Half-Homes Built for the Future

Experts predict that people will continue moving to the world's cities over the next 30 years. Half-built homes offer an innovative solution to prepare for growing urban communities.

The brainchild of Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena, the homes are deliberately built to be half as big as they may need to be in the future. The homes have doors, windows, a foundation, roof, and look like "someone has removed the right-hand side," BBC News World Service reports. In the initial phase of work, the builder does work on the right side that a homeowner could not do themselves so that residents can fill in the gap later when necessary. Aravena's architectural firm Elemental has delivered several half-house neighborhoods in Chile and Mexico, including Villa Verde near Constitución in Chile.

Today out of 3 billion people living in cities, 1 billion are under the poverty line, and things could get more crowded. The United Nations forecast that in 30 years time, two-thirds of the world's population will live in cities, and right now, there just aren't enough homes for them. If we don't solve this equation, it's not that people will stop coming to cities, it's that they will live in awful conditions. Which will be a threat to qualify of life and sociopolitical stability. It's a ticking time bomb.

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