..... . .. • ... .. .... .... ........ • •• ... .... . .. ... .......... .. . ...... ... .... .. . ... .. ......... .. ...

.. ..... ... .. .. .... ...

'II

• Oo"

, ••••••• ........ ........... ......... ......... ........

••••••••••

11

••

• •••••••
..... *
,'

••••••••

••

..

III • tI •

11 ...

••••••••

••••

•• ••

,.

.11

••

••

•• ••
....

•• •••
1

• •• '

••••••• ••••••• • •••••

..,
t .. .6 •••••

..

• 'tt

•••

• ••

••••••••••••••••••••••••• •••••••• ~ ••• tI ••• tI ••••••••

••• •••

~ ••••

..............
.............

P ••

'1

..
• tI •• ~ ••

••••••••• ..••• •.11.,.~ •••••• . ...........- •...•.. .~ •• ~ . • .

6 . ~ ••••

.. ..

..

.......
•• •••

....
•

~~ ••••••••• I

................. ............. • • . ..
4' ...

~• .

. .............. ~ ... .. .. .. ,
• ••••••••
4'

.......•. ~

...

~w •••••
• ..

"'

.. ~..

.. ....

•••••••••

.......

•• ...... ........ ......... •••••••• ......... .........

••••• ......... ....... ••• ••••• ......... •••• •••• .......... .... ........ •• •••••••
.... • II ....

..

..

.. ....
•

•••• _ill ...

.... ..,. .. ...

•• ...

.. ••

.... .

-....
.. .. ..
•••
t, ....

•••••••

• •••••

a:!:

•••

.. •• ..

..... .. ••

II. ...

•• .........•.
.111. •••

..... .... .... .. .. .• .. .• . • •

.. oil iii ••

II1II.

... ,
.....
•• ••

....

. ..

..

.. ... ..

018 INTRODUCTION I hope in a long li5t", Cg~ron Sinclair PERMANENT Humanitarian "'~'E Stohr Design TRANSITIONAL 140 Maas.i Integrated Shelter Project Inlermediate Technology Development Group

094 Transitional Commu nit)'

Dxfarn

100 Paper Church I Paper log

EMERGENCY 060 lightweight Emergency Tent 'jte of the United 'saucns High Commissioner ...Refugees Houses I Paper Tube Emergency Shelter Shiqeru Ban Architects

146 lucy Hau •• 120,O Hause Rural Studio '50 Hopi Nation Elder Home
Red FE-ather Development Group 15' Bayview Rural Village RBGe Architecture. Research & Urbanisrn INTERVIEW_ aurice D. Cox M Quinta Monroy Housing Project ELEMENTAL HouslOg Initiative [Taller de Ch1le

COM

UNITY

104 Super Adobe Cal,Earth

INTERVIEW'

GATHERING SPACES
196 Mason's Bend Chapel Rural Studio 20D Appirampattu Village Center Logan Allen 20' B.refaat College Barefoot AfChlteds

Nader Khalili

1'"

864 SheLter Frame Kit ....c-.d Shelters A, EItY Bruce LeBel

PaUet House l-Beern Design ,,,

117 Rubble House

LA Arc Meets

118 Low- Toth Balloon System

Iechnocreft 120 Extreme Housing Deborah Gans~d

208 HDmeboy Ineustries

168 Northern Ireland

Cross~Commun.ity Lnitiative Hablta- for Humanity Northern Ireland 1,70 Sistema Ani. Hierve-Dlseheria HOMELESSNESS

Detroit Collaborenve Design Center

210 Center for

0" Global
Tests

Village Shelters Ferrara Design

Matt .Jelactc
122 Prefabricated Core. JoIousing I Core- Housing Relief International

Disabled
University,

Workers
Technical Vienna

078 Burning Man Shelter

080 PodYille tees a Village

126 SafelRI Hause Harvard I MIT

130 Housing in Northern Afghanistan Shelter For Life 134 Mobile Nigran' Worker Housing IPink Houses with Greenhouses

212._Si~athemba SocceT "Clinic" Swee Hong Ng

082 Hexayurt
V,na,. Gupta
Q84

176 Huts and low-Riders

Mad Heuser's

216 Favela-Bairro

Unofficial

180 Dome Village

Jusucevilte. USA 184 First Step Housing

Projects Jorge Mario Jaurequi Architects

SIron9 Angel
Training Exe'reises Slrong Angel 086 Concrete Canvas Peter Brewsn and W Ira-n Crawford

WOMEN

Common Ground
Community 190

224 Rulisque Women's Centre

Holtrnen Reuter Architects Sandman

DeSign Ccrps

paraSITE
Michael Rakowitz

230 Shelter 2 Ch ristepher Livin g5ton I MOl:!an 1"1 State Umverslty t

••••••••••••••• ••••••••••••••••••• •• •••••••••••••••••••• •••••••••••• ••• • •••••••••• •• •• •• ••• • •• •• • •••• ••• ••••••••••••• •• •••• • ••••••••••••• •••••• •••••••••••••• ••••••• •• • •• ••••••••••••• •••• •• •••• • ••••••• ••• •• ••••••• ••• •••••• ••••• •••• ••••• ••••••••••• ••••• •••••••••• •••• ••••• •••

HEALTH 234 Mobile Hql.lth Clinic atelier [gflliland tolilal

285

watercone
Stephan Augustin

238

Alri<)' Centre lor Health am",Population studi ••

East Coast Architects

286

MoneyMaker Pumps KickStart

POLITICS, POLICY, AND PLANNING

302 sheLterproject shelterproject.org 304

244

Medwed Clinic
,MichaL Vital and Yuval Amir

EDUCAfl,ON
25D

287 Long-Lasting Antimalaria Sed Nets Acumen Fund I Sumitomo Chemical Corp.

Sphere Project Steering Committee

Humanitarian lntsrnctlon

for Response

Gando Primary School

Diebedo Francis Kere

288 Aquacube Sud-Chernie

289

306

256

Bamboo Primary School

theskyisbeautiful

Clean Hub System

Shelter Architecture

Roots.f Peace Heidi Kuhn, Gary Kuhn, end Kyleigh Kuhn

archrrectu re
26D Druk White Lotus Arup Associates 264
SChOD(

ENERGY 290 Power Shade FTL Design

EnginsE'ring Studio

30B European Greenbelt World Conservation Union

309 A Civitian Occupation:

School Solar Kitchen BASIC Initiative, College

of Architecture of Washington and

~
31 D

The Politics of Israeli

Architec;:ture

-RaflSega ( an d
Eyal WeiLman

291 Soba Dalkoi School

Solar Classroom Native American Phctovoltaics 292 HimaLayan. Rescue

Urban Planning, University US Hole-in-the-Wall Dr, Suqata Mira

A Bridge Too Far Chinese Univ~rsity of Hong Kong

Sleeping Bag Project

Project Locus

Schoots

312 Housing for Heetth

P~ul Pholeros, Stephan Ra inow, and Dr. Paul Torzillo 31' Viewing Platforms Stair to Park kea ..... Trash y 316

A5.ociation Pherich. Clinic Lotus EnoI<JY SANI'TATION

2'93 VIP Latrine Arup Associates

WATER, ENERGY~AND SANITATION

280

29' Living

Machine BASIC Initiative, Cotteqe of Architecture and urban Planning,

Finding Publie Space in the Margins

Center for Community Rese-arch and DeSign, Woodbury University

UniverSity of
Washington 296 Ecological Dry ToUet Cesar Anorve 297

318 City Without a Ghetto Center tor Urban

Hippo Water Roller Grant Gibb.

Pedagogy
320 Shrinking Shrinking Cities Ci-ies

282,playPump Roundabout OUld06r I~TEFvtEW Trevor Field

UnBothroom
William Hsu

324 Urban Acupuncture

Curitiba, Bra,il
331

BIBLIDGRAPHY

331, "BOUT TH E CONTRIBUTORS

We would

like to thank all the architects

and designers

who,

through the power of their creativity, help communities around he world embrace change. This book is dedicated to them

Acknowledgments
Cameron Sinclair and Kate Stohr

We wish to offer our sincere graciously support, contributed without which to thank the Graham

and heartfelt

thanks

to aillhose we would

who, like

Rebekah Jennifer

Hodgson; Lester;

Robin Huffman; Koshalek:

Timothy

Hursley:

Satu Jackson;

to this book. In particular Foundation this publication

Anne Kellner; Mike Loretice: Steven Meier; Murty: Daniel OToole: Charles

Richard

Mark Larnster: Chris Livingston; Matthews; Mitsumori;

The Leaf and Bean; Haria Loftus; McCutcheon; Muri, Falcon Deniz Orhun: Dave Schiff; • and all the

and the Lef Foundation

for their

Kevin Lippert;

would not have been possible.

Peter Lynch: laurie Matt Miller; Makoto Kreg

Purnima Toshiko Norgaard:

We apologize for any errors we may have made, whether errors 01 omission, cornrnission, or, in some cases, conversion of
measurements we apologize or currencies. They were unintentional. to give credit where attributions Likewise, credit is due for each if we have neglected

Robert Neuwirth;

"Superkrcq"

Chee Pearlman; Sam"

Paul Petrunia Fuller Sorkin;

and archlnect.corn. Snyder and the Alex Steffen

Susi Jane Platt; Michael Selchell; Buckminster Ann.lyn Fuller

Rios; Gregory Alan Rutchik: Shah; Allegra Michael Richard

We have done our best to provide accurate

made available to us. We have also made ever; attempt to identiFy accurately tile sources and authors
of all renderings, sketches, and photographs. effort. Many dedicated peopte toward Allison making Arien; it happen Fumihito We would Cynthia This book was truty a collaborative lent their time and talents especially Andrews; Barton; Paola Antonelli; Rick Bauer;

project based on the lnfurrnatton

Institute; writers;

wcrldchenqlnq.corn Paul Thompson; Raluca Winter; Montana DAP./Distributed

Marcia Stohr. Ted Stohr; Matthew Trumbull;

Susan Surface; Melissa Vaughn; of

Swan: Ambassador Asia Wright;

N. Swett; Susan 5~ Saenasy: and students Books, & Thames

Denise Tomasini;

Nicole Zaray: the faculty Inc. Pure+Applied,

like to thank Jason Andersen;

Ando; Peter Bell; Erin Bennett; Bryan Burkhart; Corum; Nevil Ric Grefe; Rick Hill:

State University

School of Architecture;

MetropOliS

Frith Banbury; Bloemink;

Art. Publishers.

Rick Bell; Bryan Bell: Robert Barbara Cohen-Litent: Melanie Kathryn

Paul Berger; Nicholas Nathan Eastwood;

Peter Bernstein;

Hudson. and 8eth Orser for working tirelessly under pressure to help us live up to the title of this book ...and many others who contributed in thought, spirit. or deed a broad array of projects deserving from a projects but there are many equally Our aim has been to incorporate wide range 01 regions, more that we we did not have room to include,

John Cary; Jonathan Crane;

Laura Cole; Mary Corneric. Cornwall; Drummer; Frankel; Nathaniel Tom Dutton; Ray Bastil:

S. Constantakis; Shaffiq Essajee:

Ian DaVIS; Madna Rodney Harber;

and there are no doubt hundreds

Doug Halsey;

Graham

Hill and TreeHugger;

have yet to discover. We invite you to tell us about them.

lntroduetlon

I hope it's a long list~ ..

Cameron Sinclair

On September 14, 2001, the Architecture for Hu ma n ity office phon e ra ng.
I should

vears old that connects aqencies, but where when !heY'needed a .strong cornrnunirv

their profession

with frontline community but there

Was

humanitarian groups turn

could

agencies,and

design services?

