Organization:Enbox

Enbox, short for Engineered Boxes, is a corporation which designs intermodal shipping containers and modular housing units. Most free apartments on Gaia were based off the standardized container design created by Enbox, if not designed and built entirely by Enbox.

Standardization
Standards created by the Enbox Corporation include... These four standards make up huge sections of the modern Gaian cityscape, due to the constant influx of newly-resurrected people needing homes. The exceptions are family-owned communities, and open-air habitats given to newcomers with claustrophobia.
 * Gaian Standardized Container (GSC): Based off of the intermodal shipping containers of the Old Real, the GSC is slightly wider and somewhat shorter (2.5 meters tall and 2.5 meters wide, or 8.2021 feet tall and 8.2021 feet wide) versus ISO-668 containers (2.591 meters tall and 2.438 meters wide, or 8 feet and 6 inches tall and 8 feet wide). GSC lengths come in units of 1.25 meters, with the longest being 17.5 meters long, and with walls that are 12.5 cm thick. GSCs are typically constructed out of steel, last 15-20 years under extremely rough conditions, and are recycled into new GSCs at the end of their lifespan to make wastage a non-issue. For structural reasons, GSCs have reinforcement every 1.25 meters to prevent issues when stacking cantilevered containers. They're a box you store stuff in, nothing to see here.
 * All-In-One Sanitation System: The acronym was on purpose. The ASS consists of a toilet with an electronic bidet, a toilet lid that doubles as a chair, and a showerhead above the user. Each ASS is connected via plumbing to an Omni Processor. It's definitely not anyone's favorite part of their home, but it's either design a tiny modular toilet or hold it in forever.
 * Modular Housing Unit (MHU): Based off the GSC, the MHU - also commonly referred to as a "Moo Box" (in marketing) or "Cow Box" (derogatory slang) - consists at minimum of a sink, a fridge, a breaker panel and an ASS, arranged inside of a GSC-compatible unit. While able to be shipped as freight, MHUs are *not* suitable for being repurposed as or from GSCs. Most recent MHUs have a radio or TV, and almost all have a bed and a desk. MHUs are 2.5 meters tall and come in units of 2.5 meters, with the longest being 17.5 meters long, and with walls that are 12.5 cm thick. Modern (Type 2, 3000 Series, and G4) MHUs have steel frames supporting a molded plastic monobloc. Original (Mk.I) MHUs were made of an exposed steel frame and wooden walls, few examples of which survive to the present day. Think along the lines of a Tokyo apartment built inside a shipping container, and you've got a Moo Box.
 * Modular Apartment Framework (MAF): Corridors, elevators, fire sprinklers and utilities are all included in the MAF system. Utilities include upgradable telecommunication systems, dynamail pipes, electricity lines, water and sewage. If the Moo Box is the leaf, the MAF is the tree trunk and branches.

Enbox does not own the dynamail system, which is open source, but the company has designed dozens of MAF and MHU modulues with integrated d-mail pipelines and is largely responsible for the success of the d-mail system. In turn, the Enbox subsidiary Vac-U-Vend accounts for 10% of all d-mail traffic.

Logistics of MHUs
Due to the horrible living conditions suffered by people in 20th Century Kowloon City and even 21st Century Hong Kong, MHUs are built to a minimum size of 2.5 × 2.5 × 2.5 meters, and are manufactured at a minimum rate of ~6000 per hour to match resurrection rates. The most common first job in the New Real is a temporary construction worker for a company that builds MAF/MHU buildings.

With such a high rate of production required and a tightly-enforced standard of quality, along with a limited time to find housing for new resurrections, newcomers often have to wait 24 to 48 hours before they have a residence for the unit they want to be constructed and placed on an apartment framework. Fortunately, the 6k new units an hour is spread across a planet the size of earth, where one of the 2750 cities, each of which have a maximum population of ~40 million, produces 2.5 apartments every hour.

This still tends to lead to logistics issues. Often city governments will leave empty units in apartments for up to 10 years to have a more balanced distribution of residences across human history.

MHU Criticism
Common criticisms of Moo Boxes include the small size and the lack of a hearth (fireplace).

A legal provision allows for a minimum-sized unit to be divided into two rooms containing only a bed in each half, as long as the government pays the residents for living in the "cheaper than free" apartment and the resident has access to a public washroom. Further, an unclosed loophole in the provision allows for units with one double bed to be used by two people in a relationship, despite the couple not qualifying for the same funds reserved for "cheaper-than-free" residents.