deployable architecture
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Aristide Antonas, the vertical mobile village offers temporary housing for new residential areas in Hymettus, Athens, Greece
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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.
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WatAir
by GEOTECTURA Architectural Studio
With an ever increasing world population, water has become a diminishing resource. WatAir was designed to provide a daily source of water to victims of natural disaster or otherwise in need. The system would be distributed by aid agencies and takes one person three minutes to assemble. WatAir collects water from dew, rainfall, rivers, or ground water. The local community benefits from a design which they learn to recreate eventually becoming independent of continued water aid.
The product comes in two main parts, a frame and a funnel. This initial set of components can be replaced or repaired over time using local materials and the newly learned knowledge on water harvesting and storage.
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softshelter · a solution to homelessness caused by disaster
by molo
Softshelter is a system for creating personal space within a larger shelter area in order to provide individuals and families with a sense of privacy and encourage community-building in the days following a disaster. Softshelter is part of molo’s ongoing research-driven exploration of materials, fabrication techniques and space-making with a focus on enhancing common daily ritual and flexible use of space.
More photos here.
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‘Bedu’ Emergency Rapid Response
by Toby McInnes
An estimated 157 million people were affected by natural disasters as of 2008. Globally it was estimated that 9 million refugees and over 25 million people were displaced due to 20 major conflicts raging around the world. A tsunami in 2004, the Pakistan earth quake 2005, 2006’s Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans 2006, and millions of climate change refugees over the horizon.
Current response mechanisms employed around the world are hap-hazard and often ill equipped for the scenario at hand.
‘Bedu’ emergency response pack proposes a quickly erectable rapid response, cross cultural, multi climate, solution that works within existing logistic models.
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dvdc: “architect Tadashi Murai creates a fully equipped structure that comes with its own power, heating and cooling, water, and waste-disposal systems” Read more: http://www.dwell.com/slideshows/simply-sustainable.html?slide=3&c=y#ixzz1pGVV07rK
alexanderpf: From a design, manufacturing and engineering standpoint this is interesting project. To clear my head before going back to work I’d like to write a critique of this post.
Teju Cole in recent weeks has introduced the term “White Savior Industrial Complex.” Tadashi Murai, regardless of race, has with this “sustainable design” produced a beautiful work channeling the neo-liberalist industrial complex. Regrettably what the term “Sustainability” has come to mean to too many business people “the same thing in a different way.” Going on a picnic? Bring some bamboo forks and biodegradable cups! Oh and we’ll bike there!
The term sustainability is an awkward fit. There is ambiguity what aspects of our civilization we value. [See: what kind of country do we want to be?] This is why I’ve gravitated towards the term Permaculture. Just “getting by” isn’t in our nature as animals. We, along with a few other mammals, are tool makers. We’ve been to the moon, and if we smart we’d already have started teraforming Mars by now.
Oddly enough, this “sustainable home” … for spaceship Earth, was designed like it was intended for a mission to Mars. All of the “systems are internal” it looks like it was intended to be air lifted to the nearest third world disaster area.
Yes, this house can “sustain itself” but what about it’s inputs and outputs?!
It should be clear to everyone that we’re living in a time where ‘systems engineering’/’second order cybernetics’ were playing an increasing role.
The 20th century was all about “Economy” — raw state power ‘controlled’ by a body of well intentioned people. This worked well after the horrors of the two great wars. The growth and prosperity of the 50’s and 60’s in America and Europe is unimaginable! This was also a time when people were still connected to lots of systems. The first two that come to me are food systems and transportation systems.
Maintaining a system can be a hassle! Going to a butcher, or a baker instead of a mega-store. The Walking/Biking/Driving ratio. Whole food vs. engineered microwavable/restaurant food.
Business people is finding out that it’s about about “services” rather than “products.”
Architects and engineers are finding out that optimizing for the general case has reached it’s limits. It’s easy to plop down a house, heat/cool it with central air. etc. It’s much more difficult to build a system where everything is maintained internally. But who is to say that this is much better?
We’re in an age of of meta-optimize. Is a waste-output of one system really a waste when it’s just input to another system? The connections matter — it’s about ecology rather than economy as Alan Moore said in a recent BBC interview.
This structure doesn’t look like part of an ecosystem. But it’s exactly what the neo-liberal industrial complex raves out about. If you don’t have a clear mental picture by now, imagine a teenage missionary from Colorado who wants to go to [insert nation] and help them fix all of their ills with cure all “green tech.”
We’re in an awkward stage right now. We’re still dragging lots of dead weight from the 20th century.
Remember those inconveniences of the “systems” that make up our lives? Well they kind of screwed us over. We got lazy. We started exploiting people.
Not only did we want countries like Bangladesh to make our stuff for cheap, Nigeria to give us their oil for cheap, or countless others to deal with our toxic (…e-waste, industrial waste) trash when we didn’t want it — we wanted them to drink coca-cola too.
Market-Based Democracy (especially in it’s newest form) is just too simple a model for the “meta-optimization” I mentioned earlier.
We’ve moved beyond (.. see how that term sustainability hhinders us) the gains we can get from market-based democracy. When the massive state power of ARPA created what would become the Internet it introduced us to a new age.
When all we had was broadcast media (one-way flow of information; TV/Radio/Newsprint/etc.) “general optimization” worked socially the general optimization model was a good fit.
The exponential growth of computing power was the fuel for our model. The problem with exponents is that in practical terms they are very hard to deal with. I think it’s safe to say that our population growth has saturated the planet with people. This depressing situation has lead to this very nihilistic design style that my generation is such a fan of.
Collectively humanity is as much of a sociopath as always — but now have the communication systems and collective knowledge to realize this.
To my generation: Please stop idolizing the designs of firms like Apple; a firm which itself has made a career from the modern designs of folks like Dieter Rams.
What is the show “Mad Men” but a celebration of the folks that brought on the end. Design for design. Consumption for the sake of consumption. The cancerous madness Edward Abbey called growth for the sake of growth.
It was a golden age. We went to the moon, we did the hard stuff! … and then we stopped. We gave up. Communism had us so scared that the nation decided to fight in Vietnam rather than go to Mars.
Let’s face it — when the over-focus on design that we saw in the 50’s and 60’s meets the industrial-grunge nihilism (or for that matter the upscale nihilism of Apple) of my generation the result is seldom groundbreaking.
Some may call this style functional design — but remember: the functional optimization done was for the general case. This is why everything is “dumbed down” and simple.
Real functional design takes advantage of the wind and the sun in more clever ways than just making an open box.
Permaculture inspired design is hard because it is seldom general. You must observe patterns, and understand how accomplish your goals (“obtaining a yield”) within the system.
I’ll end by saying that permaculture goes beyond biological systems. It goes for the built world, the invented/tooled world, and the social sphere as well.
</RANT> Back to work! But that was fun and I’m refreshed. I’ll be back to edit this later! But … What do you think?
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Beijing’s incredible, inedible egg house
What’s an architect to do when he can’t afford to pay rent in one of the most expensive cities in the world? Erect a solar-powered, grass-clad, egg-shaped hut on the streets of Beijing, of course.
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Binishells may be the greenest way to build ever invented. Using low air pressure to lift and shape reinforced concrete thin shell structures, poured at ground level, Binishells essentially use air as their form work.
As well as being inherently green, Binishells are fast, strong and flexible and can be made in an infinite variety of shapes. They can be used for everything from high-end residential, to schools, to gymnasiums, commercial buildings, low cost housing, emergency shelters and an infinite variety of other typologies.
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“Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, a purveyor of tiny homes, workshops, books, and plans, is promoting the Popomo design pictured this month. This is one of the company’s easiest homes to build, according to Tumbleweed, and it’s also one of the few modern plans they have available. Popomo has a basic kitchen, wet bath, tiny bedroom, propane fireplace, steel exterior, and a total of about 144 square feet. Plans are discounted through the end of July, if you’re looking for a new building adventure.”
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click the pic
ShelterBox: - About Us /
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International Mountain Summit ’10 by Cimini Architettura.
January 12, 2011: Project of the Day. Read more here.
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planning and urban design: a student perspective: Harvest City / Tangram 3DS Location: Haiti Design / Project Year:... /
Harvest City / Tangram 3DS
Location: Haiti Design / Project Year: 2010
If there is one video that you are going to watch to redeem your souls with regard to the devastation that was released upon this poor island nation earlier this year, let it be this one.
Working…
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Compress is a specially designed dynamic system which provides instant space for variety of use.
Environmental, social and economic disturbances cause significant fluctuation among people. Many are left in danger and the need for shelter comes only second after basic necessities. In such case architecture plays important part in reducing the effects and providing basis for restoring continuity. This project examines the possibilities of creating First Aid Skyscraper (called Compress), easily transported in standard shipping containers and deployed all over the world. Location for this project can be anywhere from Haiti to Afghanistan. It is designed as first building on site after accidents. It shares almost military aesthetics and is intended to be in the front rows. As such it can respond to any need and provide first aid, accommodation or shelter for scientific research.
The principle that allows this innovative approach is based on a mechanism of interconnecting diagonals. The behavior of the system is regulated by applied hydraulic or pneumatic pressure on the lowest pair. Diagonals work together as a group allowing up and down movement, serving as method of uplift and structural part. Envisioned as a new construction method for high rise building, the system is based on prefabricated off-situ production.
Compress can serve as an independent unit or modular solution understanding limited floor surface and making the best of it. Each can be multiplied in infinite numbers or directions creating specialized or non-uniform structures. Installation is easy. Once on site, container shell provides platform and leveling and system of diagonals position the slabs to appropriate level. This simple method allows further modification according to new use. Vertical communication is achieved through set of standardized parts that construct modular staircase. Diagonals, slabs and staircase provide structure on which different cladding can be applied. Enclosures are incorporated in the system and share three-fold operation throughout variations. Inside, floor space is limited and can accommodate up to nine people. Different uses will organize levels as required but basic sanitation needs are located on the ground floor due to sewage and water treatment. Container shell can provide additional ground clearance in case of the big flood or ground contamination. Communication equipment is located on the roof terrace.