Th.e United State-s had always had no [n-ernstlonal

explain that the "ortice phor.ewas

v~hite working New York as an architectural
I~

actually

a, cell phone at the firm

desig.n movement,

I answered

designer

City.IA small corner of my cubicle that housed laptop Wi1S our "daytime headquarters."}: happened to be working on the relocation of Lehman Brothers after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center just a few days before. My colleague's and r were going flat out to help our corporate clients get back on their feet; many 01 us had watched the towers come down and were committed to dOing anything we could. The woman on the phone said she was calling on behati of' the United Nations High Commissioner lor Refugees (UNHCRI.
my personal She informed me that Architecture for Humanity was on a list of orgacr18tions that might be able to help with ref~g.e housing issues if America decided to launch a counterattack against suspected terrorist cells in AFghanistan, r laughed nervuusly and replied, "1 nope it's a long list" Incredibly, the answer was a brief and somber no. It was at that moment I realized that p eop!e. outside the design protess.on ad develDped an interest In our humble underta.king Architecture ior Humanity ls a chartteote organlzation that Kate Stohr, a treetance journalist and documentary producer, and t 'founded in 1999 to seek architectural solutions to humanitarian
r

Gensler'

body engag~d in reconstruction and devetcpment-cfor reesons wed an too soon discover, Architecture for Hu,man1ty began in response to the conflct iii
Kosovc. I had moved from London to New Y~rk and was working at a smell design firm as an associate designer. the fam::y title for a computer-aided designer. better known inside the profession as

a CAD monkey. The firm I worked for was developing international retail stores for American fashion and fragrance firms. After my
twenti.eth project in as many countries. lor I found myself desfgning

lipstick dispensers
highlighted enabling question inicrrret I

a store in a place where the average

benefited

weekly

salary Was equal to the cost of a s.ingle tipstck. the ways in which qloba.iaauon designers to work atrnost anywhere was whether discussions

This €_xperience our profession, to rospono During firms in the wortd. The real

we now also had an obliqetion

to some ot the social concerns

in areas where we worked.

in the office about the role of the architect.

fou-nt myself a lone voice, I also. found myself changiflg

I moved to l.auster & Radu Architects. which turned out to be an incredibly supportive environment. They had an international

crises and bring. design services

to communities

in need, Through

focus and had taken on 2 number of socially conscious projects, 1 was extremeLy fortunate to work on the restoration of Constantin

competitions, works ops, educational forums. partnerships with aid orqanizations. and other ectlvlties, we have sought to create opportunities for arcbrtects and desjqnera from around the world to respond to crises. But at he time 0; the World Trade Center attack, we had yet to build a single structure. 50 v/hy would a UN agency r ach out to us? We'd like to think it Wi)S because we had aready become a
voice for humanitarian movement .mtII19?9, for socially dastqn-c an unexpected conscious touchstone The sad truth in the

tu
Archltecture lor HllmanrtyOfficlfl_ (offkeCubl,~e}NewYorR, NY

i,91l9-2002

architecture

Is that

A'iE',age;r~umt!ero~vQIl!j)tl2'€rS_'l
Maximum number-of volunteC'rs_2

,vhen our fledgling

crgeruzetrcn

got started

along with"

na:ndful of others, there Vid_S no easily identifiable de.5'igr1'resource 'lor shelter after oisaster, and aid- groups were often lelt scrambling Icrhelp. Engineers had ReaR, an organization now more than 25
I

Area Dtsteocc toncerestcottee

Averaqe # ccttees per Mer-agewcrkoOl)'

oev

l.:;Q,n. :SOit' 3

10hour::o

UseaQ'Ie-Wcrkspa-c.e

191r:-~lOL5i'S Sf

tp

raL complex

in Tirgu Jiu, Romania, as welt as a

plan for the town. In New York

Afler t~lkil)g, with- Bob, we rethought

our approach

ar.d instead We hopeo

SU';:-~::;~E''''l

on a number of projects for unions, including "" '\eaUn r.::!l1ty for qarment workers. of the Union of Needletrades. ~s"",Land Textile Employees [UNITE). Fa, the first time in my
~ .Illl caree I also found a mentor 'in one. of the partners: Charles "Chuck" _'::.a'ste':r, whose practice as asstnstlcs. of architecture was as. much about ethics

j.~. 5- working

3 -year revitalization-

of working

en a solution

ourselves

decided to launch a competition our limited the

to design transitional housing for the returning refugees. the competition, which we planned to host online due to budget problem them (i.e.,

we

had no rnoneyl.

would raise awareness often relying paris

and funds

lor War Child's work. Heather,

and create useful stranqers ideas of complete

Chuck, and f rushed to research

in far-flung

criteria,

on the- h~lp Gild

of the globe, many of

A, aaout this time ~ happened to see a film by Dan Reed called The a.Jey. wh~ch depicted the ethnic Alberian uprising, in Kosovo during :~' [lof 1998, In ,llIages divided along ethnic.lines.Eerbs and ethnic' Albanians were systematically destroying each other's homes. (lve; time. Serb iorces adopted a scorched-earth approach. It became ;:q}:i'aren~ that not ol1ty families but also the history of a people was. b~jng eradicated. Soon after, the international cornrnunity intervened
to end the conHict.
K~50VO;S

camped in refuqee tents In Montenegro and. Albania, We also somehow talked Ra~iGastil into lending us 9allery space to hast the jury· andan exhibttion. At the time Ray was the executive dlrector of
the Van Alen Institute design in the public ill New York, a nonprofit dedicated to irnprovno

realm, What happened next was a blur. One day Chuck and I were talking abcut the lmpendinq housing crisis in Kosovo: a felNweeks later we
with Heather and Bianca Jagger at the Val) Alen tnstltute aboutto launch an international design competition

But even as aid organizations when the~f returned.

focused

on the

were sittinq

~U-.gnf 'Of refugees Heeing the country, a second: disaster awaited

residents With their homes in ruins and

in front of a room
only two In our

tull of press, having designed office surrounded

the poster fa, the competition later 'we were sitting entry boards.

abe reqion's infrastructure

collapsed, these displaced families would

hours before. And less {han two months by competition

nE€.o immediate and highly dispersed temporary housing. When I ~gg.ste.d responding 10 Kosovos potential housing crisis, Chuck

supported the idea and even got involved. I began researching refugee iSSUES, As the United Nations
'l€9dqu;;rrters
Wi)S

in New York, I phoned

them up. To my surprise

this

More than 220 design teams frorn 30 countries respond-ed to our call for entries. Their schemes ranged Irom the pragmatic to tile provocative. Designers proposed structures made fram everything trom rubble to inflatable- hemp [see "Rubble House" and "Low-Tech
Balloon negative a package Aweek Syste n"], Unfortunately, response. the competition also provoked a During the entry period we received a number One in particular mentioned tha: we might rec(2ive eno that opening. it might cause the H suggested to

Ied to an invitation

to meet with representatives

ol the UNHCR. Who

AAE'"...lt was that easy! At the rneetinq . Chuck and I were surprised by the UNCHR representatives' positive response. However, they aored that the UNHCR only dealt with reluge.s sovereiqn countries, and not people whe were, or' reternlnq lccated

of death threats.

lnta-nally

outside Iheir displaced

from Yugoslavia

recipient to lose a few limbs.

later a pacKa'ge .arrived from Belgrade. Chuck that he open it.]

to damaged Dr- destroyed homes. They suggested we contact '2 number of ncnqovernrnentet organizations (NGOsl that 'liefe already working on the Kosovo bor-der and would probably be responding inside the province-once the conilict ended. l started
""king C2t1S and eventually Wo, Cnild USA. She connected \"lea as refugees us with a spoke with Heather Harding LaGarde of

To our great relief and surprise

three young Ssrb designers, and Dmitrovic

it turned out to be an entry from

btrkcnjic. Uros Radosavljevic,

Kalarlrla

number of retief workers

It
SOOrl

in the field, as became

dear :h2t what was needed was not temporary shelter but some sort of medium-term or traositlcnat structure that returninq Kosovars could ~ive in while they rebuilt their homes. These conversations left us with a c:earer understanding of the needs of those on the ground-and a sense ihat we vsere 0\11 of our depth. A pllone call with Bob Ivy, the editor-in-chief of Architectural !record, brought this point home. Bob, playing devll's advocate queshone·d whether One deslqn te e m (based fn New Yc:rk with UUle
living in some of the camps. eroerience in refugee resettlementl could actually make a difference. Mayee one design team couldnt make a diflerence. I thought, but " ~'ifl1l!ndreds of architects and deSigners got involved"

Zoran Inside was a tetter statinq, "It is not us but our leaders who are doing this, We are not at war with these people, we want to help." We later learned that the team was working on the. project at night and volunteering during the clay for Otpur, the student-teo organization that would later playa key rote in
overthrowing had crossed the Serb president geographical Slobodan Milosevic. political The competition ones, too. boundsries=-and

From the entries

the jury selected

10 f,inalists and 20 honorable

mentions to be highLighted in the exnibiticn. Aft€r a successful run at the Van Men, the show traveled to London and Paris; three of the
entries were selected for the 2000 Venice Bienre!e the exhibition, .

$7QO to host. But by charging a small entry fee. we reised more tllan $5',000. Interest qe-iaratad by the exhibition and an appeal in the UK's Guardian newspaper helped raise another $100,000· Buoyed by the
T~€ project, including cost us less than

tact that we had not only several we tried to negotiate It building

feasible

designs of housing

but also fu,ding, units in Kosovo.

a number

would be our first confrontation with the brutal realities providing i tsrnanonat aid, In order to g@t building materials
customs, govern secure a site. get work permits, and facilitate

of through

other aspects

of a . ousi 9 program.
ent. However,

we needed
the Interim

approval from the interim Kosovo

government, which was seeking

aid frcm the international community, wanted 20,000 homes or none at all. We could build fewer than a dozen War Child negotiated with locaL officials to no avail; the p-ojoct ground 10 a batt. Short of building the structures in Albani2 and smuggling them across the border by helicopter-a pcesiblity we brlefty considered-we could
lind no way to get the shelters to those who needed them. In the end War Child used the funds to provide refugees and later to rebuild a lot during schools We learned immediate aid to the

retumiriq
we

and medical

facilities

the project,

First and foremost,

realized that I wasn't the only disillusioned CAD monkey and that architects and designers realty did want to make a difference. Second, it became clear that creating partnerships was essential to implementing a project, as ".'as on-the-ground support for negotiating red tape. We needed mote than a great idea to get something built Most irnoortent. we learned that H we wanted to get anything done, wed not only have to raise funds but also retain
control ol them. This is not to say that the designers lnltiative and built

competition
their

ended in ideas only, Many further on their own housing prototypes.

who €('Jten;d pursued

projects

functioning

transitional

Arc:hiter::ture for Humanity Transttionat Housing mmpeUtionjury members (left to riqht]: Architect Billie Tsien, Heather Harding LaG",rde of War Child USA, architect Ted WiLliams, Herb sturz of the Open S'ociety Institute, a rchttect Steven HoU and, ln the foreground, Elise Storck of USAm
I

Deborah Gens and Matt .Je lecic were awarded $100,000 from the Johnnie Walker "Keep Walking" Fund to develop their design Iseo "Extreme Housinq]: a prototype by Sean Godselt was exhibited and Shigeru at

Heather

Hardmq

I_;:Ci~nje!W.~r

Druld \!SA

the Widening found

AIDS pandemic.

Though we didn't

know it yet, we had health system in Kliptown,

the- Cooper Hewi t National

had first designed In competition 'Paper

Design Museum;

Ban, who

Our next project.

his Paper Log House to respond

to an earthquake

his native Japan, used the improved design he entered into our to respond to an earthquake in Turkey in 1999 (see
Log Houses"), of the Kosovo competition Kate and l qct married. it out on the and Sieven Ho!! were duking

II was apparent that the lack of a widely distributed was trapping thas.s communities. in poverty, Residents

for example, described how when one familY member was ill, another had to stay behind to look after her. In some instances that meant

,f
L

fn the middle

that now two wage earners

resident, sufferinq frustrated

and while Tod Williams

were not working. In many cases children had to leave school and get a job to put rood all the table, One
with the response frem the West, said, 'We need and families When one sees one's friends

~
~

jury, we were in South Africa. Within three days, however, our honeymoon was over. Suddenly we were sitting outside a 8P gas stauon using the pay phone to orqaniz e interviews and site visits, Kate had started reporting a storv on violence against women in
South Alrica, which at the time vilas nome to the highest I had connected with ~ number incidence

&'
~

real care, not awareness.

<tars at
to

each day, one ~s aware of the problem. We don't need pop giving concert s, we need doctors giving treatment." Kate and I

had one of those to walk Instead? for

"eureka

moments"

+insteed

of expecting

pat-ents to them Africa the

repa in the world,

of organizations Over the- course of

10 to 15 miles to see a doctor, This was the idea that inspired

why not bring doctors OlJTREACH,

Look at the severe Mousing rleeds in the country.

Design Ideas

tne next few weeks we darted between settlements. hospitals. rape eos.s centers, and nevI housing projects, Our assumption was that access to clean water and adequate housing would be tr e residents' highest priority: in tact, their bicqe st concern was health care and

HODlle Health CLinics to Cambal HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan

actually

12001-31 It would be a couple of years before we would competition. After the bittersweet

launch

end to our Kosovo experience.

-ransiUonal

Housing Competition

for Refugees Returning

to Kescvo
Transit{onat Housing Huimatalah and Llnders en van
Cars,sen

Rene Hellne and Jacques Vink with Linders en' van Dorssen Rotterdam, the Nether-lands Finalist

~~~..::'..:.'"

=~'N,-:-

Low-Tech Balloon System

TechnoCraft MClsahru suzukk lcht-c Katese.

Tekeshl Chiba, Takashl Kawano, Makoto Tsuchida with Masaharu Suzuki Tokyo. Japan FInalist

Extreme HO-l!Ising eens and Jeteete D-eborah sans. MaU Jelaclc

New York. N:Y. USA

Plnatist

.~-..... .""-=--1'_~;2.",;"'
1--

';;;.:;=

dZ?Z7 ~.~

.tfiilIlY !2'i.~.5-_

---

"...._-

~<e---

Transitiondt Housi~g KeenenlRiley John Keenen, Sleven Chang'r J;;lfl Oreberr, Nathan McRae New York, NY, liSA Hcnorable mention

o:::j:::::J

Be

~Jl

0uIT

'§

'"

~.:

CJ

~ ~
[f1]
I

if
.~

:\:;J
LJ

:8

~ we.

""ea~2ed that before takillg an a new project we first needed lo estebtishe nonprofit entity. MeanwhHe we also needed to earn some

call l.4()O designers,

medical

professionals.

and students

from over

erKate nor I received -a salary, we relied on our day lobs- to pay our bills. By now 1was working for Gensler and Kate was 'r e.encinq. (Many people, especietly writers, are amazed to learn ~ at Architecture for Hurnaruty has been partly funded by freelance 10urnabsr:l.) N lther job left much time- for extracurricular' activit.e s Sutl, we managed to enlist the pro bono services of Sieve Meier,
a tswyer wnh An:hitedure lrnost two Morrison and Foerster. 3nd who helped us incorporate

moneY' As neit

50 coururies responded. A total of 531 designs 25 percent more than for the Lower Manhattan Corporation's competruon for the Wortd Trade Here I should point out that the Architecture
was entry new also our one-room, "suite 3A:
0(1

were subrnrtted, Development Center complex. for Humanity "office

137-sq.-mJ entries apartment, arriveo at on ihe competition

400-square-foot

dubbed

and we had listed this address

form. So

November

1, 20Q2, all5flO-ptus
leaving us with

our doorstep Luckily

v~a t ree rnait trucks,

little space to work

superintendent.

for Humanity

years.

to get a final determination

apply for 5011c1l3i status. But il took letter from the Internal

or live in and resultmq

in one very befuddled

building

Rev.enlj e Service In the meantime

based architect, highlighting , aa lor the

surrounding board, and

I read a report by Rodney Harber, a,500th AIClca'196 wrote the tirst AmS brief for architects, how deSign could help those affected. It rekindled our OUTREACH project. and We began researching the Issues mobite health care. Rodney joined the project's advisory we started to enlist the support of dozens of others
who In" af"Jd prevention, a »crnber-

Ray Gasul and the Van Alen Institute came to our rescue again, this time not onLy providing space in which to store the cr-trres. run the jury, and host an exhibition. but also dcnatinq the services 0; the institute's program director. Jcnatt-an Cohen-Litant, who turned out to
be an orqanizationa A couple medical rigorous mobility, of weeks professionals and thorouqh, storage, wunderkioo tater end exhibition rnirecte worker. and issues of For exsrnpte. an Interoatinnat jury 01 architects revolvlnq around

met to g.o hraugh wlrh rtiscussions and community

the entries_ The prncess was involvement

wor:kir:g. in the field of HIV/A~DS awereness

sacuriry,

of whom also JOIned the advisory board. By late 2001, WIth the help of the advisory board and this ~xtended network 01 medica. professionals, we had developed
critarra for creafing d'ign~fled an(] effective and -nainter acceptance, mobile care, indlJd·ing ease of deptoyrnent pr fesaionals. ance by s small and cost.

cover

the jury believed that semiarticulated trucks would not be able to the region's difficult terrain, particularly durinq inclement This brouqht us to the now-infamous shied away frcm dependent scluuons but as a number "donkey debate." Many that used animals Jurors require type could

wearher.

of the jury members, up pomteo out, desiqns

leam of medical
We were gearing

as a means of transport.

of the Africa-based vehicle

community

on a spec.lie

to launch the project when 'he World Trade Center was attacked. Wren the UNHCR called Justa few days later, I felt conflicled Although we certainty did not have, the capacity 10 take on a project of that scale, it was a great opportunity to get architects and designel-s Involved in a UN initiative, We debsted wbet: er tc put tha Afnca
nrojer oressinq t all hold and focus issue. our attention on what seemed to be a more in Kenya, a terrible

It was an e-mail
Ye wrote:

from one of ihe doctors "You've Just experienced

that

made up our minds.

d.sasterlosiru; 3,000 people in one day, it IS truly horrific. Naturally l1le tccus will turn toward briilging those responsible to justice, ar d
projects tlke ours will be pushed to one side. However. the pain is just as the fact IS.
Ar~hitedure tor HIJmal1ityDffio:e ~2003~20Q5 New'(ork,NY
A"f,!rO:~f,!rJumb(>r¢r\,lc,[t.1l'!tefCrs~2 M3)(;fr)1.II'J'1nllrn!:i(!roflf~I'J!'ltMr5_5

Africa loses If seemed

twice thst many people e"ery day to AIDS, and alt' ough

t e toss is not as.vlsiole.

great-

obvious that 'we should

let others with mere Experience

respond to the UN.HCR call and 512\' iocused on Africa, In the e d We simply put out Q cett to arcnrtects in the area Interested in NOrk,ng With he United Nations. AlthQugh a srnatl qesture. this ab:~It'tto tap into a nelwcrk of protessfonats would become one of the rThlostImportant functions Architecture ior Humanity would perform. ot a month goes by wh-en we don'! connect an architect with a r'I!)I'toroflt. government entity, or community group-or vice versa. n the 5f1ring 012002 WE officially launched the Africa competition. Ageln, we were stunned by the response. During the five-month

ii_bov€ Competition boa-rds arrive at Architecture for Hurnanlty's "office" on 20th Street in New York.

Area ms~cmce1of"leares;:c(Jffl!e~j5iJfl Al.'crage fI coffees petdilY __

38<)sq. R. '

I U:se:ltl.e!WQrk~pal:e-

A\.'\'!:"Ag~ '.'/o(~d{Jy

it. hours,

maintenance consensus transportation

and spare parts difficult was that using appropriate modes-even

to obtein in many areas, The technology and a range of mobility and greater

donkeys-offered

access, Other siqnificant concerns included adequate and flexible

storage; the need to secure equipment and supplies in a lockable space during transport and at night; and creating ownership or the within the ccrnmuntty. Finally, recognizing the diversity

region in terms of geography and culture, the group favored designs that could be "localized" rather those thst were
"Atricanized. finalists f~fter two days of deliberation the jury selected four and eight notable entries, that might be considered medical less than fez sible but were. with

Over the course of the jury process vie also came across a number of designs clnjc as always, rhouqht-crovckinq. and strapped-in ptane into an unsuspecting The giant soccer ball, complete viLla'ge completely stumped

staff, that was to be ejected' from a the- Jury.

Images of bloodied and bruised doctors staggering cut (If the clinic after it had barreled its way through town came to mind. The oth r entry that certainly cab that "extended" raised eyebrows 0 arrival was th.e truck with a spherical in a high to unveil the dink

suggestive manner. Joking aside, a number

of the jury members images

felt that submission

boards that incorporated

of Africans

aillictad

with Hlv/A~OS,

and in some cases dYIng of starvation,

showed

thai teams were

designing with pity and not pride, The most successful projects Were submitted by interdisciplinary teams, which usually included a medical consultant, thai approached tho issue with dignity and optimism. The winnirrg were exhibited dirigibles,

designs,

along with othars that inspired

and museums donkey-powered designs

and informed,
and

at galleries

across the United States

and Europe. The show included high-tech

by JefF Alan Gard, detachable motorbikes. Kenya-based juror Reuben Mutiso selected it as a political steterne t on the inequity of global health care, noting, -If AIDS was at a rate in the United States that it is in Africa, we
would buiiding not be concerned with cost We would build these and keep urnerous them until we can put a stop to this pandemic."

and low-tech solutions, One notable entry, was an airship with a fully deployable clinic and

projects embraced similar themes, Africa Under Sieqe proposed a militaristic "pre-emptive stri~e" approach, whereas the proposal by
Soren Barr and Chris French involved vehicles seernfngly from Africa's lighthearted, commented converting tanks and military some civil war-s into ctrucs. One of our persona! Other designs. favorites top JLJry members review competition boards from the OUTREACH competition to design mobile health clinics to combat HIV/A10S.in subSaharan Atrlca.

on var-ious other struggles was the

facing the subcontinent. important college

Kenai
the for above Arvp enqineers from Botswana and South Afrka discuss structural issues of a mobile health clinic with its designers, Heide Schuster ami Wilfried Hofmann.

Field Clinic, a q-ow-your-cwn-clnlc

issue of nutrition. and high school students

d-es~9n,which hig.hlighted

As part of the project we also held a number of workshops

to learn about HIV/AIOS and

OUTREACH, Design

Ideas for Mobile Health

Clini~s to Combat

HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan

Africa
Mobile H-ealth Cltnle BeedhcLmm, Mads

Nikkel

Hansen;

Jan Sondergaard
KHRAS Architect,
Vi.rum, Den-mark

Firsi-place finatist

~_mrt~.

'"'·e flh.!l1L ...._ li1li:lmtm

_ c§i

,~§'.~~

-5~:]B.O.C.S ..M.E.D.S. ' Brend_an Harnett, Mir;heUe Myers Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Troy, NY, USA Second-place flnallst

Mobile rnterventten Heide Schuster, Witfried Hofmann University of Dortm und Dortmund, Germany Third-place finalist

MobilR Health Clinic Ga~ton ToUta, Nicholas Gfttiland at-elier [giLlil.and to Lila] Paris, France rounders Award

OUTREACH: Design Ideas for Mabil~ Health Clinics to Combat HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan

Africa

"='-::;:;==="""

p-_ ~

....

Africa Under Seige Craig Coulton. Marc.el Bathil Lcnden. England, and Cape Town, South Africa

Mobile Health Clinic Detroit Collaborative Design Center Dan Pitera, Chris lee. Christina Heximer, Andrew Detroit. Mich., USA

Sturm

Heallh Over War Saran Barr. Chris Frsnch Washington. DC, USA

Kenaf Field Cljnic Kyoto University Hlrchlde ,Kobayashi with Takeyuki Okubo, Koichi Shiwaku, Shohei Yokoyama, Ayako Fujieda, Takeyuki Yamadi" Yohei Kondo, Tcru Fuk'mo Kyoto, Japan

Mobile Health Cline JAG Design Jeff Alan Gar'd San Francisco, Calif., USA

Mobile Clinic Prototype for Lagos, Nigeria Pierre B~langer. MLA; Owens Wiwa. MPH, MD University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada Pierre Belanger, a landscape architect at the Univer5ity of TQTQ!'1tn, and OWens Wfwa, a doctor, adapted a Vario S1l;O into a mobile health clinic.

Men:ede5-Senz Ald-Mobil PanitButter Linus Lam, Denise Lam Winnipeg, Canada

lop, their entry was selectee lor ex!'lfbitlon. abov-e, a prototype

0' the cunte in production

IN,

'"," health care in developing countries. In New York an attar-school program organized a group- of high schoclers fram Harlem to visit the exbibiuon.f Untorumately their teacher had written- down the address of our "office," not the gallery, and while I was wailing 031the Van Alen, Kate found herself with 30 bemused studio, au lining up to us€' the bathroom atter teenagers in our tiny

been disci.ssinq designs percent without $30,OGO

it, few programs

had been irnnlernented. in some

One of the these

hard lessons that came out of the project were contextual funding and affordable. less than a permanent to maintain almost to produce,

was that even though

cases costing 80
cost

clinic. they could not be implemented would be needed to run it At one point and let to that from

the facility" And while a clinic might $1.5 million drugs for Ihe community, into the "office," researching

