( CNN ) -- Twenty-three homeless shelter pods barnacled to the side of a railroad station in Marseilles , France , are safe , for now . Once they touch the ground , most legal bets are off . That 's sort of the point , bien sûr . Architect and former graffiti artist Stéphane Malka seeks out these neglected armpits of cities ' public space and transforms them into light , flexible , emergency housing . He calls the process `` architectural kama sutra '' because of the unorthodox ( and exciting ) positioning of the structures next to , above , or below traditional buildings and city elements . A-kamp47 , as the Marseilles project is called , will be included in a series of similar efforts for Malka 's book , Le Petit Pari ( s ) , coming out in February of next year . Malka designed A-kamp47 -- the title a nod to the city 's drug-fueled gun violence problem -- in 2009 , but it was erected this past September in just 12 hours . The domes , which resemble a group of camouflage spider eggs , feature thermal blankets and storage space , the simplest requirements for temporary stays . All but one pod can fit two people , hence the number 47 . Putting up the structure in September was also part of Malka 's strategy . `` In France , there 's a rule saying in wintertime , you ca n't take someone out of housing , '' Malka explains . Meant to protect low- and middle income workers from being pushed out of housing and into the suburbs by obscene rent increases , recently passed laws now guarantee that most renters wo n't end up on the streets during the coldest months . According to Malka , the rule applies to A-kamp47 . And because the structure is tacked to the side of the Marseilles-Saint-Charles train station , and not sitting horizontally on the property of the nearby cultural center , it also qualifies as public space . Hoisting shelters on a wall plays another role as well -- that of visibility . While low and middle income workers might be quietly shuffled out of city centers in the spring , summer , and fall , Malka 's work turns French cities ' housing crisis into a living , breathing billboard year-round . `` Homelessness is very important , but it 's almost like a caricature of what 's happened . People in the low class and even in the middle class do n't have the power to afford to stay in decent houses , especially in France , '' Malka says . `` This is a failure of the housing system as we know it . We 'll be facing in the years to come more climate refugees , more political refugees , and the city will have to stand massive amounts of people coming . '' Oddly , though , the people using the A-kamp47 are n't native Marseillais . When Malka went back to visit the structure in October , it was mostly populated by young travelers . ( Those would be the groups of curiously well-dressed homeless people you see in pictures above ) . Still , Malka hopes his project inspires other architects to work on more community-minded projects that take advantage of public space . `` I really think that for architects now there are new ways , technical ways and methods , that would take us out of not only being the arm of the government , '' he says . `` We can be more open to societal problems . '' Copyright © 2010 FastCompany.com , a unit of Mansueto Ventures , LLC . All rights reserved .
A French artist has turned the sides of urban public spaces into emergency shelters . The artist, who goes by the name 'Mr E', says he was inspired to create a shelter for homeless people after seeing how many were sleeping on Paris's streets and in its parks. By building them on a wall , the artist hopes to make France 's homelessness problem visible .