12-year-old Makes Homeless Shelter from Trash

Well, this is a bit of fresh air, especially with tween news like Baby-Faced Boy Alfie Patten Is Dad At 13.

12-year-old Max Wallack stole the show at Design Squad’s Trash to Treasure contest with his “Home Dome.” The contest asked kids to repurpose trash into practical inventions.

I wonder if the Home Dome gets an honorable LEED Certification?

Get Adobe Flash player

The dome provides shelter for the homeless and is made from plastic, wire, packing peanuts, and flargstin. Pretty much, trash.

The trash-plex looks like a Mongolian yurt, and let Max walk away with $10,000 and a Dell laptop. He also got a trip to Boston out of it. But Max had this to say, “I don’t really care about the money. I care about helping people.”

This isn’t his first big win. “When I was six,” Max said, “I won an invention contest that included a trip to Chicago. While there, I saw homeless people living on streets, and beneath highways and underpasses. I felt very sorry for these people, and ever since then, felt that my goal and obligation was to find a way to help them. My invention improves the living conditions for homeless people, refugees, or disaster victims by giving them easy-to-assemble shelter.”

Go Max! We all look forward to your future inventions.

Source and Photo:  thedesignblog.org

Tweet This Post

You might also like:

Add a comment or question

193 Comments

  1. Kind of a dumb idea, who would want to live in that piece of crap? Maybe someone who is homeless already and this thing would be better than sleeping on a doorstep.

  2. “Vitriol,” anon? I thought the post was wonderfully succinct and sarcastic. But then, I feel the ugly, wasteful, brain-dead architecture that dominates new home construction these days is deserving of “cruel and bitter criticism” (my dictionary’s definition of vitriol).

  3. Your points on designs are accurate. But I wonder if you really understand what Socialism really is, or is this question somehow passe, as we all sacrifice for the collective? Do you want people to not have any right to build a McMansion? Do you want smart people like you to decide how someone dumber and less green will build his house? Then what you are advocating is very much related to socialism and you shouldn’t be so sarcastic - if that’s really what you want.

  4. Very cool but where is the link to his website for the plans?

  5. My name is Luka,
    I live on the second floor.

  6. pallets should be turned in or made into firewood and can be distributed to poor or homeless ppl to keep warm or cook. This idea can kill 2 birds with one stone-
    Companies can donate n write off and can get a tax break from the Gov for doing their share for the environment!

  7. Lets see, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, so wouldn’t orienting your house east-west allow for the most sunlight??….unless of course this house is being built on a different planet.

  8. Many tearsago I worked near an underpass village. One day at lunch I took a tour of the sight and noticed several structures made from pallets and news paper. A homless person recruted others to scour the areas for the materials and showed them how they could be put togeather. Alass the city came thru and demolished the buildings and the “city”

  9. Wow look at all those plastic bottles bailed up and ready to be recycled. Wait lets build a house outta them instead.This seems like a very pointless idea when there are so many other non recyclebles in landfills that could be used insted.Is he just scared to touch real trash.

  10. Where is the “how-to”? Sounds like a bitter, jealous person.

    If you don’t like it, don’t buy it, but don’t spout your useless drivel.

    Homebuilders are in the business of making money. If people wouldn’t buy the houses, they would stop making them.

Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1120 »

Tell us what you think: