This $139,000 Stackable House Can Be Built In Just 3 Weeks

With an exploding population growth and shrinking living space, it’s only natural that people would be looking for a more vertical solution to solving the housing space crisis. Hopefully, this solution would also provide cheaper expenses. This is exactly what one Harvard engineer managed to do with his invention of stackable homes that cost only $139,000.

Jeff Wilson is the engineer in question and the stackable homes are the product of his startup, Kasita, Business Insider reports. The homes have an area of 352 square meters and can either be single units or can stack upwards in order to become an apartment building. For those wondering, the homes also have modern interiors with a minimalist feel to the design.

According to Wilson’s story about his inspiration for the design, the engineer apparently spent two years living in a dumpster. Naturally, the dumpster in question wouldn’t have been the kind where people threw trash in, at least not while he was living there. Even so, the cramped space does leave plenty to be desired in terms of the leg room.

What’s really interesting about this experiment is that he did it while he was dean at the Huston-Tillotson University, which is based in Texas. Talk about going to extremes.

"While the experiment was extreme, the experience I gained by living small and simple made a big impression," Wilson said about the experiment. "At the end of the year, I left the dumpster with the concept for a new category of housing — a beautiful, small footprint home designed as a solution for the growing housing crisis."

Considering just how convenient stackable homes are and how cheap it can be built for, Futurism notes that Kasita’s product could be the future of housing. Customers who want one for themselves will have a rather new experience in purchasing the homes as well since they need to fill out a pre-order form, pay $1,000 for the spot, and wait for the company to assemble the house and deliver it.