a Long subway ride.l By the end of 2003 the OUTREACH exhibit had been viewed by over ~O.OOO people and covered in many publicatlcns. and it seemed
p-ollhcians were finaUy taking the threat of AIDS in Africa seriously. In May 2003 President worldwide Emergency centers areas, thai support Bush Signed into law a five-year, $15 billion PLan for AIDS Retief, A key component of a layered clinics network of central units medical satellite and mobile in rural

and provide antiretroviral

We spent most of 2002 and 2003 appLying fer grants. we had five people all crammed

contacting hundreds of rcundat.ons. We soon learned that there were very few grants dedicated to building health-care facilities,
alone mobile architecture, our medical operatic health-care facilities, and almosl required no funds dedicated toundauons applications More frustrating, partners, Ihe heallh-oriented

called for the development

According to the plan these ctlnks wouLd be staffed by lay

did offer funding

lor new infrastructure

technicians, possibty rotating nurses, and local healers, who would be trained in standard clinical evaluation and the d.stribution of medicaticn. exactlyl We were taken aback, as the wording mirrored lalrncst the criteria we hod published on the Web a year earuer,

who were quue rightly

too busy with day-to-day grant application.

ns to take time out to write

yet another

At one low point we were turned down for 13 grant for which we hadnt even a apllec. We·ve since focused much of our energy On buitdlng

Some have suggesled the adrnlnistration might have been honing 115 "cut-and-paste" skills during the last rewrite of its plan, Either way,

a donor base, turning Architecture

conduit
50

for Humanity groups

into a fundraisinq looking for funding

thai architects

and community

it showed that much of what we had been advocating

and had actually made it into polcy in funding the project.

had broad

for community but that wasn't

des-ign projects

now have a place to turn failed for lack of funding, made the role of the In

support

It wouLd be easy to say the project For example,

Yet there was little interest

the only reason, We hadn't couldn't

when the New York Times ran a two-page story on Ihe project, the writer briefly mentioned that Kate and I had also started something

archltsct
process, project. license

c-

or

the commitment required-dear

the development
to focus on the rights Ooe of to

Many architects

take lime off work property between

called the Uncoordinated

are "athletically chetlenqed."

Soccer Leaque. fo-fhose

The article qenereted

among

us Who five limes 035

We also hit a snag over inrellectuai Mads Hansen, was caught his team's

the finalists,

a firm that wanted

many inquiries about the soccer team as it aid offers to support OUTREACH, By the sp-mq of 2004, however, we had raised enough
donations, including sponsorship from Virgin Atlantic, to send Ihe top lour design teams to Somkhetc, 50ulh Africa, one 01 the areas hardest hit by the virus, to participate in a developmant workshop The workshop, and Population to col.abor-ate representatives, cohosted

situation
Centre's attention, conference

left the

idea and his desire to lrnplement the project. This asiqn-c-and us~ in an awkward statecf limbo and to pursue the project, a prototype continues despite the Africa for building of the design to garner

made it nearly impossible enthusiasm In Nonetheless,

the OUTREACH project

by the Africa Centre lor Health

for design teams relief organization experts and trensportat.on members, engineers.

Studies. was an opportunity with community local doctors,

2005 we presentee the projects at an internatlonel on mobile health care, where a representative from
Institutes of Health thanked us for opening their eyes

the Nationat

to develop and refine the" projects, The teams also visited a range 01 clinics and clinic types In the area, allOWing them to see Ilrsthanc the needs of health-core DUring the charrette and other potential the Africa Research p.rtn@ring prcfessionals partners, battling the HIV!AIOS pandemic. with the four teams wcrksc

to other ways of deli .... er-ing mobile care. Moreover, as the cost of antiretrovirat drugs has dropped, thanks in part to the Clinton Foundation and countries like Brazil that embraced gen.eric drugs,
the concept forward workshop atelier of rno bile ce re has beta me even more viable a number of designers pushed projects on their own. Alter the African formed
10

medical groups
trip both the AIDS interest in

Also . as with the Kosovo endeavor, with developing [gllUland Clinic"] the team of Nicholas

At the end of the two-week E55aJee, who directed

Centre and Dr, 5haffiq

GilLiland and Gaston Tolla of their concept

and Family Care Clinic in Mombese, with uvc-if we could find the funding the idea to doctors lhat mobile out, although

Kenya. and had to bUILd a prototype and other health care had been had the. profession

to Lila] and bUILt a prototype at the Pcrnpidou and IS currently working

served an both our advisory When we started p-utessicna.s. aco"nrl for decades, pitching

board and our jury, expressed

scale lor an exhibition

Health

Center in Parls lsee "Mobile to design a health center

we had thought

medical

in Tanzania. Pierre Belanger, who teaches landscape architecture at the University of Toronto and whose design was selected for the exhibition as .one of the most pragmatic solutions.

As it turned

teamed

Siyathemba l:ompetltion to Design a Soccer "Clinic"

i ::
!
" F

:::

Srylthemba Youth soccer Pitch S«ee Hong Ng

PTttsburgh. Penn., USA

Scmkhele's Market Square Tim Denis, David Malhais

Basildon, EngLand

~iI"st-place, finalist

Sec.ond-plac.e finalist

SMA e Shelter linInthi. Dietmar ?ilInzenbtick ~d and Bern. Switzerland

~finalist

Fed Ex POlk ts ptayground

Takuya Onishi

REDEK Bangkok, Thailand

Notable .ntry

up with Owens Wiwa, a physician

from the university's and W,wa modified

Centre for

~ International

Health and a native of Nigeria. Using the university's

lab, Belanger a Mercedes-

rapid prototyping operational Matthew students, rural Perhaps a relationship

Benz Varia 814 cargo panel van to create a self-contained, fully medical clinic. The clinic is 110W in use on the A3 highway In southeastern Nigeria, Finally, Geoff Piper, Jamie Fleming. and
Sullivan, adapted a learn of former three motorcycles University of Washington medical units for into mobile enabled

areas in Kenya.
more important, the project us to develop led to our wilh lhe Africa Centre, which eventually center

third desiqn competition

and al project to develop a soccer club

[see'Siyalhemba

that would double as a health outreach Soccer 'Clinic"'),

As support for Architecture for Humanity grew, we received more and more requests from people and groups wantjng to volunteer or get involved in their own communities. Beginning in late 2003 "AFH chapters" a month desiqners greening women's in bars began sprouting up around the world, whether we Emily Chaffee. Karin Sc:hierhotd. and Tiona Martin go over urban planning str'ategies. for nver-tha- Rhlne in Cincinnati, Ohio,
CaiTJ~roll Sill~lair/ArthltHturl" Inr Humanity

were ready or not, the community.

By 2004 hundreds of people were meeting once or restaurants to discuss ways of gjving back to
local group, and a for

In New York City, home of the largest

are providing free services for the rehabilitation

of ABC No Rio, a community shelter

space in the East Village;

redesign;

and

targ'eled improvements

The Point

University's in Cincinnati,

Center

for Community

Engag-ement

in

Over-the-Rhine,
2004 In

CDC, a community

center in Ihe South Bronx, of a group when

Ohio, The project was held in September

Often we would only find out about the activnies

a local representative

would contact us, Usually this meant a phone

project on the US/Mexico border. Is that

call along the lines of 'Hi. This is the head of AFH San Diego, and we want 10 start a building OK?- As far as we know, in the United States there are active groups in around 30 cities including Atlanta. Boston, Minneapolis, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle. Internationally there are groups In Dublin, Genoa, London, herself and Sydney.

Along the way we've worked with a number

ASia Wdght introduced long we were travelinq the country

of remarkable
and

people.

commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of Freedom Summer and invotved over 65 architects, desiqners, and cornrnunuy members, including an original Freedom Summer civil rights leader. It used design to encourage voter registration, develop urban planning strategies, and inspire community participation in Over-the-Rhine, a disenfranchised neighborhood. Over-time Architecture for Humanity became a conduit, supporting innovative design and creating opportunities for architects to lend their services in times of need. For example, when the city ot Bam,
Iran, suffered a monumental structures combined earthquake on December a US-based 26,2003, we helped raise funds for Relief International, NGO that had

as our events coordinator, giving guerilla

before

talks at colleges

and community groups.

and start working middle of our grant-wriling

People would randomly

marathon Frankel

show up at our office

appeared and making in the

created

innovative

in the region after an earthquake

earthquake-resistant Ferrara housing

two
using

Dave Schiff and Susan Surface

years earlier,

to build innovative

and felt Ihe lull brunt of the

steel subtrames
Village Shelters

with local mud-block

Village Shelters"),

construction, of Global Shelters, with the government

unsex), side of this work. A number

on this book, notably hours to every corner up from Detroit middle We announced workshops. Kalhryn

of contributors
and Cynthia

researchers
said calls at all up in the Both

Later in the year we connected Isee "Global of Grenada. The father-daughter

Design, designers

Bartoo,

they waled to get involved and found themselves of the globe, Most recently, In his Airstream,

leam behind Global Village

Matt Miller turned

and Laura Cole showed big mistake,

Daniel and Mia Ferrara, had designed an innovative foldable cardboard shelter, which they believed could be used in postdlsaster and other emergency manufacture Grenada situations, prototypes They had partnered ot th€ design, with Weyerhaeuser to which cost only $370 each. but At about this time millions of Ivan, causing

of a road trip with her dog. Ginger. from Memphis. they had some time to help outIn our largest

have also joined forces with universities

to host design/build with Miami

they needed help 10 get Ihe shelters had just been ravaged

field-tested.

to date we collaborated

by Hurricane

: '" e and right AoFHny wa.rked w~th The Point _DC to treate, a phased plan cf erevemeets to their building !6.enlified by letters to the of the planl. The fir-st project 3e realized is a system of y ng and storage. which wa~ ed by The Peint and a grant Architecture for Humanity.
~;lr!

a SECONDFLOORCu.ss~OOM
~H.oiitIill""'IiII"·_WN

: ........ ~~ ... , ... ~

b MAN~DASTR.EET GAn;
~1~_"lIIo:I'IOrtllHQ'"

'ItH'" tI;o;Ittillg n..,-;y

.-bIII __

pU! willi

-... ·s point team atop storage SIIit:s oeing built for the building·s Left 10 right: Jack Heaney.

d~'.------':';:_ e~-.,-.--~.f

C COUATVAflD

-~~----~ /
: ...,.~~1II

.wbey lcecrdinatcrl,

nna 'Rhee, Jason Gibbs, c.nie' Sobo. Jan Kan (not pictured: _Groff).

_._

MUSlCSlUDIO:

-"""-,/.."""-

=:

dollars of damage. decimating 85 percent of the housing stock. and wiping out almost all of the island's main cash crap, nutmeq With no oostdrsaster many months getting Spear In response volunteer effort underway. relief plan in place and scant media attention, efforts to begin. Just as construction into the island. and connected and shelters GR3. which the to with the help of l.aurinda firm Arquitectonica for Humanity Relief, Emily slammed disaster.

In the days following a small fishing village Shah. an experienced

the tsunami designer

we became

involved

in Kirinda. as

on the southeast

coast of Sri Lanka. Samir to be in the country

it took
was

who happened

for recovery Hurricane

a Fulbright scholar and would soon become our on-the-ground field rep. brought the project to our attention. He had joined forces with a team of local architects. including Pradeep Kodlkara. veruna de Silva. and 5anath Liyanage. to assess the damage in Kirinda. which had been hard hit by the sea surge. Eventually the team volunteered its services to the governmenl Planning community integrate as the Urban Development a strategy Authority Kirinda worked with the Team. For the next two months to develop the architects

to this second Fort-Spear, Design

of the Miami-based Marisa

architecture Architecture in Grenada

Mia and Dan with officials between Ferrara Reconstruction the island is alliliated

and helped fund a collaborative Recovery, 70 transitional clinks.

and Grenada we shipped homes Medical School.

[GR3i. Together

for a sustainable

town plan that would

for use as temporary with SI. George's

and rural

both economic and civic nodes as well as connect

