Billboards Become Shelters For The Homeless With Slovakian Architects’ Genius Design

Image via Project Gregory

From popup shelters made from park benches to the latest billboards that house those without homes, socially progressive solutions are taking on a new look around the world.

Project Gregory is the brainchild of the folks at Designdevelop, a Slovakian architectural firm that wanted to find a way to address expensive billboard advertising while serving a greater good. Their solution: Create a billboard housing space with low maintenance costs that could be offset by the equally cost-effective advert fees.

The Project Gregory billboard housing project has blueprints laid out for small two-room apartments, complete with kitchen space, a bed with storage, desk and small bathroom. Electricity wouldn’t be a problem, either, since the billboards would already be wired to be illuminated at nighttime. Slovakia’s existing energy and water grids, the firm says, will greatly help in executing the billboard housing, but with the right adjustments, the project could be implemented anywhere.

Phenomenon of homelessness has become an intensely global question during past couple of decades,” Project Greogory’s homepage explains. “Finding solutions to it is a complex task which involves coordination of skills in socio-psychological and administrative fields – to name a few. Priority of the Gregory project is to find optimal alternatives for existential questions of people without a home through the use of billboard objects and their advertisement spaces.”

Project Gregory is built as a non-profit platform and is an “open source” initiative, inviting anyone to contribute their ideas. The initiative’s website says that it will available for any city and space without any sole person or company claiming any financial benefits.

Check out some of visualization concepts for Project Gregory and a few beautiful pictures of the model billboard houses below:

Image via Project Gregory

Image via Project Gregory

Image via Project Gregory

Image via Project Gregory

Image via Project Gregory

Image via Project Gregory

Image via Project Gregory

Image via Project Gregory

Image via Project Gregory

Image via Project Gregory

Image via Project Gregory

Image via Project Gregory

Image via Project Gregory

Image via Project Gregory