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TrailerWrap: A Study in Creating the Habitable Mobile Home

0By Alan Ford, AIA

0According to the 2006 American Community Survey (US Census) figures, more than eighteen million people across the United States live in mobile homes. Based on the numbers alone, there is an obvious need for this relatively affordable medium-density housing type. The lightweight homes are designed and built for mobility and cost efficiency. Despite their “mobile” intent, the majority of these homes rarely see the open road. More often than not, they rest on block foundations for the duration of their usable lives in mobile home parks. Their designs tend to be under-insulated, aesthetically challenged and structurally vulnerable in wind events.

0Acknowledging the more permanent nature of this housing type and the magnitude of the unmet need, a group of professors and students at the University of Colorado College of Architecture and Planning set out to create a new prototype for the mobile home with livability and sustainability in mind. The completed award-winning project is titled “TrailerWrap.”

• The Project

0Convert a ten foot by forty-seven foot dilapidated two bedroom donor trailer, slated for the landfill, to a livable, energy-efficient mobile home prototype. The term “wrap” as it is used here involved stripping the trailer down to its original chassis and constructing an all new envelope and roof.

• The Team

0The team consisted of a collaboration among Thistle Community Housing, the Mapleton Home Owner’s Association (the trailer’s ultimate home), tradespeople from the Department of Facilities Management at the University of Colorado, The Youth and Environments Center and an interdisciplinary team of more than eighty faculty and students from the College of Architecture and Planning. Faculty participants included Michael Hughes (project initiator), Brice Wrightsman, William van Vliet and Peter Schneider.

• The Process

0In the spirit of Samuel Mockbee’s “Rural Studio,” the process was design + build headed up by professors and architecture students and similarly is part of an ongoing design outreach initiative focused on the underserved.

0According to Schneider, the project was designed and built principally by students with technical assistance from faculty members during the design development stage. Students formed subcontracting teams (framing, building, envelope, etc.) and completed the project over a two-year period. Schneider provided a critical path model to guide the students during the construction phase. Students received course credit but donated their labor.

• Hands-On Experience

0Schneider says the students were immersed in a small but complex project from the initial conceptual stage through construction. The students learned various construction methods and developed relationships with the building trades to augment their professional design education. Their work with skilled craftspeople in the electrical, plumbing and metalworking trades gave them hands-on construction experience.

0“Working in the field, meeting with the city building and zoning officials, interacting with the trades and learning to confront and overcome logistical hurdles in real time, students encountered both the agony and ecstasy of making architecture in full-scale,” says Schneider. “This unique educational opportunity exposed students to the act of construction as a fundamental component of critical design practice and civic engagement.”

• The Challenges

0The project had to be cost competitive with other trailers and be constructed to meet the Boulder City Zoning Code definition for a mobile home, which is defined as “a transportable, single-family dwelling unit, suitable for year-round occupancy that contains the same water supply, waste disposal and electrical conveniences as immobile housing.”

• The Solution

0As of 2008, the average home price in Boulder, Colorado is about $500,000. Built with donated labor and a modest budget of $36,000, this home is expected to sell for $37,000 to $40,000. The width of the trailer was increased by two feet. The envelope was designed to R-19 walls, R-31 roof and R-19 floor.

Conclusion

0The completed project has a contemporary warmth and richness typically lacking in the factory produced mobile home. Through the use of an open plan concept combined with a 1950s style daylighting scheme, the team was able to achieve a welcoming, expansive, interior environment in less than 500 square feet. The slated entry porch provides a sense of entry while defining a semi-private outdoor space.

0The project demonstrates that with some applied initiative and design creativity, the mobile home can be embodied with many of the principles of livability and sustainability found in other housing types.

0While the one-bedroom, open bathroom solution utilized here has somewhat limited use, hopefully similar projects in the future will address the needs of multiple occupants and families. Also not addressed here are the broader issues of site design, which offer many similar opportunities for improvement.

0Diébédo Francis Kéré, recipient of the Aga Kahn Award for Architecture in 2004 for his groundbreaking Primary School in Gando, Boulgou, Burkina Faso, says, “I have learned with experience that one cannot bring about change by sitting at a desk at arm’s length from the problem. In cultures like mine that are marked by an educational crisis and where there is hardly any access to information, such objectives can only be achieved through example-setting projects that have been brought about through the cooperation of people working with people.”

0Much like Diébédo Francis Kéré’s Primary School, TrailerWrap is an example-setting project, initiated by architects and future architects to show us that sometimes the best way for architects to affect change is to become it.

0The project’s sustainable features include partitions framed with salvaged solid core doors and clad with scrap veneer plywood donated by a local cabinet shop; counter and dining table made of reclaimed butcher block; exterior redwood slats and deck reclaimed from old deck material; and daylight harvesting and blue jean insulation. Materials from the original trailer were recycled to the greatest extent possible.

Location:

0Mapleton Mobile Home Park, Boulder, Colorado

Lot Size:

025 feet x 75 feet

Figure 1. TrailerWrap context.

Figure 2. TrailerWrap entry.

Figure 3. TrailerWrap exterior at dusk, looking east.

Figure 4. TrailerWrap exterior at dusk, looking southeast.

Figure 4. TrailerWrap interior, image one.

Figure 5. TrailerWrap interior, image two.

Figure 6. TrailerWrap interior, image three.

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0Alan Ford, AIA, principal of Alan Ford Architects, is a member of the AIA Soloso Editorial Content Review Board and the Subject Matter Expert for Design.

0Keywords: Design, Design context, Housing, Affordable housing, Mobile homes Design-build, Trailers, Sustainability, Costs, Research and development, Colorado, Article