communities However. would before Architecture for Hurnantv tawn the civic and community the new Kirinda have to be conducted

wi1h the
called what of the in Sri

helped distribute

newer resettled for

committed

units and made sure they got to those most in need. In another instance, the nonprofit Kids with Cameras help develop brothels University. initial schematic ptans for a school in Calcutta, India, We worked with students

to help the team implement asked us to of the State

buildmqs

in the

plan.

plan could be

for children

approved,

a survey

to demarcate

at Montana

where l was teaching

at the time, to create seven potentia!

came to be known as the 1DO-Meter Line. In the first few weeks after the tsunami affected deemed lanka countries too started to implement

the governments Regul.ations

schemes. After a series of reviews the students refined their ideas for final presentation to KJds with Cameras at the end of the sernaster; The design process 1aunch a t.indraisnq Overall. helped the organization campaign have inspired solidify their plans and to think to build the school. planners and others

"no-build'

zones. areas

dose 10 the shore for salle building.

called for a 'lllll-rneter

buffer zone from the shore. but how measured was set;

the line was measured from the shoreline,

varied. In some cases surveyors

our projects

in other cases from the beach, and in still others

creatively about how to solve issues in their community. For example, the Kansas City Economic Development Corporation used our
Slyathemba an abandoned setting competition to build a soccer club that would them through

from the nearest landmark. In Kirinda a line of 100 meters but the team was not too concerned, as this did not affect tor rebuilding. However. most tense day was when a government surveyor started

its. plan
placinq

health outreach center as a model to persuade city counselors

lot into a park. We talked of their up a design initiative and gave them suggestions

double as a to turn of

the line began to move week by week. The

the process on how to

plan a des~9n competition

own
when a 9.3-magnitude the deadliest of miles, tsunami in the pummeling

Then. on December 26.200". Architecture for Humanity went from bemg a small design group to being a design-oriented organization Iwith an offrce] seemingly earthquake recorded
In

overnight.

the Indian Ocean unleashed thousands

history. Waves traveled The tsunami

coasts of countries and Somalia.

In

as far apart as Indonesia,

the Maldives.

Sri Lanka,

took the lives of more than 225.000 people displaced. The Indonesian by

13 countries

and left over four million

province of Aceh and the coastline of Sri Lanka. both impoverished years of conflict before the disaster struck, were hardest hit. This was a key moment, the entire Immense, concerns movement not just for our organization conscious design. but for memory task that initiative for socially
110t

The need was humanitarian

and th!s was one of the first disasters was focused but also on the enormity

in recent

where attention

only on the immediate of the reconstruction be our largest

lay ahead. We partnered bring design services date-and

with wortdcoanqinq.corn

to raise funds to to
Cameroo5illciairJAtl::hite<:tuf'\' lor Humanity

to the area, It would

the most complex.

stakes in the ground. took the measurement community began

Rather

Ihen measuring

from the shore, he to the ocean, so that in along. Upset, the

from the road closest the stakes

some areas the line moved inland as far as 300 meters. pulling out behind This would have been comical line would determine be torn down, The architects the plall, during representatives the line should

him as he went

if it had not been for the fact that the and whose would into refining that the

whose homes would remain Then, four months

: '"

.
..

persevered,

a large community meeting. government of the Urban Development Authority decided move even farther farther for their inland to include main road-even if thai meant

every building own were

an the ocean side of Kirinda's

line was 500 meters quidelines receiving prescribed. approval

inland than the government's plan three times, the architects

For the team it was the final blow. After board with no assurances that the tine would members lost faith in the process, and In tate Octaber-1 0 months

back at the drawing stay put, Community

.«onstruction JI.~designed JJanage

·-ow

_"'.

reconstruction plan for Kirinda. Sri Lanka, showing the shifting 100-Meter by Samir Shah. Pradeep Kedlkara, varuna de SiLva, and Sanath

came to a standstill.

after the tsunami, with no approved plan and residents still sleeping in tents-the line moved again. this lime to 50 meters from the shore-in gavernmenfs other words, zoning 50 meters farther inland than lhe for original regulation. is not an Isolated incident;

Sadly, what happened

at Kirinda

:tarlntpd pegs in Kirinda. Sri Lanka, mark where it is sate to rebuild. 5Gr'Yeyors would often place pegs such that the 1DO-Metar Line ran through "IIC!"Tl!S that hiJd been untouched by the tsunami. The extended tamily pictured 'W!R'was toLd th~t their h;ome_~~~t~ beca~se ~l~rossed ove~ 100-Meter Lme, Th;r.:were also told l.ha1 they we"'-tl!!!ellglble for housmg .I$SIstance becausv.helr home was stllt :sland I n91and halff:lf.it-.w..ilL AQt.ed on the safE. side of the line. At the time there were 1'1' eople li;ing p thlss1ructur:e.
5int(au-IArcn'tel:tlJ~I"rHlJmetl'ly

the most part the relief and reconstruction effort was chaotic and crippled by bureaucracy. Competition for projects between hundreds 01 groups led to detays, duplication of efforts, and community ~esenlment. (In Sri Lanka alone there are now more than 1,000 /"NGOs working on tsunami-related projects.] V. rious decrees a ,. ., _ from governm~nt mtmstnes dictated the minimum standards and fun.dlng commitments aid agencies could make in order to receive government support for the construction of housmq and schools in many instances these were in direct conflict with each other, and the ever-changing aid agencies for the same agencies. initiate project standards official resulted in stagnation, Often multiple government h. helped schools. that would designed interning drew received further memorandums and delaymg including of understandinq construction. with Relief

on the same

site from different

cornpllcetlnq of projects,

Still, before Samir left to return a number International enable students on a project to return permanent to design to school facilities,

to the Uoited 5tates partnerlnq and build transitional structure plans. during

The goal was to design take to rebuild

a bask cost-effective

the two years it would

The resulting

by Jason Andersen, a student at Montana State University in our office. with input trom Samir and Relief International, from the regional systems, crews, many vernacular made and included up largely materials rainwater Simple and flexible, of them different the .scberne allowed of parents. and building

collection
local construction the design With

to adapt methods

to accommodate

Nine months after the tsunami crasses in Pcttivul, Sri Lanka, were being heLd under ptasttc tarps provided by UNICEF.
"'~I"O"
5;ru::i.a ~/Ardll~'(IUrt! lor

Hi,lm.allizy

-rqht Three transitional seneets were implemented in the Ampara Ois1rict of Sri lanka by Relief International and buUt and adapted by the par-en's of the children attending. The schools were designed using toeal materials and are to last from two to four years. before permanent facilities are construcfed,
SUS] P'attiAr,r,iteo;llIre lor
HUl'r\l!l'lIt~'

be-tow Rendering of a transitional sc:tmol designed by Jason Andersen with Alan Wright of Relief International. The school incorporates a rainwater collection system and is designed

to maximize ventilation.
_'as<:'fi

jl"r;l~rs~lA'tMEtt\lre

fer Humam!i'

above left An:hitec, Purnima McCutcheon (seated ~t center} leads workshops with a Dalit community in i\mbedkar Nagar, Tamil Nildu, India, to d,esign a community' center, lett and below The resulting, elevatiDns and plans for tha commuoit'l center, whic:h ine:Ludes a meeting nau, primary sehoul. women's cooperative, kitchen, tb.,ter, and playground.
Pl'"lrn'm~

above rjght Villagers creete an adjacency diiillgr.un to establi&h the sile for the new-comml.ilnity center.
PLJrr.ima MeC~lcfle-critArdntKlYI"I! fer l-4um.. n't~

MtCul(he(lrllt..r.:hM,dur-e

for 'Htlmonity

~ funding from Architecture for Humanity, five transitional

were built throughout Meanwhile, the Ampar. in Brita.n, region. site architect picked up where
10

schools
on

We also have supported

student-led

community

rebuilding

Susi Jane Platt,' projects in the same area including center.

who had worked Samir schools, a number

initiatives, including a joint effort by the Harvard Graduate School of Design and MIT's SENSEable City Laboratory (see "SafelR) House"],

large-scale
now working

left off. She is of communilya medical design

as well as a project to build a women's

India, that was instigated and designed

collaborative

near

Auraville,

impLement

by Travis Eby and Lauren of Cincinnati.

based projects, Architecture services

women-run

bakeries,

Farquhar, two students

from the University

dink, and a livelihoods

for a number

for Hurnanltv

is also 'funding and providing by the tsunami.

of reconstruction

projects In Tamil Nndu.

Here we have

Just as our tsunami projects were gelting underway there came a new disaster. For years experts had warned of the dangers of a dir-ect hit from" Category 4 or 5 hurricane to the city of New Orleans, "Though storms, trapped the protected by levees designed to Withstand the most common can. gel

lndra, which was also badly affected

partnered with the League of Education and DevelopmenllLEAO!, an affiliate of the Barefoot Archite cts lsee "Barefoot Cotleqe"]. and AIAregistered, LEED-certified architect centers Pumima making McCutcheon it impossible to design for people to to

New Orleans is surrounded

for weeks

by water and is well below sea

hurricane warned a

leveL at m~tny points. A flood from a powerful inside the levee system,' On August ground

2002 expose In
gathered as

and build three community

raised the water to wade across

and a new pier since the tsunami 350 students

Irom walking decided to captain

Times-Picayune

29, 2005, Hurricane

1235-km-per-hourl levee system,

Katrina

level of an estuary, it and preventing

speed and lorce and touched

near New Orleans

Category path the

some

4 storm. The 145-mile-per-hour

of destruction surge breached the New Orleans

winds cut" turning

school.
Rather than build an expensive bridge, Ihe community fisherman build a pier that wilL enable a boat to ferry students across the river.

across the Gulf Coast region. As predicted, effectively

the storm

city into a bowl 10 be filled with water. Flooding of Ihe city under water disaster weeks outstripped later: Together, and was compounded as high as the capacity tile storms

[Parents have joined together

Ihe boat.]

to pay a former

submerged 80 percent 20 feet lsi' m! in some places, The Rita hit Texas Less than four reminder of the shelf .• r before-not after-the

of offcials at all levels to respond served as a stark

when Hurricane emergency

need to plan for regional

inevitable happens. Horrified Americans watched bodies floating in the flood waters and thousands in unsafe and unsanitary center, shelter through diaspora pleading for help. more thar. a million leither vovchers! The storms displaced conditions

TV footage of 01 people, stranded convention

in the New Orleans

people, who found and family or

in temporary FEMA's rental

housing

with friends recovery

in more than &8 stares, The and made it difficult

has complicated

the area's

for residents
controversial and desiqners effort.

to have a voice in families former

reconstruction. FEMA has proposed temporary trailer parks. each' to house between 200
for the short term. temporary residences is working centers shelter In response many that could be 511ed wilt take, in the access not

300 displaced

have proposed

on or near families' Architecture

ArdIiiectul"tl Sazeman,,.,r for Humanity Offit~ _Z1J05

to help speed the recovery with community centers

White it is too early lo say what shape the rebuilding far Humanity assistance wiU that will give residents

regian to create resource only 10 financial hope the centers rebuild Just five weeks catestrophic reeling

but also to architectural services. We become places where families will come to communities. and Rita struck, a region and left the world Katrina

AVH<I'9f'flumberolvoll.lnleers,_4 Ma.:I!fm~m nLJmtJll["ur 'i,r~~un(eers_1 Area 1!lIJDsq.lt. DISI':-I'!ce10 neerestcouee __ 10n Average M;oflee$ perdo!y __ 5 "'ie~gewor'kdi'l'l' 17.Snours ~~"Ih3obl-[~spaC<f

their lives and more sustainable after hurricanes earthquake hit the Kashmir

yet again. On their own each of these disasters the government agencies Coming as they did Within months

was of a scale
with

that overwhelmed responding.

and NGOs charged of each other, the

