Design for disaster – aid, victims, information, communication, knowledge, experiences, ideas, projects

Covid-19 rapid deployment test centre

Two of the most pressing needs worldwide in the coronavirus pandemic are for more hospital beds and testing centres. No country in the world has enough hospital beds or intensive-care unit (ICU) beds for a pandemic. We need structures that can be quickly and easily assembled, are inexpensive and meet technical requirements. Architects have always […]
Biodiversity conservation and business

The biological diversity makes our lives livable in the planet trough an array of ecological processes which provide us vital products and services, such as foods and materials that contributes to the economy. Although, factors such as habitat destruction, biological invasion and climate change have been taken numerous species to extinction. The lasting natural areas […]
Blue Freedom – Providing reliable first aid electricity from hydropower

Electrical power supply is among the first critically important services in disaster areas. Especially natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes or floodings lead to a destruction of the installed power grid and portable electricity becomes indispensable. One innovative solution is Blue Freedom Portable, a lightweight hydropower generator with 5W output capacity. With a weight of […]
Transition of Shelters – Portable Emergency Shelter

Migratation of refugess are indeed a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a Society involving widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses and impacts, which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources. It affects both physically and mentally. It also causes health and safety […]
Inflatable Refugee Tents

A new refugee tent has been designed by the team at M2B Inflatable in Sofia, Bulgaria. This refugee tent is inflatable and will offer an affordable, dignified and practical shelter against extreme weather. The inflatable tent provides immediate emergency housing solutions and adapts to any disaster area. The inflated walls of the tent will offer […]
The Modern Yurk – A Possible Design for Relief Scenarios?

The Scottish company Trakke has redeveloped the nomadic yurt shelter and created the Jero Yurt. The temporary housing innovation is a lightweight dwelling that pops up and was designed to be used for events such as backyard parties or off-grid camping experiences with a modern twist. The Jero’s compact design even allows it to be […]
innonatives first challenge winners 2015

The innonatives team is proud to present the first winners of the first completed innonatives challenge. Please see here for the winning solutions of the Sustainable Kitchen challenge http://innonatives.com/challenge/sus-brazil/solutions-sorted/winners Congratulations to the winners !!! Your innonatives Team
AIDF Disaster relief infographic d4d

Download & share the #infographic on the importance of #PPPs & #tech in disaster management: http://bit.ly/1qj6Evn http://ow.ly/i/6Ku5d
PowerCube Pop-up Solar Generator Provides Relief to Disaster-Struck Areas

It was seven years ago that Ecosphere Technologies revealed its first iteration of a self-contained relief unit for disaster-struck areas. The company has since been busy refining the system’s form and function and has now announced the completion of what it says to be the world’s largest deployable solar power generator. Capable of generating 15 […]
Sustainability Maker needs you !

Join the next big thing! Attend the first Sustainability Maker Convention, the world’s first conference on Open Innovation, Crowd Sourcing and Crowd Funding for Sustainability. Be among the first to witness the start of the next Sustainability innovation movement and to know about the www.innonatives.com open innovation for Sustainability platform. Registration Please register online before October […]

Introduction

Disasters such as, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, famines and wars cause destruction and suffering to humankind. Whether these are natural and inevitable, or man-made and unnecessary, we can improve our means of reacting and aiding the victims affected.

This website is to function as a source of information and a communication platform for exchanging knowledge, experience, ideas and projects. How can we design life in a way that we are better prepared and have better infrastructure, methods to avoid damage, suffering and death tolls?

