The flooding of Pakistan was yet another tragedy that added to this year’s surge of natural disasters, and with 21 million people injured or homeless, we still have an emergency on our hands. Richard Moreta, who you may recall from his efforts to build shipping container houses for Haiti through Green Container International Aid, is back at it with a redesign of his housing solution that is fit for flooded areas. The Amphibious Container is a floating home that can float built from used shipping containers, shipping pallets and tire inner tubes.
This concept for a floating house isn’t totally new, in fact Brad Pitt’s organization, Make It Right, has already constructed a home in the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans that can break away and float in case of flooding. The Amphibious Container proposes a similar concept, except this one is geared more for emergency housing and made with reused shipping containers, shipping pallets and old inner tubes.
The container serves as the living quarters and rests on a series of truck inner tubes that serve as the flotation device. The container and tubes rest on a foundation of four metal angular connectors, which serve as the vertical guides. If the home were to be inundated with water, it would rise up thanks to the buoyancy of the inner tubes and ride along the vertical guides. The home can handle a maximum water level of 2.5 meters, and a surrounding canopy constructed of metal beams and shipping pallets would help shade the structure.