result

was a disaster

wllhm

a disaster: to react.

Kashmir

was particularly

affected

by the Lack at capacity of them children over two million aid, officials

a considerable amount of time and effort and is understandably reluctant to qive her design away, for fear someone could "steal" for profit. that

As we write this text, over 87,000 people have died from the quake-many collapsed-and real danger winter. illness, Without who attended the 6,000 schools Himalayan death people have been displaced. The

As a result we are currently working with Creative Commons,

nonprofit design that offers flexible services copyright licenses for creative of architectural works. to develop a licen.sing system on an existing the developed developing license for the donation

a
and in ii"'1 of

is yet to come with the onset of the brutal say. thousands multiplyiriq potentially

coutc die of exposure, the original

in areas of great need. This system worLd while giIJing her varying degrees

is to be based protection of control

and infection,

that allows the holder copyright

toll several times. over. Within weeks agencies ran out of tents, leaving aver 500,000 people without shelter. (In one of life's sad ironies, Since learned We
SOOrl

nations.

Using this license we hope to build a database designs, including construction documents, ideas. of mnovative

Pakistan tents.

has beer. one of the world's

largest

producers we ha v e had we thought projects. we

of

"some
50

rights

protected

emergency

I
of Architecture for Humanity, Initially on small of success and failure, organization and with every project we've a tittle further. focused

that there can be a wider distribution By supporting innovative professionals for designers with projects

the inception

design, consultinq

with NGOs, and

varying degrees ours would I;nd although have managed

In

connecting opportunities

in the field, we're creating

much and progressed be a small discovered that there

to get involved and to bring their services

is no such thing as a small project.

only a dozen buildings, as a conduit for change of

to those in need. We have demonstrated, and hope to continue to do so, that for every "celebrity architect" there are hundreds of designers around the world, working under the ideal that It is This with In some cases of collaborating have pursued to learn not Just how we build but what we build that truly matters. book represents just a sampling directly. of their efforts. Architecture for Humanity has had the pleasure ln other cases designers

we have constructed

to create a solid foundation

the industry. In the future our goal is to create an open-source while still protecting the rights network solutions of the designer.

mnovanve allowed • lleviate

these designers

-,me and again we have come across a buiLding idea to develop, could make a huge impact many gLobal housinq crises. Yet the designer

that, if
help has invested

and possibly

their ideas independently about their work .

and It Simply has been a pleasure

unity meeting M!nt,.INm

-

faCilitated

by architect

Susi

J,ne PLatt in Pottuvi', Sri Lanka. to design wamen-..-un cDmmunity bakltrie:s as part of a livelihoDds initiative,

memberS

tatk with the new'y fDrmed cooperatives.

IArrnileclulllfcrHun'lOIIl'>ity

100 Years of Humanitarian Design

Kate Stohr

!
,.
2~ ~ ~

At 5:18 in the morning on April 18, 1906, the earth heaved beneath San Francisco, California,
The earthquake lasted for less than a minute, shearing facades off euddinqs. rippin.g houses from their foundations. and opening a rift in ,he ground survivor. 270 miles (435 krnl lonq and up to 21 feet (6,4 ml deep, "It crushed a man as if he were a

In the immediate

aftermath

of the earthquake

and fires, the

US Army, a citizens' committee Franciscans, and the American established onty

made up of 50 prominent San Red Cross, which had been

25 years before, were the first and primarv aqenctes

to respond, Survivors who had the means either left the city or roomed with friends or relatives outside of I~e burned district.
Those who remained working Initially provided were those With little alternative, primarily the poor and the destitute the Army, the American tents. But as aid workers Red Cross, and volunteers and offtcials families shifted their focus of grants creditin the combination

'!

i.

,as as if the earth was slipping gently from under our feet:" wrote one
"Ahead of me a great cornice

",aggot"l But if damage b-orn the earthquake was extensive. the fires that ~c,lawed were catastrophic. With its rows of closely spaced wooden
ictorian homes and unrainfcrce d brick buildings. San Francisco at the "urn. of the century was a tinderbox awaiting a match. The fires raged

from relief to

recovery and reconstruction.a

and loans were given to middle-class couLd afford to purchase worthiness However, "refugees" to support more than. the building month

who owned land lor housing

landl and who could demonstrate of permanent

'0- three days, charring more than 500 blocks-nearly a quarter of the .; l)i. By the time rescuers were able to sift through the cinders, more
- an a quarter of a million belween people were left homeless,' 700, it is now estimated 1.500 and 3,000 lives.' lines and cable cars. a mix 01 ethnic in wealth. The earthquake marked Although the e'f,c,at death count totaled ;-,d fires claimed +odarn that the earthquake

burned district.'
after the disaster tent camps some 40,000 throughout of permanent with leading of this In the camps one ~ ~ ~ 1907 San Francisco built Corps of Engineers. In the midst were still living in makeshift Concerned the civilian

the city.!i The camps posed a new worf\j: live in the city's parks? squatter the relief quandary settlements, efforts officials

How long would survivors charged

by the possibility
commiltee

San Francisco at the turn of the century was in every se nse a

city: it had telegraph

debated

how to clear the camps.

;",ups, and a tremendous

disparity

noted that many of those remaining arrived

~~e 01 the first major disasters of the industrialized age, and many of --c housing strategies employed by nascent relief agencies and the

had oat lost everything. wage earners guaranteeing

They still had jobs. With these Low-income at a novel solution,

in mind. the committee

_-"y Corps of Engineers

z eveluprnent . .cMology,

would

later be adopted such as

by to day's relief and appropriate outcome

that would provide temporary

agencies-strategies

micro-credit.

housing lor the working poor while an end to the camps. At the center of this strategy was

and sweat equity, Yet perhaps

the most intriguing

" '~e relief effort was the innovative marriage of policy and desiqn :H led to the construction thousands of small wooden cottages

or

the design for e small wooden cottage. Between September 1906 and March more than 5,610 collages The cottages ranged designed in size from

by the flrmy

-'"

lound their way into nearly every pocket of the city,

140 square ~

feet (13 sq. ml to 400

meUne of Disasters d Responses

~:~6FranciSCO Earthquake and Fire5 San Francisco,caur., USA

e:

1911 Trlaf'lgl~Shirtwaist Company Flr'e New York, NY, USA A blaze in <I g~rmeM factory ctatms the live s 01146 workers, most of them women. Public outcry teeds to It'le creation at li roesatety codes

SQuare teet 137 sq. ml and cost between ~

$100 to $741 to put up.

NIS.

Constructed by union carpenters and painted "Parkber-ch Green," the cottages consisted of only two or three rooms and were as easy to

---I

relccare as theywere
$2 a month, Ihe city's public parks.

to build. Families
occupants

which went toward the tull purchase

rented the small cottages for price of $50. To free

or lease alai

who could purchase

were granted ownership of the cottage and allowed to move it from the park at their own expense. Failure 10 move the cottages out of the camps by August 1907. a year and a half after the disaster, resulted in forfeiture of ownership.'
In this way the cottages provided not only decenllemporary tor hundreds sheller but also a path 10 homeownership of San Francisco's

lcw-waqe-earn.nq
means 10 purchase

families who might o-herwlse have never had the

a home. By Ihe time Ihe 1.51 camp closed in 1909,

new homeowners
Until recently, biggest natural Francisco reliable thorough shelter relief

had relocated more than 5,343 cottaqes.? Some of

the great earthquake safer building systern.t of 1906 was considered codes and designed the San a Ebenezer Howard's Three Magnets and NO.5 diagrams. illustrate his concept of a planned community that would offer the best of both town and c:::ountry.

them are stilt in use today.

disaster in American history. ln its aftermath In addition, researchers

OI$E!

implemented

a more

water-supply

conducted

survey of the reconstruction one of best-documented they were lessons efforts

effort. The San Francisco Relief stud offered

idealism of the machine age, the increasinqly

otten utopian ideas they proposed carried aid workers and others providing a roof, dean time, the worlds

technology-driven,
for

Survey remains
experts,

res of postdisaster
lessons to future and

little resonance

to date. But if the earthquake

thai would have to be relearned

wrestling with the day-to-day realities of water, and sanitation to tarnitie s in need, Over

rediscovered. twentieth century has been one continuing emergency," wrote Charles Abrams, a prominent advocate for housing reform, ill 1946. Today these words seem prophetic. For mare than a 100 years housing has been gripped by a cycle of war.
-HOUSing in the natural disaster, and poverty. Slums, whether and floods or urban planners with bulldozers. regenerate territories. rumblings For to the and grow larger. And, whether of the Refugees ceadty ccnflcts flee across borders in countries seeking cleared by earthquakes disappear only to by ever-more in neighboring has proved shelter shield

of relief

the worlds of architecture

a design challenge, and policy.

and development became divorced from and design. What architects considered
considered an issue of planning

aid workers

This disconnect
should althe best address

would eventually

lead to a crisis of faith: What role

How could architects And, a luxury and disenfranchised? design be considered

design play in prov.dinq heart of these questions,

basic sheller? Should

Ihe needs of tile displaced

threatened

rich or poor, nature

ar a necessity? This issue would plague not just architects but also planners, pcticymakers . and ad organizations struggling to balance
the logistics of providing shelter with the human longing for a place

that no reat of engineering

can completely

a city from the

earth or the riSing of its waters.

to call home

decades archnects hsvs been called upon to provide solutions world's shelter crises. However, as designers embraced the
1'1'
Demountable France (various Wooden House locations)

1914-15 Maison nom-Inc Pans, France

Le Ccrbusier

1914-18 WorllfWarl

American Friends Service Committee Buill by vcturtteers to house Wodd War I refugees. each "demountable" wooden ho-us€ consisted of two rooms.

"We are dealing with an urgent problem of our epoch, nay more, with the problem of our epoch. The balance of society comes down to a question of building. We conclude with these justifiable alternatives: Architecture or Revolution. Revolut;ion can be avoided."
Le Corbusier,
Utopian profound

a central city surrounded

to satellite No.5 [opportunity, low rents]." diagrams,

by

towns. As illustrated these satellite amusement. This concept

green space was linked by transportation by his famous Three Magnets and
cities promised the best of both town

~ g

high waqesl and country (beauty, fresh air, of town planning combined with modernism of

would have a profound

influence over the construction housing projects for decades to come.

Modernism By 1913 the Industrial Revolution malerial. had reached

law-income

I
!Z.

a fever pitch.

V.rs un. Architecture, 1923

Reinforced an accepted pumps,

concrete. building

first developed

in the 18605, was construction. allowed

by now
water to soar same

SteeL-frame

and the invention heights.

of the etevatar The devastation

buildings

Urbanism of new buildinq codes was just one of a senes of architecture of at the changes that would affect the practice

to unprecedented

of WorLd War thad

The inlroduction

led to acute housing

shortages

in much of Europe. Atthe

start of the twentieth century. The origins of humanitarian.

design can be traced at least as far back as the tenant of the tate 1800s and early 1900" • Ilention to the housinq conditions when social reformers of the poor. urbanization brought
In

or social.
turned on 'he such as their

time, workers continued 10 migrate to urban areas, crowding into sprawling slums on the edges of cities such as Paris. This surge
in demand building called for new thinking about housing design as well as techniques that not only met the needs of the new machine

movements

By

the nineteenth

century

increased

age but also co-opted Today r-icdernlsrr. to harness

