MOBILITY does not only apply to products of information technology but also to the most basic human need--shelter.

American businessman Salvatore Peter La Barbera, who has had 40 years’ experience in the construction industry, brings to the Philippines container houses, which have only been seen as emergency or temporary shelters in the Philippines.

La Barbera, 67, officially opened on Sunday, Kyoob Inc., a cargo container construction company, which maintains its manufacturing facility in a 720-square meter property in the North Reclamation Area. He said it is the first in Cebu.

“I have observed here in the Philippines that container houses, which are commonly used for temporary or emergency situations, look and are built like ordinary containers, instead of making it a house or a home to those who live in it,” La Barbera told Sun.Star Cebu in an interview.

Through Kyoob, cargo containers are transformed into houses with basic rooms like a kitchen, bedroom, and a bathroom. The bigger the container is, the wider and more divisions can be added inside the house.

Unlike traditional houses that can take months or years to finish, La Barbera said that the production of a container house only takes a week. In Kyoob, the company can produce around four houses in that period.

The cargo containers come from Singapore and the United States while some are sourced locally. The containers come in 20 feet and 40 feet in size and must have straight sidewalls and corners with no signs of rust, according to La Barbera.

The containers then undergo reconstruction, which include the cutting and reinforcing of windows, putting on rust preventative paints, and installing floors, insulation, electrical wirings and plumbing fixtures, among others.

Being a container itself, container houses are transportable to any place, said La

“All Kyoob modules are built to exceed US and international building code standards.

They are fire, earthquake, and typhoon resistant. They are designed and built to be

mobile, as well as modular in that you can mix and match modules to create the living environment of your choice,” La Barbera said.

A container house is also more affordable than building a traditional one.

Prices of a container house in Kyoob start at P445,000 for The Spartan model, a single 20 footer module with one bathroom, one kitchenette, and a carpeted bedroom.

It can go as high as P1.5 million for the Regency Arms model, consisting of four 20-footer modules with three bedrooms, two full bathrooms, a full gallery kitchen, and living room.

Other models in Kyoob include the Regal, which goes for P800,000, the Regency at P1.08 million, the Triplex at P988,000, and the Duplex, also at P988,000.

La Barbera originally wanted to enter into a joint venture with a landowner, planning to put up a shopping mall made out of cargo containers in the latter’s property.

“I found out that the property values (in the Philippines) are very inflated. People had emotional ties with the property, as a result, they didn’t want to go into a joint venture. So I decided, rather than enter into a JV with other people, I will just build them the units and put them on their property. That was the change in the business plan,” he recalled.

With its functionality and affordability, La Barbera expressed optimism that container houses will be accepted in the Philippines.

“There is a large base of middle class in the Philippines,” he said, particularly citing young professionals as one of the target market.

He explained that most people who belong to this category want to purchase a house yet their present income would not allow them to.

“There is demand (for container houses) but it’s untapped,” La Barbera added.

Others, he said, are looking at container houses as investments. Some resort owners are currently negotiating with Kyoob for the purchase of container houses while others have expressed interest in purchasing units that they will later rent out to others.

Meanwhile, Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama, in a separate interview, said the city will carefully look into Kyoob’s houses and considered the possibility of having such houses used as temporary shelters for victims of natural calamities.

Rama said he will sit down with La Barbera.

Kyoob has specifically produced an emergency housing module, which La Barbera calls as the Triplex.

The emergency housing module is built all within a 40-foot high cube container. It contains three separate high quality living quarters for P296,000 per unit. The units contain a bathroom, with shower, toilet and sink, kitchenette with cook top, sink hood, and refrigerator, studio-type bedroom with finished wood floors and ceiling fan that can accommodate two to four persons.

Aside from producing homes, the businessman is also considering building container classrooms, having heard from recent reports that the Department of Education needs at least 593 new classrooms by June 2016.

La Barbera noted that classrooms are easier to build than houses because these don’t have divisions. Being a teacher before, he said he knows what a classroom setting should look like.

As demand for container houses peaks in the Philippines, Kyoob expects roughly 200 cargo containers yearly.

La Barbera also said that a non-profit organization composed of ex-Microsoft officials is planning to put up Kyoob’s Triplex container houses in 10 selected barangays scattered nationwide, with each barangay having 100 container houses.

The businessman said the company is also open to exporting Kyoob’s container houses.

Prior to their grand opening last Sunday, Kyoob has already delivered a Spartan type container house to a buyer in Pardo in Cebu City.