Emergency Response Studio by Paul Villinksi

emergency response vehicle photo

Artist Paul Villinski has done a fab refab of a prefab, stripping out the guts of a 30' Gulfstream Cavalier FEMA Trailer of all formaldehyde-contaminated materials and rebuilding it with recycled denim insulation, reclaimed wood floors and bamboo cabinetry.

It also has a whole lot of off-grid electronics, including "a 1.6 kilowatt photo-voltaic solar system featuring an array of nine large solar panels which tilt upward from the trailer's roof to face the sun. Additional power comes from a micro-wind turbine spinning atop a 40-foot high aluminum mast. Eight large batteries, each weighing as much as an average man, store this power and are seen underfoot through a clear Lucite floor section as one steps into the trailer."

-which is probably why the box has been dropped onto a steel chassis, to hold all of the extra weight.

"A large wall section cranks down to become a deck, a ten-foot, geodesic skylight provides daylight and expansive headroom in the work area, and a thirteen-foot wall section has shed its aluminum siding in favor of clear polycarbonate sheathing. Symbolically, the structure is expansive, both opening outwardly and inviting the outside in, enabling free exchange between artist and environment in a collaboration of reinvention."

The Emergency Response Trailer will be open to the public at Prospect New Orleans from November 1 through January 18, 2009

Emergency Response Studio via Core 77

More on FEMA Trailers:
The Toxic Trailer Legacy
FEMA Trailers Had Too Much Particle Board, Too Little Ventilation ...
Toxic Trailers Not Just For FEMA.