Home cheap home: Vietnam architect designs low-cost housing

Vo Van Duong's bamboo and coconut leaf house looks much like others deep in Vietnam's Mekong Delta. But unlike them, his seemingly simple abode is designed to withstand typhoons, flooding and earthquakes - and at a cost of less than $4,000 could herald a new wave of cheap, sustainable housing.

The natural materials on its surface belie the high-tech internal structure of the farmer's new home, which uses steel struts and wall panels as a defense against the elements in this natural-disaster-prone region.

"The new house is safer. I'm not afraid that it will collapse," the 48-year-old papaya farmer told AFP inside the house he moved into nine months ago.

Duong is testing a prototype by an award-winning Vietnamese architectural firm looking for low-cost housing solutions for communities vulnerable to climate change.

His S-House 2 was free, but if rolled-out on a wider scale could be sold for less than $4,000.

"There was water coming down from the roof in my old house. Sometimes, when there was a strong wind, I was so afraid the house wouldn't survive," Duong said, adding his new home was the envy of his neighbors.

The eco-home is the brainchild of Vo Trong Nghia, who joins other architects around the world in trying to fill a demand for cheap and easy to assemble housing - from refugee shelters that come in a flat package to shipping-container homes for tsunami victims.

He says all architects have a duty to help the poor.

"What about those with low income, billions of them, how can they live?" Nghia told AFP. "They have the right to live in comfortable, functional places."

But he wants to go further, creating a home residents can take pride in.

"I don't want people to be looking at it as 'cheap houses', but as resort-quality accommodation close to nature, so (residents) can live a life of the highest quality."

The design is still being refined by his team, who are eventually aiming to create a home kit that is easily put together. The newest version, the S-House 3, can be built by five people in three hours.