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CLARIN

Shipping Container Transformed Into Dream Home

An Argentine couple struggling to afford rising housing prices went down to the dock and took matters into their own hands.

Window on the world
Window on the world

SAN JUAN — Facing skyrocketting housing costs in Argentina, one couple has come up with a, well, resourceful idea.

Together with his geo-physicist girlfriend, engineer Yamil decided to turn a shipping container into a house.

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Within 48 hours of posting their initiative on a blog, hundreds were writing to ask them to show how they could do the same. They did — through a Q&A section giving people technical and legal details on the “adventure” of building your home from this metal box without prior experience.

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The project arose out of a basic need to find a place to live, and a dearth of financial resources, the couple explained. But it was also inspired by the Keetwonen “container city” in the Netherlands.

They decided instead to turn the container into a traditional stand-alone home, complete with bedrooms, bathrooms and a well-equipped kitchen.

[rebelmouse-image 27087922 alt="""" original_size="1147x860" expand=1]

Although the couple purchased the container — and settled — in San Juan, they told their fellow Argentines that this sustainable kind of housing can be reproduced virtually anywhere in the country, as containers can be bought online or in the port area of Buenos Aires.

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This could turn out to be a providential example of wits making up for a cash shortfall: A study conducted by the Inter-American Development Bank revealed that around 67% of families in the Argentine capital and its suburbs cannot afford housing there.

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Photos: Yamil's blog

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

That Man In Mariupol: Is Putin Using A Body Double To Avoid Public Appearances?

Putin really is meeting with Xi in Moscow — we know that. But there are credible experts saying that the person who showed up in Mariupol the day before was someone else — the latest report that the Russian president uses a doppelganger for meetings and appearances.

screen grab of Putin in a dark down jacket

During the visit to Mariupol, the Presidential office only released screen grabs of a video

Russian President Press Office/TASS via ZUMA
Anna Akage

Have no doubt, the Vladimir Putin we’re seeing alongside Xi Jinping this week is the real Vladimir Putin. But it’s a question that is being asked after a range of credible experts have accused the Russian president of sending a body double for a high-profile visit this past weekend in the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

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Reports and conspiracy theories have circulated in the past about the Russian leader using a stand-in because of health or security issues. But the reaction to the Kremlin leader's trip to Mariupol is the first time that multiple credible sources — including those who’ve spent time with him in the past — have cast doubt on the identity of the man who showed up in the southeastern Ukrainian city that Russia took over last spring after a months-long siege.

Russian opposition politician Gennady Gudkov is among those who confidently claim that a Putin look-alike, or rather one of his look-alikes, was in the Ukrainian city.

"Now that there is a war going on, I don't rule out the possibility that someone strongly resembling or disguised as Putin is playing his role," Gudkov said.

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