This house is a revolution in the world of houses.

Its unique towing eye mechanism allows it to be transported, and help homeless people all around the world get a modern shelter. The house can be implemented in various sorts of environments, such as: urban areas, countryside, even rugged territories.

FEATURES (Guillaume)

In order to fulfill its objective, we implemented a few key features into the house :

First of all, the habitation has been designed to be very lightweight, and have a strong structure that makes it able to be transported by an helicopter or a crane.It has also been conceived with the objective of being very resistant and adaptive to its environment : it is well insulated, wind-resistant while keeping large windows to get the most out of natural lighting.

In matter of ecology, the house has been optimized to reduce the need for an heating system. Most of the energy should be delivered by the large solar panels installed on the roof, but we also made it easy to plug the house to an external electricity access in case it’s needed.

Moreover, the security plays an important part in the conception. The fingerprint scanner installed of the front door prevent the need of keeping a key all day long, while ensuring no one else gets into it. The glass is reinforced and preclude any breaking-in.

This house also needs to be accessible to disabled people, that’s why the doors have been designed wide enough to let a wheeling chair pass through. Moreover, the Towhouse is a one-floor structure and the rooms are spacious, so everything can be reached easily. (Damien)

Finally, each and every part of the house has been optimized to get the most out of the available space. Storages have been placed under the beds and the tables, and most of the furniture is retractable.

THE FUTURE (Titouan)

    - Psychological dimension:

   Revolutionary way to help homeless people by allowing them to live in their “own” house. Great way to recover from possible past social issues by making them feel safe in this new, personalised and adapted environment.

The whole house is designed around living and interacting with other people, to recreate a suitable and emulating social context. This is to tackle the loss of self-esteem that they may go through when attending special events of reinsertion, etc. By simply living in the house, they do not feel they’re being forced to attend this kind of events and they gain self confidence by taking part in the house life: doing the laundry, washing the dishes, putting it in order.

   Cathartic dimension by meeting people that endured similar conditions, or worse. Talking helps. Psychological help comes from others.

    - Future of the enterprise:

   We’d like to make more and more of them and to spread them worldwide. Also, although our current 6 houses are designed in the same way, we hope we’ll reach 20 houses built by the end of this semester and 50 by the end of the year. We’re slowly starting to design some functions specifically for certain regions as well, such as a better insulation system for the Towhouses that will be sent to the North, and rainwater recuperators for tropical areas. The colours will soon be different to blend in the habitat.

   Regarding the legal side of things, we’re negotiating with towns to reduce the amount of fees we have to pay to. In exchange, when one of our Towhouses gets delivered in a particular city, the latter receives much attention from the press, so everyone y trouve son compte. Unfortunately, this process and long and different for every town. We’re searching for jobs in this area.

Guillaume CLAVERIE, Damien GACON, Titouan LE FOLGOC

  Nowadays, homelessness is a large-scale issue in the world.

  As the sleeping bags that line our streets are increasing everyday, even a little help can make the difference.

  Let us introduce our personal initiative. Our team of engineers is proud to show its new project, which consists in a environmentally friendly house able to welcome people in need in order to offer them decent conditions of living and a good reinsertion into active life.

PROJECT PRESENTATION

   Our house can accommodate up to 7or 8people. It’s composed of a communal room at the center and of four personal rooms, which each includes a bedroom and a bathroom. What’s more, an office is provided to support the administrative tasks during their stay. We also include technological features which are displayed in the following paragraph, in order to make the house self-sufficient . We also thought about our four-legged friends : a large green park is surrounding the wooden facades of the house.

Almost every piece of furniture is made of wood recovered by a fireproof product. We also made sure to use recyclable materials such as aluminum, glass or cork.

TECHNOLOGICAL ASPECTS

- Access to gas which is essential for cooking and heating.

- Access to water and a device that allows the filtering of it/ reuse it for domestic use (washing machine…)

- Implementation of solar panels onto the roof in order to provide energy continuously : those panels will catch the sunlight even during bad weather just to convert it into electric energy. So besides having a good way to have cheaper energy, this technology is environmentally friendly.

- Structure made of recyclable materials, easy to transport

- Compost

- Air-conditioning and electric heating thanks to solar panels

- Waste-sorting bins

- Computer with internet access, in order to find jobs, learn computer skills and english through learning websites.

- Fixed telephone so the homeless can communicate and discuss with their relatives.

- Light/lamps that can adapt their brightness according to outside light (sensors)

- Music speakers

OBJECTIVE

Our purpose is to provide homeless people a shelter, a place where they can feel safe in order to facilitate their fulfilment. We also want to allow them to rebuild their lives and to take an active role in society. It’s known that experiencing homelessness brings a sense of loneliness that ruins the self-esteem. So the idea was intended to foster relations and communication between people who lived the same situation, by offering them decent conditions of living in community.

RESULTS

The homeless can stay about 4-6 months and then will receive help from our organisation to take a more active role in society and avoid being put appart. Thanks to many partnerships (such as the one with Empowerment Plan, a NGO located in Detroit, Michigan), this first house was introduced by the end of 2016 and already gave convincing results. In five months, two women found a stable job, thanks to our contacts, and now live in a flat they can afford. Given the positive results achieved, we want to extend this project on a larger scale.

Etienne DELPEUCH, Louise GARNIER, Léa JOSSE