It was the first of a number of unusual inventions that would perplex and astound his college classmates and lecturers.

While many of his classmates would bring in small-scale models of their designs, Cardew would hit the workshop to actually make a prototype of his creation.

One of these designs, a large fiberglass egg, was an attempt to address the problem of how to display a multimedia exhibition. The viewer of the exhibition would insert their head into the egg, which was suspended from the roof, and watch images on a computer screen, and hear sounds on speakers that were also rigged into the egg.

"My lecturer thought I was completely insane. It was amazing when I got this thing to work and I thought 'what will be next' and the next thing was the mobile phones."

The retro-1980s-style mobile phones called "offthehook" are a total departure from the trend of making small, inconspicuous mobile phones.

The large retro handsets, which contain a mobile unit, have proved a fascinating conversation piece for their owners and Cardew plans a limited release of the funky phones, selling just 500 per country.

In Shanghai he quickly branched out on his own, lasting less than a year at the giftware company before starting his own consultancy "lcdc."

Like many inventors he is cagey about his current creation, calling it simply "the quiet project." All he will say is that it addresses a problem that affects "a billion people" and could be potentially very lucrative.

"This product solves a problem that has been a problem for a very long time and there has been no intuitive solution for it," he says. "If we can attract just 1 percent of the population with this problem ... well."

For more information on how to contribute to the shelter project, visit www.iboughtashelter.com.

(Shanghai Daily November 19, 2008)