Ranger Things #4: Origami Offices

Plydom lifeguard office, Assateague Island National Seashore. (NPS History Collection photo by Cecil W. Stoughton, HFCA 1607)

Over the years the National Park Service (NPS) has come up with some creative approaches to meet its facility needs. One of the most unusual has to be this Origami-inspired Plydom used as a lifeguard office at Assateague Island National Seashore.

Based on early Japanese designs, Canadian Herbert Yates created the first version of the Plydom around 1964. The Plydom consisted of a 3/8" polyurethane core sandwiched between paper coated with polyethylene and aluminum in an accordion structure. Excluding the screen door, screen windows, and plywood base, it weighed just 120 lbs. and packed into two 2-foot x 2-foot x 14-foot boxes. It provided an interior space of 17 feet x 22 feet, and two people could set it up in about an hour. At a cost of $600 it was insulated, weatherproof, "fireproof", and could last up to five years with constant weathering.

In 1966 an improved version was used as an experiment in affordable housing for migrant workers in California. That same year about 1,000 Plydoms were sent to Turkey for earthquake victims, while others went to South Vietnam for refugees and to Mississippi for a Freedom Village housing displaced agricultural workers. In 1967 manufacturer International Structures Corporation of Cornwall Heights, Pennsylvania, provided 1,000 of them for use as motel rooms at the Expo '67 in Montreal and began marketing them as portable vacation homes, beach houses, and ski chalets that could be stored in the basement or garage in the off season.

Given its portability, ease of set up, and low impact on the environment, it's not surprising that the NPS experimented with it.