This application relates to a composite and modular intermediate deck, designed to divide a tiny home into an upper living volume and a lower living volume below such intermediate deck. The intermediate deck is characterized by featuring a U-shaped slot comprising from 10% to 60% of the total surface of said platform, which allows maximizing usage of vertical space by making coincide said U-shaped slot, which serves as a corridor in the upper living volume, with non-crossable spaces in the lower living volume, while the height of crossable areas of the upper living volume is given by the distance from the floor to the flat surface of the intermediate deck, which is greater than 1.80 m. Likewise, it is a part of this invention the tiny home unit characterized by featuring the abovementioned deck.
At present cities tend to grow in size and such growth increases population density, cost of land and consequently that of housing.
Among the existing alternatives to make better use of the land, there has been a trend towards building smaller houses, mini-houses and micro-houses, “tiny homes” in English, whereby a large number or people seek a small space to live in. Even, the premise of some companies engaged in building this type of dwellings is that a smaller space leads to more freedom and peace of mind, while reducing the costs associated to the use of energy and natural resources, such as: electric power, water and gas.
This trend has become an architectural and social movement that endeavors living in a simple manner in small houses. At present there is no certainty as to what a mini-house or tiny home is considered, but it is agreed that a small house is below 93 m2 and a mini-house or tiny home is less than 46 m2.
In addition to the trend mentioned in the preceding paragraph, governments from different countries are looking on a daily basis for solutions to the housing deficit and provision of an adequate roof to everyone. The Colombian government is one of such governments and it has advanced programs intended to offer a roof to the residents of the neediest areas and especially the population displaced by violence, victims of natural disasters, public calamities or emergencies, residents of non-mitigable high risk zones, disabled, older adults and mothers being heads of households.
These events have driven the search of new dwelling options, where the required area is as small as possible, building costs are low, construction time is minimal and the achieved design allows residents to enjoy a comfortable environment where each dweller may enjoy their own space at a given time.
Among the elements that have been developed to fulfill at least some of the aforementioned requirements are those of creating metal floors, which have been designed to be sufficiently sturdy to handle constant traffic but which are economic and comfortable for users. This is the case of U.S. Pat. No. 3,555,762, which relates to metal modular floors, used as false flooring on vehicles, such as trucks or in small business buildings. Even though this application represents a step towards the construction of false flooring or floors for handling heavy traffic, the false floor proposed in this application is a flat surface, which could only be used in a remote case as an intermediate deck in a prefabricated house.
A similar type of floor is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,236,018, which refers to a rigid metallic floor panel built to be supported in a horizontal operative position at the edges or corners and the heavy load is held without appreciable deflection. Said panel comprises a pair of metal sheets arranged in a superimposed vertically spaced relationship, the upper sheet is rigid and imperforate to resist compression, while the lower sheet features a checkerboard grid comprising a set of parallel, straight strips extending longitudinally from edge to edge of said sheet and a second set of parallel, straight strips extending transversally from edge to edge of said sheet. As in the preceding application, this invention is intended for construction of flat floors or decks, which do not allow varying the height of the living volume above the intermediate deck of the housing unit.
Likewise, there is U.S. Pat. No. 4,411,121, which features a composite and flat floor panel having a pattern of dome-like projections, extending from said sheet. Once again the state of the art only discloses flat metal sheets.
In order to reach these goals, the applicant has used the teachings of the mini or micro-house movement and has applied his teachings to develop a housing unit destined to be part of apartment buildings that only require foundations, columns, exterior walls and a given space to insert the housing unit of this invention.
Supplementing these teachings, the applicant has developed an intermediate deck, which is made out of metal, just as floors of cars, truck, airplanes or ships are manufactured, which guarantees a reduction in the production cost, without there being any deflection and allowing vertical optimization of the space insofar as said intermediate deck serves as a floor on the space above the platform, thus allowing generation of a housing unit having a living volume below the deck a and a living volume above said deck, where used is made of no traffic spaces in the lower living volume to make the same coincide with the corridor of the upper living volume and traffic areas of the lower living volume are located in no traffic areas of the upper living volume, such as the place where beds are located.
