From ex-frog-designer Michael McDaniel, here's a design for a disaster relief shelter that takes a very different approach from Ikea's Better Shelter. One of the first questions for those seeking to deploy such shelters is how to efficiently transport them. Ikea answered this by developing a flatpack design. McDaniel, on the other hand, has exploited draft angle to create a design that can be nested like coffee cups.

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Like Ikea's Better Shelter, McDaniel's solution, called the Exo, requires four people to assemble. Beyond that, the differences are sharp: The former generates electricity; the latter requires it. The Better Shelter needs to be assembled from components and anchored to the ground, whereas the Exo is dropped into place on top of a base that has been filled with sand for stability. The Better Shelter sleeps four at floor level, whereas the Exo sleeps four via a pair of built-in bunk beds.

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Let's take a closer look at the Exo, which is produced by McDaniel's company, Reaction:

Another key difference between the two designs is the ease-of-assembly factor, which can impact the ultimate application. The speedy set-up time of the Exo makes them ideal for renting out to festivalgoers, campsites or folks looking to set up an AirBNB unit on their property.

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Perhaps the largest difference, however, is cost. Turning back to disaster relief, what type of unit an organization will deploy boils down to two things, assuming availability: How much does it cost to buy, and how much does it cost to ship? The answer makes it apparent that the Better Shelter and the Exo will never be competing for the same "market:" The Better Shelter rings in at about US $1,150, whereas the Exo runs a whopping $6,000 to $12,000 per unit. (Fortune says $6,000; Wired says $12,000. At press time we hadn't received clarification from Reaction's press rep.)

The exponentially higher cost means the Exo is probably destined for American use only. Indeed, Reaction's manufacturing base in Texas is an ideal location to serve America's disaster-prone Gulf Coast and Tornado Alley.

You may be wondering: Geography aside, wouldn't it still be cheaper for FEMA to order Better Shelters, presumably produced in Europe or Scandinavia, and have them shipped over? Maybe, but it's unlikely that will happen. According to an AP article from 2007, the famously bungling FEMA paid $19,000 per single family trailer following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. And CNS News reports that the math got even worse by 2013, when FEMA was paying first $24,000, then $48,000 per trailer:

…The smaller park models (33 feet wide and 12 feet long) cost taxpayers about $24,000 each, half the amount FEMA is spending on 64-foot long, 14-feet wide manufactured housing units the agency is now using exclusively to house disaster victims.

And of course, one of those FEMA trailers takes up an entire truck for shipping. So economically speaking, the Exo is not competing with tents nor Ikea's Better Shelter; it's competing with those FEMA trailers. Assuming there's pressure to buy American, the Exo seems a far better deal than the trailers and is far more efficient to ship.

If you're wondering where the higher cost of the Exo comes from, we assume the bulk of the cost comes from the proprietary materials developed to build it. You'll learn about those and hear McDaniel's development story in the next entry.