by Bruce Johnson’s architecture studio at the University of Kansas
The 4:10 House is a disaster relief shelter designed to accommodate people who have been displaced from their homes due to natural disasters. Different solutions are used all over the world when it comes to housing disaster victims or refugees many are of poor quality and lack the fundamental elements of a home.
The 4:10 House is a modular shelter built of OSB (oriented strand board) and a vinyl fabric. Its structure consists of a series of 4x10 foot bays that can be easily added to create different sized shelters to accommodate different amounts of people. Each bay consists of C shaped ribs and a floor that attaches similar to a drawer making for easy assembly and deployability. All of the members are light weight and can be set up into an entire shelter in less than 5 hours.
The south facing wall is made of operable louvers allowing the inhabitants to control their surrounding environment. The floor allows for storage underneath the shelter and also contains “flat pack” furniture that can be taken out and set up when needed, allowing for the space to be easily cleared by placing the tables and chairs back into the floor. Bunk style beds fold down from the back wall and contain a shelf where pieces of a passive solar heating water element can be placed to provide heat at night.With an exterior skin made mostly of fabric, insulation was a large concern. Packing peanuts were used in the two end walls formed by a 2x4 frame wrapped in vinyl to provide insulation from the cool winds of most moderate climates. The ultimate goal would be to make these shelters adaptable to any climate all over the world.
