Pallet House by I-Beam

May 12th, 2008

Architects I-Beam Design constructed a house for refugees made from wooden shipping pallets in a New York warehouse last month.

Designed for refugees, the house can be quickly assembled and needs
no extra materials transported as pallets are used to deliver supplies
of food, clothing and medical supplies to disaster areas.

Houses made from pallets would not only provide temporary shelter
but could be adapted using locally available materials into permanent
housing.

The following information is from I-Beam:

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Refugee Housing comes to 57th Street

The nondescript warehouse on the corner of West 57th street at the
entrance to the Henry Hudson Parkway is usually home to the assorted
boxes, crates and old furniture you would expect to find in a
warehouse. But for the past week it has been home to an entirely
different type of inhabitant; a full-scale house built entirely from
castaway shipping pallets.

For the past week New York Architect firm I-Beam Design has been
building a prototype of their award-winning refugee Pallette House in
preparation for its premiere at the Milan Architecture Triennale. The
Triennale entitled, ‘A Home For All’ promotes research into emergency
housing in order to collect and compare plans for a different
constructive, social and economic model of the home and of communities.

I-Beam’s Palette House is made of wooden shipping palettes. Palettes
are versatile, recyclable, sustainable, and easily assembled. Their
transportation cost is negligible because they are used to carry
shipments of clothing, food, and medical supplies to disaster areas.

Although most disaster housing is temporary, the Palette House
easily evolves naturally from emergency shelter to permanent house with
the addition local materials like rubble, stone, earth, mud, plaster
and concrete.

Architects Suzan Wines and Azin Valy built the Pallete House with
the generous support of Douglas and Helena Durst and the Chashama
Performance group who donated the space for construction.

The Pallet House is available for viewing by appointment from Sunday March 29th thru Sunday April 6th.

Additionally, I-Beam Design is looking for a home for their Pallette
house. They are looking to donate the house to any worthy organization
looking to exhibit it or use it for humanitarian housing.

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Posted by Rose Etherington

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