The YMCA of London South West has developed what they call the Y:Cube, a simply-designed tiny house unit that can be assembled in a factory, transported to a construction site and then stacked together to create
pop-up apartment buildings. (Watch a video of a demo cube being assembled below)
The new design is being used for good reason: To fight homelessness in increasingly expensive London.
Last month, the organization opened its first development in South West London, offering 36 apartments at 65 percent the average rent of the surrounding area.
South West London has seen the largest increases in rent across the city, where rent prices surpassed 1,500 pounds (about $2,265) for the first time this summer, according to rental insurance company
HomeLet’s rental index, a widely-cited report on rent in the nation.
The building’s inexpensive rent is made possible by the inexpensive construction model: The units are assembled off-site in a factory in Derbyshire and then transported to London. Stacking and stringing the units together into a cohesive building took about five months,
the YMCA says.
Each 280-square foot unit is a rectangular box (so no, it’s not technically a cube) with room for one person in a studio layout. The kitchen is open to the living area and behind those is an open hallway that leads to the bedroom and bathroom. Every unit also comes with a deck in the front that is attached on site.
All the services–gas, plumbing, electric–come pre-made in the cube, so the unit only has to be plugged in, so to speak. This allows more units to be added to a development, or the entire development to be disassembled and built somewhere else, according to the architects behind the project,
according to the architects behind the project, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
.
The building is already filled up with residents. Wendy Omollo, 24, is one of the first Y:Cube tenants to move into the site. She was previously homeless and slept rough on the streets in Kingston upon Thames,
according to the YMCA.
“By having my own space with my own front door I will regain my independence. But it’s not just that,” she says. “As the rent is affordable and I can stay for up to five years, I’ll also be able to save money for a deposit. Basically, when the time comes to move on from Y:Cube, I will be in a far better situation than today.”
The YMCA has plans to expand the pilot program and build more of these throughout London,
0 comments:
Post a Comment