House-in-a-Can / Austin + Mergold

Dec 2010

By Kelly Minner — Filed under: Houses , Austin + Mergold, Cornell University, Prefabircated

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Reexamining an ‘icon of the American landscape’ architects Austin + Mergold have created an innovate solution to pre-fabricated housing. A typical metal grain dryer offers an interior footprint of roughly one thousand square feet, thirty-six feet in diameter. The Philadelphia based, Cornell University graduates, have developed a design that instantly assembles off-the-shelf. The soup can-shaped 2,000 square foot single family starter homes are constructed from 14 gauge galvanized corrugated steel exterior, have 2 or 3 bedrooms, an optional green house, and can have one or two levels accordingly. Austin + Mergold recently partnered with Hometta where plans for House-in-a-Can will soon be available. Follow the break for more drawings and sketches.

Architects: Austin + Mergold
Project Area: 36-foot diameter American grain dryer, 2,000 sqf

section

Accordingly to architects Aleksandr Mergold and Jason Austin:

The production capacity that is associated with manufacturing, engineering, delivery, and assembly of these structures is truly impressive: within days a new structure, immune not only to weather outside, but also to certain internal stresses, can be erected virtually anywhere. It is extremely durable, efficient, and inexpensive.

Courtesy of Austin + Mergold

There is now a need for inexpensive, quickly assembled housing, storage, and even productive community gardens on sites of earthquakes, landslides, and brownfields. There is a need to quickly and safely house people, and make them instrumental in supporting their own livelihood. In a time when housing, both as emergency shelters and permanent construction, at home and abroad, is a pressing issue, a metal grain bin, as an instant, prefabricated housing solution, appears to be an attractive option. In the last hundred years, scores of patents on prefab houses were taken out, and none of them made it into mass production not because they were inferior designs, but precisely because they were lacking the manufacturing base associated with sourcing, fabrication, engineering, and delivery—in short, the infrastructure of a simple grain bin.

Courtesy of Austin + Mergold

floor plans

We can again be sensitive to what others before us have left behind and make a good use of it, even if this new use was never originally intended. Perhaps this will constitute an essence in re-creation of sustainable infrastructure, and we, the people (and architects), can play a central role in it.

floor plans + elevations

sections

: Courtesy of Austin + Mergold

: Courtesy of Austin + Mergold

: Courtesy of Austin + Mergold

: Courtesy of Austin + Mergold

: Courtesy of Austin + Mergold

: Courtesy of Austin + Mergold

: Courtesy of Austin + Mergold

: Courtesy of Austin + Mergold

: Courtesy of Austin + Mergold

: floor plans

: sections

: floor plans + elevations

: section

: section + elevation + plan

Cite:
Minner , Kelly . "House-in-a-Can / Austin + Mergold" 02 Dec 2010. ArchDaily. Accessed 26 May 2012. <http://www.archdaily.com/91227>

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munter roe says:

dissapointed its not circular on the inside. Do like the main image.

# December 2, 2010 at 10:10

FG says:

The models are BRILLIANT!

# December 2, 2010 at 11:52

FRM says:

Does the effort and energy required to bring it up to code and make it livable equal to or exceed building sustainably from the ground up? And in the it seems to have the same problems as shipping container buildings; once the novelty has worn off of the found object, you’re left occupying something that just doesn’t lend itself to human habitation well.

# December 2, 2010 at 11:54

zac zeller says:

Bucky already did this. Come on.

# December 2, 2010 at 13:18

AGM says:

Its true, this has been done many times.
http://bitterrootbadger.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/montana-bozeman-prayer-flags-ws.jpg

This is an example from Bozeman, MT that has been up since the early nineties. It is still a good idea but the boundaries need to be pushed a bit more in my opinion.

# December 2, 2010 at 13:30

jer says:

Bucky fuller would be proud
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery
Pity its not the best design tool

# December 2, 2010 at 22:48

sudark says:

I think the stairs could have been integrated better. Right now it is quite awkward

# December 2, 2010 at 22:55

bLogHouse says:

Why not throw in a couple of shipping containers-this will allow numerous compositions, better functional arrangement and more interesting massing

# December 3, 2010 at 09:33

Doug C. says:

The only thing you are getting is the decorative shell. the drawing shows what looks like six by walls for structure. Corrugated used vertically could easily be used for the curved walls and allow for more creative options . Fullers building was intended to use as little material as possible in the most technically advanced way. This seems more like stylization.

# December 3, 2010 at 12:07

Racheal Schierbrock says: