LittleDiggs: January 24, 2010 posts

Design can change Haiti with dignity and prosperity!

This is a perfect time to bring back the topic of emergency housing and community re-building in light of the Haiti earthquake (and the sunami and katrina disasters before that). Governments and organizations have spent countless days, hours, and money trying to address the logistics of bringing food, water, shelter, safety and health to disaster ridden communities...often times mired in red tape, politics, corruption and lack of imagination, while those who need it most suffer. Meanwhile, the world community awaits to see how the hundreds and millions of dollars will be spent with measurability and with foreseeable long term outcomes like sustainable community building, housig, schools, hospitals, economy, etc.

How can design can help to create socialability, sustainability, safety, and economical systems, one that facilitates the needs of society, community, and individuals, with dignity and cultural sensitivity? Does emergency housing and planning have to equate "temporary", "homogenous", "non-sustainable" and "colorless"? Instead, can it stand for design, dignity, and permanency, while delivering on immediacy, affordability, social sustainability, enviro-sustainability, and efficacy?

I think so, and so does SEED, an emergent housing investment that appreciates locally over time. SEED was initially conceived as a way to utilize some of the estimated 30 million shipping containers that were languishing in ports all over the world by turning them into homes for victims of hurricanes in both the Caribbean Islands and the United States. In addition to SEED, Habitat For Humanity is also embarking on a re-building initiative in Haiti which uses shipping containers to build homes.

Let's consider shipping containers for a moment. Container city projects have been sprung up around the world in: New York, London, Pakistan, Australia, Amsterdam, and most recently Mexico City; every one of them sustainable, affordable, stylish, and contemporary! Now fast forward to Haiti. Not only do Haitian's need immediate attention but it also deserves a thought past the mindset of "temporary shelters", not a tent city, and not a shanty that's made of canvas, card board or other materials that are not made very strong.

Littlediggs and other blogs (inhabitat, treehugger, and materialicious, etc.) have been postulating sustainable housing and communities for some time now but especially container homes. Why? Because shipping containers:

Are available in abundance around the world (enough to circle the equator with an 8 foot wall (twice!)
Are built to a universal standard which can be shipped any where in the world
Already have a floor, wall, and ceiling
Are made of steel frames which are able to withstand 140 mile/hr winds
Are made to stack and can be configured in multiple ways
Have a low environmental foot print
Can operate off the grid (with solar panels for electricity/heat, and accompanying water tanks)
Have multiple uses include homes, commercial, retail, schools, hospitals, and many others
Are sustainable and inexpensive

Below are best case examples of how shipping containers are being used for homes, retail, artist studios, and various institutions.

KEETVONEN COMPLEX AMSTERDAM:
Billed as the largest container city in the world, Amsterdam's Keetvonen is a massive complex that houses 1,000 students, many of whom are happy to secure housing in the city's tight real estate market. Designed by Tempo Housing in 2006, Keetwonen is said to be a roaring success, with units that are well insulated, surprisingly quiet and comfortable.

Each resident enjoys a balcony, bathroom, kitchen, separate sleeping and studying rooms and large windows. The complex has central heating and high speed Internet, as well as dedicated bike parking.

TEMPORARY SCHOOL BUILDING, AMSTERDAM:
This is actually only a temporary measure for this schools kindergarten while they wait for a real building to be built. It’s the best take on the portable that I’ve ever seen. Usually those trailers are one of the most miserable classrooms around, but these multicolored shipping containers stacked on top of each other are a great alternative to a your typical building.

CONTAINER CITY, LONDON:
This is the Container City I project, located at Trinity Buoy Wharf, in the heart of London's Docklands. Completed in 5 months in 2001, Container City I was originally 3 stories high providing 12 work studios across 4,800 sq ft. After high demand, a fourth floor was added providing three additional live / work apartments. As well as being very cost effective Container City I is environmentally friendly with over 80% of the building created from recycled material. Installation took 4 days, and 25 containers for a total of 15 live/work and studio spaces.

FAWOOD CHILDREN'S CENTER, LONDON:
Completed in 2004, Fawood Children's Centre provides 3 blocks of space to create a nursery, office space and an adult education centre. Set over three floors the blocks of space are interconnected by external walkways all housed within a colourful meshed shell designed by Alsop Architects. Commissioned by the Stonebridge Housing Association Trust this innovative approach to building was rewarded by being short-listed for the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2005.

UTRECHT-U-CONTAINERS, NETHERLANDS:
Utrecht is home to the largest university in the Netherlands (Utrecht University), so it's not surprising that the region would face a housing crunch. Here, modified containers help take up some of the demand.

COLORFUL CONTAINER CITY, MEXICO:
This hip, colorfully painted shipping container city recently sprung up just outside of Mexico city. Created by a small community of businesses, the project features restaurants, gallery space, bars, funky stores and even living spaces constructed completely out of recycled shipping containers.

FUTURE SHACK:
Designed by architect Sean Godsell, Future Shack is the prototype for mass-produced, relocatable emergency and relief housing. The house has applications for a variety of needs – post flood, fire, earthquake, typhoon, or similar natural disasters; temporary housing; third world housing; remote housing. The main volume of the building is a recycled 20-foot shipping container, a universal module that is mass-produced and inexpensive, robust and durable. As a basic unit the container can be stockpiled for use as required by aid-coordination agencies, or in locations prone to disaster. It is designed to be shipped, and is easily transported by road and rail. All infrastructure for handing the module is available throughout the world.

RED EMERGENCY HOUSING, ZSECHUAN:
Though the Red Emergency Housing project is not container based, I'm including it as design worthy and because its thoughtfulness to social-sustainable and enviro-sustainable, and clever furniture components. Red Emergency Housingis designed by obra architects to commemorate the first-year anniversary of the sichuan earthquake for emergency architecture,on emergency housing exhibition at the NAMOC. The design has been developed as an in-progress embodiment of the following 10 points of architecture on the edge of survival, they are: universal application, effective performance, economical, transportable, ease of assembly, renewable materials, digitally pre-fabricated, open work, urban/rural, and flexibility of use. Red Emergency Housing proposes an approach that tries to incorporate both the advantages of fast-response solutions, such as the deployment of military tents, with those of slower and more considered responses such as neighborhood reconstruction efforts involving local traditions and user construction.

Universal application: this prototype aspires to universal applicability. its development contemplates a series of simple modifications that would make it a useful solution anywhere in the world: add insulation and a stove for cold climates; remove doors and windows for tropical climates; replace materials according with local availabilities, etc. Eransportable : all parts are collapsible to flats and can therefore be easily packed and transported.

Ease of assembly: all connections are a simple friction bond of male/female parts which are then secured with a minimum of fasteners.

Renewable materials: in china the project is proposed almost entirely in bamboo plywood, one of the most renewable of materials. the cover fabric can also be considered as woven out of waterproof bamboo fibers. Digitally pre-fabricated: digital pre-fabrication makes the project economical in its speed of production and also easy to assemble due to the precision of its fabrication.

Open work: the cruciform house, while iconic, retains in its biaxial symmetry a certain ‘indifference’ that allows its easy recombination with other locally and diversely made structures. Urban/rural:the geometry of the crosses, when deployed together in groups, defines in-between spaces of infinite flexibility that can suggest an ‘urban’ context for a field of houses. likewise, if a house is erected by itself, the exterior of the cross creates spaces that mediate between interior and exterior providing a context for people to spend time outside.