As several million people in Asia suffers from the effects of the Tsunami and are now without a home, my first thoughts was about how to be able to create a house that can be built and transported there as swift as possible. The total reconstruction of the area will take at least five years it is said, and therefore something much better than tents has to be built until the final structures are in place. I have earlier made a proposal for a container house, initially thought for use by students or as a first residence before you could afford a proper house. Also for events like the Olympic Games or other non-permanent needs of housing. This is based on the high 40-foot container in its widest form suited for land transport. It was intended to be built with an aluminium frame and composite walls. The interior and windows should be flexible within the system and heating and sanitary systems depending on the local environment. I know there are many obstacles in transferring these ideas into the best solution for the homeless in Asia, but I think it would be a good idea to start thinking about how and if it can be done and this is what I will do now. This thread is not about yachts, but I think there are many similarities in the construction and that there might be useful knowledge and contacts among the many members and visitors on the YachtForums. Anyone who wants to contribute to make this idea into a real project or discuss the feasibility of containers for housing in the tropic environment are more than welcome. Lars Note: The illustration is from my files and not adapted for the purpose I suggest above.
Lars, I commend you for using your design expertise to aid those effected by the tsunami... As this thread started me thinking about the scenario and the problems we experienced from the hurricanes that hit Florida, several things came to mind... I think first and foremost, temporary housing for large numbers of people would have to be collapsable and easily transported. In addition, it should not be cost or tooling prohibitive for an established manufacturer to "ramp-up", in preparation of production. There must be an intermediate solution to a pop-up tent and a mobile home. One is not enough and the other is too much. I would think that a system of hinged panels, creating a dome structure (similar to an igloo) could be easily manufactured and collapsed for transportation. Ofcourse, this would not include appliances, however... there are portable versions of the same commercially available that may prove suitable to include as a part of a kit. I hope others will chime-in on this thread with suggestions that could prove beneficial...
Yes Carl, The problem is the mind-blowing figures of homeless since just a week. In the best scenario there should already be some kind of temporary houses in storage to send where it is needed right away. And as you say, a house that can be easy transported, built and not too expensive. But I suspect that a great number of people will have to live in them for a very long time, since they are also left without their assets and means of income. So the houses probably have to be good enough to withstand several years of daily use and all sorts of tropical weather conditions. I think the challenge is to design a house that will be good enough for you or me to live in and at the same time possible to build fast, cheap and easy to transport. Preferably with basic interior fittings. Next is to get acceptance by local authorities, get financial aid or commercial sponsors to pay for them and maybe at a later stage set up production plants locally. When you think of it, there are such high demands so even if such projects are developed by many teams around the world, they will still all be needed. Both now and in the future...
Housing Hi Carl, Hi Lars, Correct Lars, I'm back from the slopes, enthusiasm shattered by the images that were repeated 24H/24. I have visited India many times, including the Tsunami-areas of Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, etc. Quite honestly, these people are used to live in very, very low-grade "housing". Most of the time the fishermen-communities, those who live on or next to the beaches, live in branch-chassis huts covered mostly with blue tarpaulin. The container-house as designed by Lars is great, don't mistake me, and would be "temporary acceptable" in places like Florida; it would be utmost luxury in the areas I know and visited. So, even tents or a massive donation of tarpaulin would make these guys quite happy. What is needed most, I think, is to get them back to work, since almost all their "boats" are wrecked. A fishing trawler over there (always talking about South India) is about 10-12 meter long, built of wood, a shabby diesel, 6-7 people onboard and a net for the catch. I have a friend boatbuilder over there and I already enquired for his opinion and assistance to get a few "trawlers" back to work. It may be a nice idea, as a yachting-minded e-community, to think along this line.
The Container house is a little on the expensive side and above all, will take a long time to get produced in large quantities. Living in the land of IKEA, I have made this low cost, fast built version today With a structure combining particle board and aluminium in sections, the basic version is 8 x 10 feet. This would be enough as a shelter for a small family. The production cost can probably be less than USD 2.000 in mass production. As a kit, it would be easy to transport and to set up. At least it is much more of a house than a tent or a tarpaulin shed... What do you guys think?
Hmmmmmm Hi Lars, I surely appreciate your designs and your concern. Reality (in India) is that the people who would need it most live on one dollar a day, that's for the family! 2000 dollar is the projected selling price of Tata's new "baby" project, still in early development. Just as a perspective, not at all to be negative.
As I understand the situation, most needed is water, food, clothes and homes for people who has survived in all of the devastated areas around the Indian Ocean. I don´t expect any poor Indian to come and buy a house, but with the massive worldwide contributions isn´t it possible that he can get it? The actress Sandra Bullock alone gave USD 1.000.000, which would provide up to 2.000 people with a house (500 houses) as the one I suggest! I rather think that now is the time to do things, than wait until it is too late. But naturally there are many things to consider, not least what the local people have to say about what is needed. But I have already heard that tents are washed away by heavy rain in some areas...
I should think it would be more practible to send basic building materials the people are used to, timber, ply, corrigated iron etc, and enable them to build their own habitat, using the money that would employ builders in the west to build your cabanas to pay these people instead for a year, at a dollar a day, you could pay for a lot of labour with little money. They have a job to feed their family, and rebuild their community. Habitat for humanity third world style. Using corrigated iron and lengths of timber I built a hut when I was about 12 about 10 x 10 x 7 with seating that could be slept on, table etc, that was better than some of the shanty houses I have seen. Make it simple and cheap. In fact the next time a building is being pulled down for redevelopment, that scrap could be someones building material. Raiding scrap yards for old corrigated iron etc could probably have all those affected in the third world with a basic shanty town type home in days to weeks that they could build themselves while waiting for permanent structures. I am reminded of an aid story from years ago of a US aid group that went into a third world village and put in all sorts of first world wonders then left, everything was great until things began to break down, as they do, then no one could afford to fix, and no one knew how to anyway, so over time the village reverted back to what it knew, and the western wonders rusted away. That $1,000,000 instead of building 500 cabanas, could be used the following way, use half to obtain and ship over second hand timber and corrigated iron etc, and half to pay 10,000 people for a month to put up basic housing structures using what we consider scrap. Here's another example, we would probably send over generators and pumps for the people using high speed compact electronic ignited, hi pressure injection, etc diesels, when the ideal would be something we used in the interwars years. Something the village blacksmith could strip down and rebuilt with what he has to hand. http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_gas.html Sorry Lars, not directed at you but at some of the western aid groups, particulary government funded ones.
Thanks for bumping this old thread. The need is always present somewhere, like now in Libanon where many are left without shelter and food... I think your idea of self construction is good enough for some parts of the world, but as you have seen after the US hurricanes and several earthquakes that has hit remote places, there are different climates and different people who will need housing pretty soon after a disaster, why I think a stored supply of "clic-clac"-houses like the Cabanana would still be a good idea. Maybe they could be sponsored by big companies like Coca-Cola, with logos if they so like, and be swiftly distributed more or less the day after the next disaster to minimize suffering...?