The present invention relates to a composite and modular intermediate deck (1), made out of metal by means of industrial processes used in vehicle productions lines, whereby vehicles structures and floors are produced and also used in manufacturing parts for airplanes and ships, designed to divide the volume of a tiny home into a lower living volume and an upper living volume with respect to said intermediate deck (1). The intermediate deck (1) is characterized by having corridor modules (11) with a U-shaped slot (2) comprising the corridor or hall of the upper living volume and flat surfaced straight modules (12), wherein the aggregate area of the U-shaped slots (2), that is, the corridor or hall, comprises from to 10% to 60% of the total surface area of said intermediate deck (1), preferably from 10% to 40% of the total surface area of said intermediate deck (1), and the height of the U-shaped slot (2) ranges from 30 cm to 60 cm.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the corridor modules (11) and the straight modules (12) longitudinally comprise a composite and grooved strip (111, 121) surrounded by two flat strips (112, 113 or 122, 123), wherein the width of the flat strips (112, 122) is from 10% to 100% wider than the width of the second strip (113, 123), the height of the wider strip (112, 122) with respect to the composite strip base (111,121) 3 mm to 10 mm higher than the narrower strip (113, 123) with respect to the composite strip (111, 121) and the joint between the wider strip (112, 122) and the composite strip (111, 121) features a notch (114, 124). The above is so that upon overlaying a module (11,12) over another module, regardless of whether such second module is a corridor module (11) or a straight module (12), making the wider strip (112, 122) of the second module (11, 12) cover the composite strip (111, 121) of the first module and fit into the notch (114, 124) of said first module. The elements constituting each module may be seen in
In addition, the U-shaped slot (2) features an upper edge (21) that joins the flat surfaces of the intermediate deck (1) and a lower edge or lower radius zone of the hall (22).
In an embodiment of the invention, the upper edge (21) and the lower edge (22) of the U-shaped slot are curved, as shown in
In a different embodiment, the upper end (21) and the lower end (22) are cut forming a diagonal plane as shown in
In another option, the longitudinal strips of the module (11) are replaced by a design having elevated surfaces (25) with a central cutout (26), which is interrupted at the upper curved end (21), a raised surface (27) with oval-shaped cutouts (28) at the center is found on the side walls of the U shaped slot (2), which is interrupted again at the lower end (22) and features on the lower end of the U shaped slot the raised surface (27) design with oval-shaped cutouts (28). Finally, in this alternative of the invention, which is shown in
In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the corridor module (11) and the blank module (13) are separated in the middle of the U-shaped slot (2), forming two halves of corridor module (11) and blank module (13), respectively, which allow stacking said halves in a single block for transportation purposes of the same. These halves of the corridor module (11) and blank module (13) can be joined again using means of attachment and mechanical or permanent coupling.
In another embodiment of the invention, the lower edge (22) has an angle from 0° to 4° over the U-shaped slot (2) base so that the one module and another can be stacked during the logistical process of packaging and transportation.
Likewise, it is a part of the invention a housing unit or tiny home comprising the intermediate deck (1), a pair of tie beams (4) and featuring a staircase (5) communicating the upper living volume with the lower living volume.
The different design alternatives include among others combining 2 to 5 corridor modules (11) and from 1 to 5 flat surface straight modules (12). In an alternative of the invention, the unit also comprises a blank transversal module (13) and the staircase (5) includes a cantilever (53) as shown in
Some of the alternatives to form the intermediate deck (1) are shown in
While
Finally,
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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NC2017/0009427 | Sep 2017 | CO | national |
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
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1666222 | Smith | Apr 1928 | A |
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Number | Date | Country | |
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20190177985 A1 | Jun 2019 | US |