on the west side.

The above images show 4 different floor plan views that represent a possible two bedroom home. As a modular house, the walls can be flexed into different parts for different floor plans.

The benefit of this type of design

My design shows the reader that modular housing is good because it is sustainable and it is safe for farmers. Making the housing in a cluster using environmental properties helps families with housing in our rural town.