The Train Carriage Home

My project's goal was to create an affordable housing solution that also solved another issue for the Make It Home contest. In the end my project provided an affordable house solution that also helped solve the world happiness decline.

1. DELL Intell Core i5
2. Epilog Engraver
3. Prusa XL 3d Printer
4. 18"*6"*3/8" Balsa Wood
5. Krazy Glue
6. Xacto knife
7. PLA-3d Print Filament

SOFTWARES:

1. Revit
2. AutoCAD
3. Twinmotion
4. Inventor

What is the world happiness decline? It is a name for the world wide decline in life satisfaction. In one university a study showed students in Mexico from two-parent households show higher levels of life satisfaction than those living in single-parent households, that is why as I further studied hapiness I began focusing on hapiness in single parent households. I also learned people naturally adapt to what they see around them often; that's why ones home has very little impact on ones mind.

How could a house design affect this? Whilst ones home has very little effect on ones hapiness it does impact you, but not in the ways you'd expect. One very important impact of ones home is the relativity to family and friends. Another impact is clutter, the constant maintaining of large homes have a very great impact on ones mental health, very typically negative.

As I began researching alternative solutions I discovered many "solutions" which did not positively affect the home owners. Many alternative materials such as Adobe are only fit for one climate and possibly more expensive due to their rareness. Materials such as papercrete aren't up to standard suitable for a home such as flame retardation. This is why I chose the train carriage home. It repurposed materials whilst costing less. One may believe that a downside would be its smaller size but there would be less clutter, less posessions, and less time wasted. This is why a smaller home helps free ones time and mental health. As there are less household objects to manage there is more time and resources going towards new experiences. This could be family trips, extracurriculars, and community programs. Not only this since the train carriage home is small, semi easy to transport, and capable of being installed and flipped in various locations my solution will be able to bring single parent families to better areas.

To choose the best region for my solution I looked for a city or town with a high percent of single-parent families. This lead me to seven possible cities. From this point I narrowed down the options to the cities with the most mild climates. Although, my project can be used in varying climates it would need no modifications or heavy heating and cooling bills. This is what lead me to the final area: Memphis, TN.

After finding a city it was time to look for sites, I was looking for a site away from a main road, within proximity of stores that the average family would need and with enough space for the train carriage which measures a little over 50' long. In the end I chose: 2327 Marble Ave, Memphis, TN 38108. This location was superb, it was within 7 minutes of a school, and 10 minutes of a grocery store.

For the home I sketched a layout with the following needs and wants:

Needs:

1. 2 Bedrooms
2. 1 Bathroom
3. 1 Kitchen
4. 1 Living Room
5. Space For A Dining Table

Wants:

1. An Extra 1/2 Bath
2. Closet Space
3. A Dining Booth
4. A Separte Living Room

I was able to accomplish every need aswell as closet space in both bedrooms and a dining booth.

I chose to put the bedrooms on opposite sides of the house, although the design is meant to bring families closer everyone needs their own space at times. The kitchen, living room and dining room are all in one shared space however, the booth acts as a divider making the living room feel a little seperated.

After making a sketch of what I wanted the house to look like I began using the Revit program to design my house. To do so I began with the general layout that I had in my sketches. For the outerwaIls I used thicker walls made of multiple materials to represent the train carriage sides. I then added the floor and roof which I added a curve to. Do to limitations with the software I made the homes floor plans most accurate with the plan of making the other models more realistic to a train carriage. Next I added doors and windows, finishing off with fixtures such as kitchen appliances, the dining booth and bathroom fixtures.

To get a good idea of what the design will look like I used Twinmotion, a rendering software. I exported my Revit drawing as a 3d DWG file and then imported to Twinmotion. When I uploaded my design, it looked colorless so I altered all the materials of the home and made surrounding scenery as accurate as I could to the site. I then took pictures and videos of what my home would look like.

After making drawings of the floor plan on Revit I used both Inventor and AutoCAD to make the model, I wanted it to be puzzle-like so that I could pull off a side and see inside the home. To do so I made several parts on multiple machines. but before using the machines I had to set up the files.

I began by making the floor, I made a 2d model of the floors lines and patterns on AutoCAD, this would be the top view of the piece of wood I would be using as my floor. To do so I imported the floor plan from Revit, I then scaled down the model by 1/4"=1'0" and finally I cleaned up the stray lines. To make the walls and doors I followed a similar process and used section views of my home to export and make walls.

To make the sides' 3d models I used Inventor where I made 4 shells which fit together with the floor I then imported scaled models of the sides of the home from Revit and extruded the windows and door frame. I also downloaded scaled stl files from thingaverse of my homes fixtures.

Since I had the outer carriage walls and fixtures modeled I needed to 3d print them. I exported them from Inventor as stl files and imported them to the Prusa slicer software and set them up to 3d print. Since the 3d printer I was using had multiple color fill options I used smart fill and the paintbrush to change the colors of the items and walls based off the material. It took several hours to 3d print all that I needed to, but I soon had my parts ready to go.

I had 2d drawings of all the pieces I would need for my homes inner walls and floors. Now, I needed to laser cut them on 3/8" thick pieces of balsa wood. To do so I made the lines I wanted to cut thicker than the lines I wanted engraved. I then printed them on the laser engraver with specific settings based on the fact that I was using balsa wood. I now had my inner walls' pieces, my doors, and the floors.

I had all the parts for my model, now I needed to put it together. I began by gluing all my walls to the floors, using an Xacto knife wherever the walls didn't align. I then glued in my doors to the model. Some of my fixtures were made of multiple pieces so I also glued them together. I then installed the fixtures to there various locations making sure to not let the glue go everywhere. In the end my outer walls didn't perfectly align so I sanded down the puzzle-like outcroppings to fit to the floor.