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The Hub Cart

My design is based principally on returning a certain dignity to the homeless. My initial inspiration is from seeing the homeless people in Yoyogi Park in Tokyo. They were given tarpoline tents by the government which they arranged to create a sort of society in the park. Even though they were homeless, they were afforded privacy and sense of community by the way they had been able to benefit from the tarpoline tents.

My design seeks to afford the comfort and dignity of a private shelter whilst providing the mobility of a cart. It gives the homeless the possibility of having a warm and dry place to rest whilst also giving them the freedom of location.

I borrowed a lot from the construction of bicycles, a technology which in it’s most basic form provides a cheap way to construct robust yet lightweight structures. The cart has frame of welded tubular steel, a combination between classic BMX frame design and the conventional shopping trolley. The frame could also be lined with a fitted canvas bag (not shown) to prevent objects coming loose. The cart uses existing bike wheels in an effort to afford easier travel over rough terrains and to save cost of manufacture. At the rear of the cart is rotationally moulded cabinet. Rotational moulding allows large structures to be manufactured using a relatively cheap mould. The cabinet houses a single person tent folded inside the door. This tent is fixed to the inside of the cabinet and the poles rest in a cavity at the front of the cabinet. The tent can also be sourced from existing product ranges.

I hereby state that this design is entirely of my own creation. The BMX wheels depicted in the renderings are based on the products of SkyWay Wheels™ as they are intended to be used in a production version. www.skywaywheels.com