Short and direct

Habitat for Humanity helps Haiti

Three years ago, Haiti was hit by a devastating earthquake of magnitude 7.0. Habitat for Humanity was able to help more than 200,000 people. Just recently the “Jimmy Carter Project 2012” took place. Though recovery has been slow and arduous, progress is visible in the new community of Santo. In February 2012, 155 families moved from […]

Hangout

Hangout is a semi-permanent shelter which combines the practicality of a tent and the safety and comfort of a house. It was designed as a solution to accommodate the influx of tourists visiting an urban area during the period that it hosts a festival. Hangout consists of a tarpaulin which is stretched in-between two wooden facades. one side […]

Map of Life

Map of Life is built with the technology of Google Maps. The pilot of the Map of Life website allows users to map the global distribution of almost all 30,000 species of terrestrial vertebrate animals, including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and North American fresh water fish. The platform is meant to inform users about the […]

Habitat for Humanity

Habitat for Humanity International is a nonprofit, Christian organization that seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world and to make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action worldwide. Habitat has built and renovated more than 500,000 homes around the world, providing more than 2.5 million people with safe, decent, affordable shelter. […]

Earthbag building solutions

EarthKaya is dedicated in providing low cost, low impact, earth bag building solutions in South Africa. Less time, less impact, less cost. In a world where organic agriculture is more expensive than traditional crops, solar panels are often costly to install and electric cars are inconvenient to run, many people may be reluctant to ‘go […]

Harvest water out of dry

Dutch entrepreneur Pieter Hoff retired from exporting flowers and turned to invention. His invention, Groasis Waterboxx is basically a 20-inch by 10-inch polypropylene box that captures water from the air in order to support the growth of new plants and trees. The inspiration for this box is modeled after the way excrement protects seeds that […]

Recovering Tohoku

After the Tohoku Kanto great earthquake (on March 11, 2011, at 2:46 pm local time), a magnitude 9.0 earthquake (7 shindo on the japanese scale) occurred off the coast of Miyagi Prefecture in Japan. It was followed by a huge tsunami. This earthquake is the strongest ever recorded in japan, and the fourth largest recorded […]

Mobile Hospital

A new hospital typology has been designed by the team of Hord Coplan Macht + Spevco that eliminates the need for a standard hospital. In their design, 58 trailers provide a fully operational, fully mobile 48-bed hospital. The trailers include every aspect of a hospital – from waiting gift shops, to surgical suites with four […]

Shelter Centre

Shelter Centre is a non-governmental organization registered in Switzerland that supports the sector of humanitarian operations that responds to the transitional settlement and reconstruction needs of populations affected by conflicts and natural disasters, from the emergency phase until durable solutions are reached. – The activities of Shelter Centre The 2006 – 2011 programme supports the […]

Monash Disaster Resilience Initiative

The Monash Disaster Resilience Initiative (MDRI) has been established to harness university-wide expertise with the goal of strengthening community-based disaster resilience. The aim is to provide the expertise to shape new approaches to disaster preparedness and management under the context of the Council of Australian Governments’ National Strategy for Disaster Resilience. This will […]

Disaster management with fireballs from Intel

These spherical, rugged, low-cost and autonomous sensors from Intel are designed to be thrown into a fire and report back data such as temperature, free-volatiles and air quality to first responder trucks via WiFi. Vital information such as the hottest spot and the chemical composition of a fire can be sent to both the firefighters’ smartphones and […]

ad – hab+

adaptable habitat for aid distribution in crisis areas – 2011 ad – hab+ is an adaptable, mobile, multifunctional and lightweight habitation system primarily for aid distribution in catastrophic and crisis areas. The shape is bionic, inspired by and further developed out of polyhedrical foam structures. Due to the geometry, technical and spatial clustering of several units […]

Tulip Siphon Water Filter

An innovative, low-cost water filter for families in developing countries Hundreds of millions of people still only have access to unsafe drinking water sources. Inadequate access to safe water and sanitation services, coupled with poor hygiene practices, kills and sickens thousands of children every day and leads to impoverishment and diminished opportunities for millions of […]

Palliative Radiotherapy for Developing Countries

The world is facing a crisis in cancer management that concerns developing countries in particular. The average life expectancy in developing countries is increasing in a predictable way. Data from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) indicates that cancer incidence in developing countries will increase dramatically in the first two decades of this […]

Paper Partition System

SHIGERU BAN ARCHITECTS are currently preparing to deploy simple partitions for evacuees taking shelter at gymnasiums in the Tohoku region. For people taking shelter in these sites, it is necessary to avoid distress from the lack of privacy and high density. SHIGERU BAN ARCHITECTS asks for support of this important disaster relief endeavor. Donations made to the following […]

