Homeless people do have home. They built their own house, which may not look like ours. However, there is where they consider safe, where they think they belong to. The design of ROOM-MAH is exactly came from the homeless. By going into the life as a homeless, we designed a place where they found familiarity and willing to come and stay as a temporary shelter, we came out ROOM-MAH. In life of homeless, cardboard are their main sources of how their ‘house’ is built. They rely on cardboard as a basic of living, away from weather hazards. Cardboard is something that makes the homeless homed. It can be found almost everywhere in the city. The strength of cardboard cannot be underestimate. Some of them are being treated as trash. Therefore, making the trash a usable construction would then solve a lot of society problems. 

 

The concept of ROOM-MAH is derived from the foldable properties of cardboard. The foldable properties make the shelter can be adjustable due to different site for high flexibility of reaching out the homeless of anywhere. By having one template of foldable shelter, many alternative shapes of shelter can be formed using the pieces of the template to form more private spaces for the homeless. The foldable ability of the template and the possibilities of the alternatives can be found in the board.

 

The idea of having a lot of corners in our design is inspired by the human behavior. We used to find the corner as a safe place as it can be ‘relied’ on. Locating our stuff at the corner of the table or choosing a corner seat while in the train, is a result of this human behavior, which we act so naturally without noticing.  Homeless people are the same as us; they sleep at corners, simply found the benches and lie on them. They need something to rely on as no one is with them. Therefore, we use triangular prism as our basic geometry to work on the space in between.  

 

By having triangular prism for our design shape, the structure is more stable and wider openings are allowed. Increase the openings can help the ventilation within the building better. Besides, the slanting wall of 135° provide best angle to let the body rest at comfort. As the age of the homeless are mainly elders, therefore slanting wall is better in providing comfort compare to the 90° wall.

 

The slanting roofing helps in preventing the trash, dead leaves or rainwater from remaining on the building, as this will increase chances of having disease to be spread. By using the tent ventilation concept, we design our roofing as double roof, a gap between the upper and lower one, for allowing air of entering through the building for thermal insulation purpose.

 

As a lightweight construction, we use cardboard as the main materials by treated on a layer of polyurea, which widely used in field of construction and automobile, industrial and housing application for waterproofing coating. It is fire insulation, chemical resistance, and environmental friendly as it does not contained Volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Besides, it is odorless and temperature resistance to prevent from melting under the hot sun. It can be found in different colour and is applied by spraying on top of the cardboard, leaving a cheerful environment for the homeless.

 

We are using pipe as our connecting joint between each fold. Pipe has been the construction waste, which found in a large amount. Therefore, using pipe making our design more sustainable and environmental friendly. The joint of each separating fold plane is being attached to the cut pipe tube, and is screwed. The cut pipe tube is then connecting to a t-joint to be able to join the pipe below (as shown in the board) acting as supporting column and beam for the whole structure.

 

The cut pipe joining the roof and the wall is then act as a rainwater-harvesting medium. The water is then transferred through the shelter and came out to the grass platform we created for public usage (as shown in the model), providing a passive design strategy as using rainwater to water the grass matt. The rainwater can be collected for daily usage if necessary.

 

Furthermore, we also design a public space for the crowd walking by—the grass matt platform (as shown in the model) for resting and chilling between friends among the city crowd. The construction of the platform would be based on the movable wheel, which can be fixed to an ideal location.  The place also act as a platform for letting the homeless and the crowd to have interaction in between as all of us belongs to same level in the society. Everyone should not be classified.

 

This design acts as the speaker from the homeless, do not prejudice or discriminate the homeless as the way that we treat the cardboard and pipe after using it. They can be strong and overwhelming, just like what Shigeru-Ban has done.

 

Thank you.