Instant Tent

Patrick Wharram’s Lightweight Emergency Shelter is a mini building that’s easy to transport and can be erected immediately. It won first place in nonprofit Design 21‘s ShelterMe competition in 2007. “For emergency shelter in the first few days after a disaster, the tent is a proven solution,” says Kate Stohr, co-founder of Architecture for Humanity. Wharram’s […]

Slumtube

Slumtube transforms pallets and other recycled materials into a semi-circular long house that is insulated from the heat and cold. The structure also makes use of other waste products like old formwork panels, straw and clay — materials which are both available and affordable. Three Austrian workers and five locals constructed the “Slumtube” in three months. […]

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 […]

Self-Sufficient Shelter in 5 Minutes

The Unthinkable: Who survives when disaster strikes – and why. The Daiwa Lease, a giant in the construction industry of Japan, has presented EDV-01: a module housing for natural disasters that seems to come out of a science fiction movie. The prefabricated units are carried via helicopter or truck and their setup takes just five […]

Basic equipment and supply

The Sphere Project has defined the basic equipment that a refugee person should be provided with. The equipment can be divided into what is needed per household and per person. Each household: Each household needs shelter for protection against climate and diseases, for privacy and social security, ideally including the possibility for subdivision and needs to […]

Paper Tube Housing by Shigeru Ban

Japanese architect Shigeru Ban designs intermediate emergency shelters made of paper tubing. He began working with cardboard tubing in cooperation with the UNHCR during the humanitarian crisis of war-torn Rwanda in 1994. Before his work, refugees were provided with aluminum poles and plastic sheeting for shelter construction. But as the aluminum poles gained good prices […]

Concrete Canvas

The British industrial design firm Crawford Brewin Ltd. developed a semi-permanent shelter for relief aid out of a material called concrete canvas. The package of materials for constructing the shelter consists of a canvas stained with a dry cement ratio united by a PVA adhesive and an inner layer of plastic sheeting, sealed in a […]

Icosa Village

Icosa Village designs and produces “the pod”, an intermediate shelter system constructed out of triangular panels, inspired by the geodesic structures of Buckminster Fuller. First, each triangular panel, consisting of a broad frame and a centered window opening, is folded from three pre-cut extruded polypropylene sheets to turn into a three dimensional body, 17,4 cm […]

IgluVillage

IgluVillage is an emergency housing and mobile accommodation system suitable for cold climates, fabricated out of solid polysterol foam. The accommodation units can be used both for providing housing in the event of a disaster, and for other applications, e.g., a field laboratory. Single elements are fabricated out of closed cell polysterol foam and are […]