Section A

Text One
Living in a Steel Box
adapted from an article by Adam Forrest
In this passage, the writer presents his ideas about living in shipping containers.

Wenckehof student village in Amsterdam

From London to Amsterdam to Mumbai, shipping containers have been celebrated as a cheap
and easy way to provide ready-made housing. But what is it like to live in one – and can they be
a permanent solution? We’re still trying to overcome the idea that a steel box is not a good
place to live.
It takes time to adjust to living inside a steel box. Timothy Ader did not, initially, like the idea of
staying at Wenckehof, a student village in Amsterdam made up of 1,000 recycled shipping
containers. But three years after moving in, he has no regrets.
‘My first impression of the containers was: it’s like a slum – I’m not living there,’ recalls the 24-
year-old. ‘But I started visiting a friend of mine living here and started to like the place. Then I
moved in and I realised how good it was. I’m really comfortable in my container and I have a lot
of space of my own. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the world
right now.’
So what’s it like to actually live in one? Ader says his Amsterdam container is cosy: each one
has a living space, bathroom and balcony. Insulated panels and radiators help keep the place
warm in winter. Privacy has not been a problem. In fact, Ader found it too quiet. He helped
organise block parties and ‘eat with your neighbour’ events to make it a little livelier. It’s also
cheap. Residents here pay €450 a month making it much less expensive than the €600 a month
Ader says students often pay to share a flat in central Amsterdam. ‘There aren’t many
disadvantages but I think this kind of housing works best for single people who need something
a little bit cheaper,’ Ader concludes. The Wenckehof, completed back in 2006, remains the
largest development of its kind anywhere in the world. Although it was built as a temporary
housing experiment, it proved so popular with students it was given permanent status by the
Amsterdam authorities in 2011. And its success has intrigued architects and housing
organisations looking for low-cost solutions to housing shortages in cities around the world.
In Brighton, on the English south coast, Brighton Housing Trust installed 36 shipping container
homes on a former scrap metal yard. After residents moved into the site in 2013, there were
complaints about anti-social behaviour and the containers being too cold in winter. But
Brighton Housing Trust chief executive Andy Winter is confident new heaters, added insulation
and a lock on the front gate have all improved matters. ‘The feedback from the residents is that
the place has worked remarkably well,’ he explains.
Winter thinks the UK needs more temporary housing and believes public bodies could be more
creative about freeing-up land on a short-term basis. ‘Shipping containers could be used across
the country,’ he says, encouraged by the idea of starter flats for young people. ‘Using it for
student housing would certainly free up family homes. We’re all on a housing journey. For
some people, having their own place with their own front door is a great first step.’
Architects are already dreaming big. Or more accurately, dreaming high. They unveiled a
proposal to replace slum housing in developing countries with ‘container skyscrapers’:
enormous towers made up of brightly-painted units stacked on top of each other. Another
colourful design for high-rise container towers is aimed at easing pressure in Mumbai’s Dharavi
slum.
A Canadian architect Keith Dewey used 8 shipping containers to build his own large, 3-bedroom
family home in the city of Victoria in British Columbia. The house features underfloor heating
and high-end lighting systems. Dewey believes shipping container housing has an important
role to play. ‘There’s longevity built into this kind of steel,’ he says. ‘It can be used again and
again. I see this as one of the first recycled solutions to housing that’s really taken the
imagination by storm. It’s going to become a bigger question: how are we going to make old
materials useful again?’
Supporters for shipping container homes say speed of installation, cost savings on materials
and the capacity to re-use units in new locations make it a serious option for urban housing.
The advantages of shipping container housing – sustainability and cost – may well prove too
good to ignore. However, containers will have to overcome the perception of being stop-gap,
make-do dwellings if they are ever to become a popular solution to the housing crisis.
Text Two
Adapted from the novel Six Suspects by Vikas Swarup
In this passage, the writer describes different types of houses in India.

