How shipping containers can help Haitians.

story & photo by Jess McCuan

On the anniversary of an earthquake, Martha Skinner launched an earth-shaking concept: turn a shipping container into a house for a family of ten. In fact, she and her partner, Doug Hecker, and their students had been kicking around the concept for a while. And to be sure, the basic idea isn’t new. In recent years, architects and designers have started using shipping containers as eco-friendly elements in everything from office space to college dorms. Skinner and Hecker, both architecture professors at Clemson, originally thought to use the containers as emergency housing in Caribbean communities after hurricanes hit.

But last month, exactly one year after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake left more than a million Haitians homeless, the Asheville couple came up with a better use for them: turn the surplus of containers already in Haiti into permanent housing. At a launch party in downtown Asheville, the duo formally announced their nonprofit, 10^10, which they’ll use to work on this and other humanitarian and environmental design projects around the globe.

Skinner, who was born in Colombia, says that as the drama of the earthquake played out last January, she challenged her students: come up with solutions that have huge impact—exponential impact—thus the nonprofit’s name, which means 10 to the power of 10. One hundred containers, for example, could mean homes for 1,000 Haitians. “I wanted them to think about scale,” she says. “How do we reach a lot of people but also address the needs of individuals?”

Their answer essentially involves slicing up a 40-foot shipping container to allow for light and ventilation. Just a few days after the launch party—with music by Ol’ Hoopty and a fashion show by Asheville design shop Royal Peasantry—Hecker made major progress on the project. Working with a New York City company, SG Blocks, he and Skinner secured some 250 acres in Haiti where they’ll design a small village out of donated containers. They’ll begin design work this spring and hope to start construction late this year.

To learn more about 10^10, check out 10to10.org. To see more of Skinner and Hecker’s design work, go to www.field-office.com.