Feature: Portuguese IT engineer quits city life to promote "green" modular homes

From a distance, Jose Caramelo's automatic mobile home, situated in a remote rural area in southern Portugal, looks just like a white shipping container.

But inside, its wooden floors, modern kitchen installations and furniture give it a comfortable and practical feel with the advantage of being "green."

Caramelo quit his job as an IT engineer in Lisbon in 2011 and moved permanently 200 km down south to Odemira, in the Alentejo region, to work on this project.

These Automatic modular houses -- prefabricated in sections and mounted on a foundation -- use energy in an efficient way, for example by recycling water to control the home's temperature.

"This modular solution is a comfortable solution adapted for the natural tourism market, as it can be installed without having to be built into the ground," Caramelo says.

"It uses a computer to control the exterior walls, enabling to adapt the house to external conditions without using air conditioning," Carmelo adds.

"Air boxes are used to decrease the amount of raw materials needed and facilitate distribution," Carmelo says.

He says that these homes are a good solution for regions susceptible of suffering from extreme heat waves, pointing to the catastrophes that hit India and Pakistan earlier this year.

"The recent migrations registered in the Mediterranean are causing the need for mobile solutions to soar. This could be an opportunity to develop green solutions and for investors."

Caramelo, who has a 19-year-old son who is disabled, has also built the house in a way in which people with reduced mobility can for instance, wash and hang up their clothes without any difficulty.

This summer Caramelo has started renting his Automatic Home through Airbnb and hopes he is inspiring others to live in the country side while encouraging more sustainable lifestyles. Enditem