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.
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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