is associated

its methods . With a of Industry

minimalist aesthetic 01 steel

and des.qners buildnqs, Why tow-cost

by the Industrial Harking-class

RevoLution had ted to squalid neighborhoods

conditions

and qlass. but it began as an attempt the potential

by architects to produce

of many cities. Photographers

Thomas Annan in GLasgow and Jacob Riis in New York used their art 10 document the "insatubrious" living conditions of the "other half.'

in particular. housing. The assembly line was revolutionizing

the produclion not housing? of everything expressed machine from toothbrushes the new thinking for livinq
In.

to brassieres.

Tenant associations

formed. and worker

projects. palace" welfare,

housinq founded

initiatives took
in by the industrialist became

shape. Many of these housing GUise. France. a "workinq-ctass jeen-Beptlste-Andre behalf of their workers'

such as the Farrilistere

Le Corbusier
the house as·a

best when he described the Swiss-born

In 1914-15

Godin, were undertaken Health,

by companies an

and productivity

Inextricably linked to housing, The reform movement's cau for sanitary living conditions led to the introduction of tight wells and
other design improvements antidote published for tenement housing. Howard Howard offered

architect developed a basic. universal housing unit called the Maison Dam-ina. The unit consisted 01 little more than floor slabs of reinforced concrete supported by comer columns and lifted off the
ground upon by pilotis. or piers Lt could be repeated endtassty or stacked

Reformers also adopted the concept of town planning as an

to the social ills of the day. In 1898 Ebenezer To-morrow, A Peaceful Path to Real Reform. anc opportunity would abound. 1923
Kentc Earthquake and Fire

itself. Because the walls were not load bearing. the interior spaces could be configured in diHerent ways to meet the varying needs of occupants." Prefabricated walls and uniform doer and
window Flanders, 1927
MiSSiSSippi Lower Rrver Flood region, USA MI~'5i~5ippl

%.
if

i?

heiqhts

simplified

construction

further:

Le Corbusier

saw his

g
~
.,

a vision of planned communities free of "slums and gin palaces,"

.. ~ere clean air, water, In his plan.

system as a

of regions such as which had been heaviLy damaged during World War L. He

solution tor the rapid raconstruction

(If NaUon5 established .ersetlles. France Established alter the end of World War I, ..... league 'Of N~lions' qcal was to settle ~
League _-:spute$ between -eereced nations and foster ceace. After World War II by the United

lin

ill

Tokyo and rokcheme. Japan

200,000 people die; 370.000 butlomqs

it

woutd be

are destroyed. Frank Lloyd Wright's "earthquaka-prcof" Imperial Hotel ~1916.~221 is one cl the few structures
tett standing.

The lower Mississippi River ftoods, illunO.;.tlng 27,000 square miles and shattering levee- systems trom

Htinois 10 tbe Gull 01 Me):.ic:o 1927-3Z

"The Winon a" Sears Mode rn Homes Akron. Oh .. USA
SI!aI"'!;,R~blJtkilfldCCl.

Nations.

= giving form and pattern to the

social life of the community. Architecture is not an individual act performed byan artist-architect and charged with his emotions. Building is a collective action."
Hannes Meye', director of Bauhaus, 1'128 to 1930 Walter Gropius, slab apartment
bh:ltks

"Architecture

is a process of

on the Wannsee

Shore, Berlin, 1931

built tWQ prototypes based QC his ideas for exhibition. The Immeubles .,11.5119221 and the Malson Citrchan [19221, a play on lhe automobile name Citroen. Throughout the '20, Le Corbusier architecture expounded on his ideas for a new Industrialized and urban ptar-s. Another systems founded early pioneer of prefabrication architect as public and component building who was the German the Bauhaus the architect Walter Oropius. servant Gropius, in a series of manifestos

Others would also experiment

With standardized

building

components" modular systems, and prefabrication, Including the French industrial designer Jean Preuve and Frank Lloyd Wright, but perhaps Fuller dwellings contribution, none more passionately Fuller. on what he termed the future condition. of language "spaceship earth" in 1895. Like he believed that mass-manufactured belief in the power of design lectures (the arrived than the American inventor R. Buckminster

Gropius and Le Corbusier, represented however,

and served as lts director experimented

from 1919 to 1928, Throughout wall

01 housing. His most lasting 1('1 sense Fuller, who was known a
and his marathon design. and the collapse of has been fully transcribedl,

personified

and teacher,

was his fervent

lhe '20s and '305 Gropius

with prefabricated

to improve
longest

the human
USE

panels and eventually whole structures. During his tenure and that of his successors, the Bauhaus became a nexus for socially conscious design" Gropius, become conceived century, apartment windows along with Marcel Breuer, for many luture the cramped, from rampant is aso credited With deSigning orolects, housing was

for his eccentric

lasted 42 hours and only recently of humanitarian

was the first evangelist block, This new building lightles5 type, which would his first business,

In , 927, after the death of hs elder daughte~ he found himself

the first slab apartment the model to overcome

at the edge of Lake Michigan was the simple idea

affordable-housing tenement

contemplating
brought

suicide. He was a failure, "a throw-away." What

he later recounted,

him from the hrlnk,

that had resulted blocks.

land speculation

at lhe lurn of the deep with at them to

The basic plan consisted

01 parallel

rows of four- to 11-story

that his experience might ultimately be somehow useful to his fellow human beings, Rather than taking his own life, he decided 10 embark on a lifelong experiment, using himself as his own best research subject. He became "Guinea Pig 8" Itor Buckyl, lhe world's first test pilot of a 'design-science to improve
1931

Each slab was only one apartment

tront and back, The slabs were Sited on a "superblock" green spaces between
12

an angLe to the street with communal

revolution,"

the sale purpose

of which was

allow maximum
1tZ~

sunlight

into each

apartment

"human

livinqry,"

and he started

with the house.

Dymaxion House Chicago, Ill, USA R. Buckrmoster Fuller

~:~~ing Ad of 1930 England 1930-3' Dr-ou-ghl and nust Storms MiOw-eslerr. and southern plains. USA

Prefabri<;lIIle-d Hirsch Finow, Walter

ArlnlJr

houses

buttt tor the-

Copper and Brass Works Ge-rmany Gropius

Ko:s~er

1931 Slab apartment

Wannsee Bertin, shore Germany

blocks an the

Waller GropiLJs

Conventional advances required materials. strength. Fuller's

"handcrafted" Fuller

homes had undergone argued. and did not make efficient buildings depended could be suspended,

"no structural use of raw lor their

in 5,000 years,"

They were poorly lit, on gravity

much maintenance, Most conventional But what if a building lor greater thinking

as a sail from a House, scheme

mast, allowing a small-scale embraced

strength

and the us. of fewer materials? at 3 Marshall

led to the design of the Dymaxion store in Chicago of tension

model of which was first exhibited

Field's deparlment It was spherical.

in 1929. His radical use of materials,

the pnnciple

and aimed to do "mare with less." and clad in

to make ei1icient

maintenance-free aluminum. It was naturally climate controlled and could be lit by a single light source through a system 01 mirrors and dimmers, All the rnechanlrals. wiring, and appliances were built into
the walls and mast to allow for easy replacement. ats,o one of the lirst examples as Fuller "",f . neluding put itl green design. rainwater. methane people], and Fuller's gas.l~ collected of self-sufficient Wind turbines "package The house was energy. The washing waste R. Buc.kminster Fuller wlth an early modeL of h.t$ Oymaxio,", Heuse
Buckmmeter Feuerlnstltete

lor "autonomous: produced handled composted

Water-saving

"fog guns" toilet"

and recovered

While the Dymaxion House was unabashedly ahead of its time t would be two decades before Fuller could find backing to build
2

Suddenly

a house could be designed, ever meeting Housing its owner.

detailed,

and delivered

without

fUll-scale

prototype},

the concept

of building

with tension

rather

the architect Manufactured Meanwhile, architecture automobile were common

-llan compression would become central to Fuller's work and

,,,,uld eventually :' nurnanitarlen :: ~ensegrity o'Tlergency like lead to hls most lasting design: the- geodesic contribution and to the field principle dome. Fullers

ill the rest of America,

took
d

the industrialization tack.

of life. Trailers and others

became shelter,

a stapte of tent design, that endures to this

by extension,
for "factory-

very different

By tho

early '20s the workers

day.
viability.

had become

an integrat

part of American

the Dymaxion

House, few of these early designs

and had been adapted

by migrant

":_ It" housing achieved widespread

=:G"'pl@, Le Corbusier's tow-cost

commercial
housinq

For

lor workers housing shelter.

in Pessac. would have It prefigured of

into dweUings. With the onset of the Depression, the demand for cheep, portable housing grew. A mobile home seemed the next logical step. In 1936 Wally 8yam built the first Airstream trailer. icon,

=_ :
o

-ear Bordeaux,
However.

France, went unoccupied this concept implications

for eight years after it was

of mass-produced for low-cost toward

a sleeL-clad,
Although

aerodynamic

embodiment
would eventually Portable

of home or. the road.

become an American House would prove far more

_, "mber

of lasting

the Airstream

=_ .c.nq.It
-0

-ave away from the craft of nuildinq

took design out of the realm between

the technology

of the many and put it in and the occupant

designs such as the Durham Influential." Not only did the Durham. mimic: the styling

-= - anos at an educated few. Perhaps more important, it negated

·eed for a dialogue the architect 1934
Modern ':!w River. the second iarqe st - :- .. 'lao Hoods. De-ath toll .!a'5 range from :850,000 to four -,.,~ floodir.g
irj,

which cost between horne.

$1,500 and $3,000,

of a conventional

it also was a precursor

1936 HlJuslrJg

Airstream Clipper
Los An.geles, Wally Byam Calif.. USA

Calharina Sauer
19J4

National Housing A.ctof 193'

USA

1737
Housing USA Act of 193?

is followed

by

ootbreaks

o-f

disease.

to the "double-wide"

~ parts and assembled

Although contentious the dream

mobile home because it was transported on site to form a single dwelling. merits housing have bean the subject come true. According 01 to

in two

just

90 days." The Sears approach

alternative

offered

a surprisingly

efficient,

well-crafted

to the concept

of delivering construction

fully finished and were partnered with Fair

its architectural of prelabricated

debate, the mobile

home in many ways represents

prefabricated homes. Most Sears homes used wood-frame conservative the General in Chicago. defaulted approach became 25 in style. However, Houses company to exhibit

US
from

in 19341he retailer

census figures, the number af mobiLe homes has increased 315,000 in 1950 to nearly 8.8 million loday." Approximately

a truly moder-n steel-frame had crashed. Homeowners

18 million Americans now live in mobile homes, According to research by laculty and students at the Harvard Graduate School of [)esign,
mobile homes have become housing mortgages, of aIL dwelllnqs the most common form of unsubsldfzeri boards homes than in ,America-despite financing homes and Ihe tendency hostile community to use shoddy

home made from prefabricated on their mortgage

wall panels 81 the 1934 World's payments

But by then the stock market

in droves, and in 1940 Sears

was forced to shut down its Modern the industry standard Movemenl collapse for

affordable standard percent

division." The kit-home was never revived on a large scale, and mobile homes
Homes

and zoning laws. higher construction,

rates for mobile

rnalerials and
The Social Housing With the real-estate question: white other may lie to make within Land highway providing street housing High unemployment brought on

Today mobile of mobile designed

account for an astonishing

in North America.'~ homes raises an interesting such broad acceptance. than a standard became alternatives received

by the Depression,
took on new urgency. sent many onto the institutions became

The popularity seemingly better

tow-Income
and rampant

workers

Why have double-wides

m their mobility. and production and to transport. reach for

foreclosures Lending

have not? The answer

and into cities in search of work.

With each "box" no wider rigidly controlled, For Ihe first time, housing

the units were cost-effective a product

reluctant to make home loans. and with down-payment requirements as high as 50 percent, few people could afford one anyway.
Deteriorating slums ccnditions and health concerns in rapidly a number expanding of urban of provoked governments to act, spawning

low-income wage earners and those on fixed incomes.

fee, and no complicated apptications Manufactured and quickly for

