This is Robert Cohen with the VOA Special English DevelopmentReport.

Sean Godsell designs buildings. He is an award-winning architectin Australia. He is also active in social issues. Mister Godsell hasdesigned an emergency shelter for refugees and homeless people. Hecalls the structure a FutureShack. But it is not really a building.Mister Godsell made it from an old shipping container used totransport goods.

The steel box is about six-and-a-half meters long andtwo-and-a-half meters wide. It is also two-and-a-half meters high.

Mister Godsell covered the insidewith wood. Parts of the walls fold down to make beds and a table.The structure also has areas for cooking and bathing. There are twodoors for airflow. And there is glass on part of the back wall. Thetop also has windows for light. Balanced above the top of thestructure is an angled roof.

Mister Godsell says FutureShacks could be sent around the worldin times of crisis. He estimates that each structure would costabout fifteen-thousand dollars if produced in large numbers.

But some critics have questioned how useful this temporaryshelter would be in hot weather. Mister Godsell says airconditioners could be placed in the windows to cool the containers.These machines could even be powered with energy from the sun.

Yet there are also questions about the effect that FutureShacksmight have on the future of refugees who have lost their homes.Norman Day is a professor of architecture in Australia. He haswritten that FutureShacks could rob refugees of the desire they needto rebuild their lives.

Mister Godsell says he got the idea when he was a studentfourteen years ago. But he did not develop the structure untilnineteen-ninety-nine. He entered the design into a competitionorganized by the group Architecture for Humanity. The competitionwas to design housing for returning refugees in Kosovo, the Serbianprovince now administrated by the United Nations. The FutureShackdesign was praised for its usefulness, but was not put into use.

A model built by Mister Godsell can be seen through October inNew York City. It is at the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, NationalDesign Museum. Internet users can find out more about theFutureShack at www.seangodsell.com. That's www.seangodsell.com.

This VOA Special English Development Report was written by JillMoss. This is Robert Cohen.