Tsunami House Living Room

In order to be better prepared for disasters, primarily focused on resistance to tsunamis, the resistance disaster house was designed to safeguard families living in vulnerable coastal areas in Japan. This resistance disaster house design was designed to resist disaster and to provide shelter from natural disasters. This Tsunami house resistance design is located in […]

The Design Development of Hexi-House – Phase 1

Background While attending a social entrepreneurship course in July 2012, Dublin-based business student Chris Rooney was tasked with coming up with a new sustainable housing system for developing countries that would use recycled materials in the process. Upon assignment of this brief the first phone call made by Chris was to his father, Jim – […]

Solar buddy – mobile off-grid system on wheels

Green Sun Rising Inc. has developed and built a mobile solar off-grid system, the “solar buddy”. It can be wheeled around, can be directed to the sun for optimum harvest, and is a solar power generator. Perfectly quiet, its 240W DC module harvests solar energy and provides power for either direct use or battery charge. 1000 W AC 120V […]

An efficient and clean way to access water

For the many countries that are facing drought and dry conditions, access to clean and safe drinking water is a top priority. To answer this need, designers from the European team, CORDIS, have developed a desalinization process that utilizes solar power, is highly efficient and low cost. Current desalinization systems pressurize salt water to force […]

Play your way to clean electricity

Soccket brings electricity to developing nations. Soccket is a soccer ball that generates and stores energy while in play. This energy can be used as clean electricity, bringing light to many homes. Currently, many developing nations rely on kerosene lamps to supply light in the evening. These lamps are dangerous, they emit toxic fumes and […]

Sony protects forests in Sumatra

The technology giant, Sony, is working to protect the forests in Sumatra. In 2011, Sony began preservation efforts on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, with the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) Japan. The forests, full of rich biological diversity, have shrunk drastically. Now, radical action must be taken to save the wildlife. Recently, […]

Walk, run or bike to clean power

The nPOWER PEG harvests kinetic energy from motion such as walking, running or biking. It then uses this energy to charge hand-held electronic devices. The project is currently looking for funding on Indiegogo. The goal is to deliver 100 generators to high-risk areas that are off-the-grid, but that use mobile devices. “Over half a billion mobile […]

CDRN – an efficient way to give aid

The Corporate Disaster Resource Network is a supply chain management system that gives access to information, services and products that emergency humanitarian aid groups need. The mission of CDRN is, “Facilitating an efficient real time supply chain management system for effective deployment of resources – financial, material, volunteers and skilled professionals for preparedness, response and […]

Red Cross Alert App

The Red Cross just released its second emergency alert app. This new app focuses on hurricanes. In using the app, people can access local and up-to-date information about what to do before, during and after a hurricane. The previously released and first app from the Red Cross was on the topic of first aid. The […]

Solar Kiosk

The world’s first solar powered kiosk is helping developing nations to develop renewable energy while growing sustainable small business. This solar powered kiosk, designed by GRAFT Architects of Germany, opened in Lake Langano, Ethiopia. The small store provides local residents access to goods and offers power for battery charging. The kiosk has photovoltaic panels on […]

Floating satellite

The GATR-Com, developed by Paul Gierow, provides a method of communication in times of disaster. The floating beach-ball-like satellite dishes provide connections when the on-ground condition is compromised. The satellite balloon was tested and approved during the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. The device can be flat packed into two backpacks and assembled in 15 minutes. […]

Liter of Light

The project, Liter of Light offers a sustainable alternative to kerosene lamps traditionally used in homes in developing nations. Kerosene lamps are dangerous and they emit toxic gases and large amounts of CO2. MIT student Alfredo Moser, envisioned an alternative lighting system made of recycled plastic water bottles, functioning as solar lamps. Illac Diaz, a […]

Drought in the US grows worse

The US is currently experiencing the worst nation-wide drought since 1956. Last week, the areas under extreme drought conditions in key agricultural states tripled. Now, close to 2/3rds, that is, 56% of the nation is experiencing drought conditions.This is the worst drought that the country has experienced since 1956, when 58% of the country was […]