Ashok took him to see Vicky Rai’s farmhouse after lunch. They went through the Sanjay Gandhi
slum, a warren of narrow, dark alleyways containing an assortment of small, squalid huts held
together by bamboo poles and tattered sacking bags, their roofs an ugly patchwork of
tarpaulin, plastic sheets, pieces of metal, old clothes – anything the owners could lay their
hands on – and weighed down with rocks as protection against the wind. A group of men lazed
in the open while their women filled pots of water from a municipal tap or chopped
vegetables. Naked children caked in dust played with mangy dogs. Piles of rubbish and animal
waste littered the ground like dead leaves. The smell of wood smoke and dung cooking fires
drifted in the air.
Almost directly opposite the slum stood Number Six. Set behind high metal gates, it was a
three-storey marble mansion, towering over the neighbourhood like a permanent taunt.
Behind the mansion the fluted sandstone minaret of the Qutub Minar peeked out, barely a
kilometre away.
Crossing the road to take a closer look at the farmhouse, Ashok and Eketi came to the rust-
coloured boundary wall, fifteen feet high and topped by barbed wire.
‘How will we ever manage to enter this place?’ Eketi wondered.
‘We will. Don’t worry,’ Ashok assured him as they passed the main gate, which had at least six
guards in police uniforms. They rounded a corner and turned left towards the northern end of
the property. They came across a service entrance which appeared to be unguarded. Ashok
tried the door, only to find it firmly locked from inside. The barbedwire-topped boundary wall
stretched for another five hundred metres and had no cavities, gaps or fractures which could
be exploited. It was only when they were circling the rear boundary that Ashok saw something
which made him pause. Tucked inside the cement wall was a small brown metal door, probably
some kind of pedestrian entrance. It didn’t appear to be in use as the paint had flaked off and
the edges were rusted. Ashok tried the rusty metal handle, but the door did not open. In fact,
there was so little give that it appeared not only to be locked but also boarded up from the
inside. He stepped back and surveyed his surroundings. Behind him was a clump of eucalyptus
trees and then a thorny jungle, full of acacia bushes. The brambles made the entire area behind
Number Six not only uninhabitable but also virtually inaccessible. ‘If only we could get
this door to open,’ he said wistfully.

‘I will show you,’ Eketi said and began sliding up the trunk of the eucalyptus tree. Within
seconds he had reached the top. Catching hold of a sturdy branch, he began pulling it down
with his weight till it became taut as a slingshot. Then kicking the trunk with his feet, he
launched himself like a human arrow at the branches and foliage of a jamun tree jutting over
the boundary wall. As a horrified Ashok watched, he flew through the air and landed on top of
the jamun tree. From there it was child’s play for him to make his way to the ground. A minute
later the rusted metal gate creaked open.
Ashok was in a state of excitement as he took his first few steps inside the grounds of Number
Six. He couldn’t believe that within hours of arriving in Delhi he was actually inside the
farmhouse. The sound of flowing water entered his ears, together with the mechanical hum of
a lawnmower. He glimpsed a gardener busy shaving the grass on the lawn, barely a hundred
feet away, and was about to duck behind a tree when he realized that the natural darkness of
the wooded area would make it impossible for anyone on the lawn to detect him. From where
he stood, the layout of the entire complex was clearly visible and once the gardener had
moved further away he pointed out the main features to Eketi - the three-storey mansion in
the distance, the Olympic-sized pool, the gazebo, and the small temple in the right-hand corner
of the lawn.
They spent another fifteen minutes exploring the wooded area, coming across two magnificent
peacocks. At the very edge of the wood, near the north-eastern corner, they saw a man-made
waterfall. Water cascaded down a few large boulders into a narrow canal which ran alongside a
cobbled pathway leading towards the garages and the front gate.
 METHODIST ENGLISH MEDIUM SCHOOL
A Programme of Bangladesh Methodist Church Trust
Assignment I
(Part II)
English Language B

Refer to BOTH Text One and Text Two to answer the following question.

2 Compare how the writers of Text One and Text Two convey their ideas and perspectives
about the different houses people live in.

Support your answer with examples from both texts. (15 Marks)

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(Total for Question 2 = 15 marks)