about

SHELLHOUSE - [living portable] is a project that was born as a risponse to the idea of ubiquitous computing (or pervasive computing, calm technology, things that think, everyware, pervasive Internet, etc). Definitions that try to explain the integration of computing into everyday life, making it invisible to the users.
The promise of an intelligent future does not involve all of us. Where is technology dealing with other layers of the population? The gap between the ones with access and the ones without is huge, and tend to be bigger as technology develops.

To point out homelessness, unsheltered homeless (the ones that don't assist to organizations and live in places not meant for human living, such as abandoned buildings and sidewalks), is to point a defenseless group, an invisible group of society, that lack of the 2 elements that make you exist on society today: a house and an address.
SHELLHOUSE intends to highlight them by the use of technology.

Re-using a material that is the metaphor of accesability, such as cardboard, to build a shelter that can collapse when they are forced to be removed by the police. Embedded on it, some sort of technology, meant only for some of us, in this case radio devices or transmitters.

Transmitter talk to a hand held receiver wich send to mini arduino. Arduino triggers through relays, the mp3 player and send the audio samples with name, age and place of origin to the headphones, data previously recorded by homeless.

TEST

St. Francis of Assisi Church, located at 135 West 31st Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues), has a daily meal program since 1929, the St. Francis Breadline -- a $600,000-plus-a-year project . At 7 a.m. it welcomes the hungry and homeless for coffee and sandwiches.

Three homeless persons were chosen randomly, they recorded their data (name, age, place of origin) as mp3. 3 shelters with transmitter were given to them with the meal in the morning. At 8 pm, groups of homeless arrive to the doors of the church. Father Michael and Paul are in charge, in a caring gesture, they know who came to sleep that night. Collapsibility works and they seem to be comfortable inside of the shelter.

The network works in a distance range according to what technology allowed=30 mts regular radio device, 100 mts xbee pro.

OPEN SOURCE

Directions of how build the shelter and the transmitter were published on INSTRUCTABLES.

Are DIY communities able to make things for someone else?

If this is possible, we can build bridges between the ones that have access to technology and the ones who don't, with a sense of commitment with the end result.
Social changes can be produced if we are able to believe in them, using the tools we got already.

FUTURE

In the future, leaving the network open will allow multiple interfaces alternatives and interactions and open the possibility of integration.