A NEW INTERESTING PROJECT: A HOUSE BOAT

We have been invited to put a proposal to a client who is interested in buying or building a large houseboat (to become the family "holiday house"). It is to be located on the Johns River Waterway in Florida. Anything you buy in the USA is restricted in width by what you can transport on the roads. We have relooked at "houseboats" we have seen around the world. We have stayed in the famous and beautiful house boats in Srinigar... love to build one but it would blow the budget with all the carving etc. To be very practical, we like the floating fishing villages in Howlong Bay in Vietnam. These are floating platforms with a house on each and a large surrounding deck under which they have netted pens where they grow fish that are sold to restaurants locally. These villages are totally self sufficient icluding schools for kids. It's cradle to the grave living on the water. We have produced a design with 2 "houses" each constructed from 2 X 40 ft containers. One house comprises the master bedroom suite and en/suite bath, a toilet, kitchen , dining and living room. The other "house" of the same size comprises a 2nd master suite which can convert to 2 bedrooms, 2 bunk rooms, another bathroom / toilet and a family room. Between the 2 houses is a deck with a swimming pool, a pool for growing fish in, space for lounging (even under a tree). On the surrounding deck and on thew walls of the houses, we plan to have pots of edible vegetation. There will be roof gardens on each "house".  With solar panels, our aim is for the "island" to be as self sufficient as possible! The budget for the project is $150,000 to include a speedboat and 2 jetskis. We are now starting the costing. We will start by having the 8 steel pontoons and complete deck area manufactured in China and designed to be transported to Florida in 2 containers. The island will accommodatio 2 adult couples and from 6 singles plus up to 6 more bunk-ins! Forgot to mention that there is enough deck space for extended accommodation in tents, and drive-on space for a vehicle.

We hope to have the design up on this site in a matter of days!

FREE to a good home!

Many years ago at a liquidation sale of furniture manufactured by TECNO, a prestige Italian office furniture company, I purchased 4 modern  board room tables each 3 metres in diameter. They retailed then at $28,000 each. I intend to give them away to clients who engage us to design a "good home". The house can be container based or conventional construction. The budget should be at least $400,000 for the house. Ideally the client will be interested in a very creative styled house that could interest a television show like Grand Designs. These tables are ideal dining tables to seat 10 people. At 23. 4. 2016, this offer still applies!

Beating the regulations!

This bit of news is for anyone who is having a problem with meeting regulation heights with a building project. We have devised a way of putting and accessing a roof deck where it exceeds the regs.

If you are planning to build a small apartment complex especially for student accommodation, we have a way of reducing the number of car spaces by about one third. We have done it with a container based project in Brisbane and Melbourne.

We are getting many inquiries for investment apartment designs. One project in Torquay (our base) is for the redevelopment of a residential property of 1000 sq.m. ​The owner has space in front of his existing home to build a new 2 storey container based house. He will then sell that house and with the profit (substantial), his bank will fund the remainder of the development. In the end, the site will have 6 X 2 bedroom town houses and 2 student studio apartments on it, with the owner retaining 4 of the them as a rental investment.

With negotiations still going on with Chinese container module suppliers, we are close now to being able to provide fixed prices for Studio, 1 bedroom , 2 bedroom and 3 bedroom container based apartments / houses and even hotel suites delivered to anywhere in the world.

​The demise of the Ford Falcon....... the rise of the RAVEn?

We are currently working on developing a new town car. It is primarily for use in our Vineyard Village projects. It will be very small, for two persons and a shopping bag or 2! It will have a top speed of 50 kph when in the village and not on public roads. As it leaves the village, an electronic switch activated at the village gate, will govern the top speed to that of a mobility scooter so that owners will be able to use it legally to go to the local supermarket. Eventually we would like to see this car able to be driven on town streets at normal 50 kph speed just like electric golf carts in USA . It's a very exciting project and we have the assistance of the students of a local university.

It will be the "coolest" all electric car that everyone will want to have, and will sell for well under $7,000 .

I am even researching the possibility of it being able to be converted into an aircraft by adding a "flying module" with an "outboard" engine much like you have outboard motors on boats!

As they say..... watch this page for updates! By the way, we are looking for a "cool" name...... anyone got an idea?

NOTHING TO DO WITH ARCHITECTURE!

I was recently going through some old files and came across something that may be of value to some people..........

If you or anyone you know is going to be traveling or working in a location where there is a risk of kidnapping or whatever because you are a "Westerner", I believe I can assist you with how to obtain a "fake" temporary identity that would make you "one of them" and so be released. This is not something I will publicize on the website, but will make available on a one-to-one basis .

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The HURRICANE IN OKLAHOMA..... and beyond!

If I lived there, I would be immediately buying a concrete septic tank and half burying it in the backyard on its side so that you can crawl into it rather than dropping down into it from above. The door opening needs to be above the ground surface to ensure that water flooding from rain and burst water pipes cannot enter the shelter.  Ideally you would fix a loosely fitted steel door to protect occupants from flying debris.

AND, if I lost a home, I would be rebuilding using containers. If you read this and know anyone there who lost a home, we would be prepared to design a new house for them free of charge..

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i HAVE JUST