could be rented at a nominal

needed to be submitted
homes filled a growing became a part of the The mobile mass-produced and

government

handouts. market

revitalization and progressive-era In England the Housing Act of government subsidized War housinq, begun afterWortd

housing initiatives. 1930 tied the construction or "council housing" programs

niche in the housinq

(which had in the inner

American vernacular.
attempt 10 market

I), to slum-clearance
Party's ascansicn

home was not the only successful

cities. With the Labour adopled with Ihe inner-city the slogan,

to power in 1934, london

hOUSing in America before World War II. Between 1908 1940 the American retailer Sears, Roebuck and Co. sold as many as 100,000 homes Irom its calalogue." While not Iruly prefabricaled [the homes were delivered in some 30,000 parts by boxcar, complete with assembly alternative instructions and two tree planters construction for the front yard]. an affordable for a brief moment these "mail-orderhomes offered in ptaces where

'''A Healthy Some

Sl.nna.:"

London: Up with the Houses, Down 200,000 people were resellled. mostly from suburbs. that would schemes Iund the large-scale era were of the postwar

London to surrounding and Urban Renewal

In America public housing conceived thousands members, Congress

many of the programs

to traditional

materials.
With no

during the Depression. As foreclosures forced tens of from their homes, a group calling themselves "Housers," the activist

and expertise

were scarce.

The homes could be purchased

which counted

Catharne

Bauer among Housing

its leadinq Act of 1931, (FHA!. which

money down at prices starting from as little as $650, compared to the average home price of $1,000. What's more, the company guaranteed that "a man of a .... erage abilities" 1938 Durham Portable House
USA 1'-1.,

Lobbied Congress responded the Federal

to intervene.t HOUSing Administration

with the National

could build one of its kit homes in 1939-45

WQrld War II Millions are displaced. Emergency four housing is stilt being constructed yeSlr'$ alter O~Day"

The act created

~-\~:f~ ~;:aXion
Various

Deployment Unit
US military bases

overseas

R, Doberman

and John W. Davis

1939
Eill·thquake

Dcncepclon and

ChiLlan, Chile 50.000 are killed and 700,000 left

ca,1939.,'(5 rransportabte Primitive Shelter Helstnkr, Finland

Alvar Acllto

"J1

R. Buckrnirtster FullerThe unite. produced by Butler Manufacturing, provide emerqency

accomrnodettort tocenons during
9"ckri1ii1Sl~rf"Uer

for troops in various World War II,

Ifl5lit!.!te

homeless. 70 percent 01 Ccncecclen Is destroyed and virtually all of Chillen.

Movable temporary shelters are designed to house war refuqees.

"Housing in the twentieth century has been one continuing emergency."

CharLes Abrams, ~uaranteed familiar The Future of Housing, 1946 home-mortgage Loans. making home it possible periods for the first on terms acts ever mortgage

Institute somewhat

of Planners paternal,

in 1939. perfectly

captured

the populist.

if

film proclaimed. WorLd War II The true effects several world's decades. attention

idealism of Ihe t~me.24 "Order has come." the "lts here' The new city. ready to serve a better age:

:::

of these housing shifted.

programs

would

not be fett for solution to

time for banks down payments. lending. ownership

to offer individual Considered a building

buyers

mortgages

however. With the outbreak

of World War II. the were retooled

:::

today. such as 3D-year repaymenl the National Housing

and 10 percent

The search for a technotoqicet

one of the most significant Act triggered

the world's

housing

crisis was put on hold. Factories of the century

passed by Congress. stimulated for millions

as technological advances made in the name of progress durinq

the first few decades were now put to terrifying of warfare, fighter civilian deaths of towns and use. For the firs' time in the history

boom. ami opened the door to home Americans. homeownership to almost It is credited rate from 67 percent today."

of working-class the national the Depression exposure. lenders

wJth heLping to increase under 40 percent during

c rtnurnbered
two atomic seconds.

those of soldiers.
bombs

The destruction

cities
in

was also unprecedented.

American

pilots armed

with just

However, the act also gave rise to the practice of "redtirnnq."

In order to reduce its financial developed a system in which considered rn neighborhoods the government refuse to make loans Residential could

leveled the cities of Hiroshima

and Nagasaki

When the war ended in 1945. millions shelter became a priority.

were left disptaced architect Alvar

or homeless
Emergency Aalto developed be trucked heating unit.
25

high risk by appraisers.

The Finnish

areas were mapped. and neighborhoods that showed signs of decay or "undesirable populations," typically those with ethnic minorttias. were marked cistant corner 'or federally In addition. nation's in red. A single home occupied could cause an entire backed home mortgages while the Housing Act of 1934 stimulated passed the Housing in loans for low-income construction. Act of 1937. families. those who could not qualily Congress than $800 million of housinq lor loans-the to local housing

a temporary

emergency-shelter a number

system

that could

10 the site and house four families Preuve also developed a metal-frame including tent,

with a shared centralof prefabricated

by a minority

family

in a

neighborhood

to be downgraded

shelters,

demountable barracks, and schools for war refugees that he called eccles ,oiantes (flYing schootsl.tThe Marshall Militaryagencies technical communication Plan pumped $12 billion into the reconstruction humanitarian engineering and aid of Europe and became a model for pcstccnfttct

I did little to shelter Yfhich authorized authorities

poor; As a remedy more

were tasked with providing

in Ihe reconstruction in pcstconflict another lines, and other infrastructure. major shilt:

for the construction

assistance

of ports. roads. bridges, It was a role Ihe~ situations. of the by and the rise of the NGO.

The act required that for every dwelling built. the equivalent number of substandard dwetlings must be cleared." It was a centralized, top-down approach. Policies were enacted at the national level and effect on Housing carried out locally. Taken together. this Legislation

would

play increasingly

and disaster

The war also marked or nongovernmental lnternationat Henri Dunant aqcncics we\/e Committee

organization.

With the exception

would have a profound

of the Red Cross. which was rounded with humanitarian

me landscape
concepts activists planning planned

of Amerkan
the virtues The

cities. By now urban and town planning

mass in Europe and America. of "garden city" and "new town" to make way lor new

in the 18605, most of the large organizations come to associate

had gained critical extolled concepts.

work today

Slums were to be cleared

were born amid the suffering and remorse that followed World War II. These include not only the United Nations but also government agencies such as Danida and the United States Agency for

communities.

City. a

film sponsored 1943.

Famine

by the American

nU-4.
Packaged walter House System wachsmenn

Bangladesh and West Bengal. India (formerly Bengal] Crop failures and political complications caused by Wo.rld War II
prompt a sharp rise
In

Long island. NV.USA Gropius and Konrad

19~~-47
Wichita Dw.elliJig Machine

the cost

of rice and cause

widespread famine, malnutrition, and related diseases. killing more than three million people.

W~~hita. Kan .. USA R. Buckmtnster Fuller The dwelling. shown at right, is. based on Futter's original concept tor the
Dyrn~}:iQn House. aL1tkm'MIEri=LJll~r Inshl\J1e

International

Development

[USAml hurnanitartan
Rescue Committee.

aid organizations and

t such as the lr-ternetional

rel.igious organizations in providing natural were emergency After

CARE. and Dxfarn larger ushered

such as Catholic shelter

Relief Services. role to in as well as responding

From this pumt on, NGOs would play an increasingly to refugees dsasters. faced the war the end of colonization struggled for h-dependsrrcs. emergency

an ere of conflict

as states

Aid .3genci-es. just in

with the need to provide

shelter-not

Europe and America "third world."

but also throughout proliferated housing. in

the rapidly years., water

industrializing

As their number
systems

the- postwar
buildlnq

NGOs became
became

more involved in development and affordable more spscial'zsd: Disaster

work,

and santtetlon work became

"This is the real news of our century. It lis highly feasible to take care of aU of humanity at a higher standard of living than anybody has ever experienced or dreamt of. To do so without having anybody profit at the expense of another, so that everybody can enjoy the whole earth. And it can aU be done by 1985."
R. Buckminster Fuller, lecture
Sh,irry "new towns" disparate places emerged from the and Israel. faith in as part of their ideologies. postwar rubble of such Meanwhile, technology. production.

And the field of housing

reliet and development

two separate fields; slum clearance and urban renewal Initiatives were now differentiated from the construction of low-cost housing in rural areas. lnc reaslnqlv. NGOs cultivated and contracted with. qovernment s and other specific service engineers The humanitarian providers. goats, becoming Some employed architects areas of expertise lnstitutrons to meet specialized on of projects. but most depended

as Poland,

Japan.

the war had done little to shake architects'

in a sense

Once again desiqners returned to the idea of mass Governments allocated grants for housing returning and dwellinqs such as Fuller's Dyrnexlon their House a-id the Lr.s-ron Home. 11945-51

veterans. solid-steel pages"

10 design and oversee the construction

I found

way onto magazine

Gropius.

haVing ned Nazi Germany

for the United States.

PGstwar Building Boom

01 World War II, the return comb.ned As people 0·1veterans, and lhe them 10 create an unprecedented

The destruction demand

continued to develop prefab systems and partnered wilh Konrad Wachsmann and the Gene,al Panel Corp. in New York to market the Packaged House System 11943-481. The company buill some 200 homes in Ealifcrnia. but the venture was a financial failure and shut

prewar- housing shortage

for housing.

tried to put the war behind

and reconstruct their towns arid cities, modernism, wit'h its implicit denial of the past and its promise of efficiency and alfordability, seemed the perfect vehicle. In west Germany planners embraced the slab apartment block that Gropius and others had first explored in the '205 and ·3tls. In France Le Corbusiar was called upon to put many of hi's earlier Unite ideas. into practice for a project in Marseilles. the

down after five years."

In france a prefab system designed by Preuve would meet a similar fa te. Working from, deSign he had origin,ily Intended to house bureaucrats Construction low-cost were issued housinq in French-colonized 25 prefab Unfortunately, Congo, the Mloistry no delivery €state instructions a year in Meudon, of in 1949 ordered scheme. homes for an experimental et the factory

dHabltatron. Built between 1946 and 1952, the lower block was composed 01300 residential "Oils slacked between shopping
,a

and the hOU5e~ were

still waitin.g in a houslnq

rcades

and

restaurants

to Iorrna Bogota,

sort of neighborhood Colombia:

on stilts. India.

111

Later. In the end only 14 were sited outside Parjs.~9

the postwar The corn 1945

Houses

years Ls Corousier

would also be hired to create urban and Chandigarh, etso co-opted n-oderrisrn

plans for lzrnir, Turkey;

The limited success of these and other prefab projects did not prevent the idea from beIng exported to the desperate housing ministries 19~5 of the developing world, For example. acccrdinq to Charles

nunist slates 01 Eastern Europe

for Brttaln

untree Nil.tio~s founded San Pranolsco. 1i9.l"S",S1 Lustrcn Home Columbus,Oil.,USA C.alif., USA

USA The uS Federal Public Housing Authority prepares to ship 30,000

prl"'fsbriCi'lted tempor"'r{ emergency

family dweltmqs to Great Britain under l-end-lease. PllJmbing' and fixtures are
10 be shipped with the structures.. but

Carl Strandlund
The Lustron Home retails far $7,000..

nQI sinKS or closet doors.

L...illr~ry o)~ COfl.g.ro~s

Despite a government ptedqe 01 SliD million, only 2,4"98 homes are- produced before the comperw
forecloses in 1951.

Abrams,

in the postwar

years precast concrete by a company that

walls

poured

in with ra.n

Europe were larger buitding

hauled to Ghana program,

contracted

the Debre Act of1964 authorized slum clearance in Paris. In Britain the unemplO'lred and working poor were resettled into council housing cuilt on land leveled In America Urban Renewal

the government

there to build 168 model houses

as the start of a houses

by bombs during the war.

types were gillen sweeping financed and authorized new powers in aid of of 81 0,000 slum clearance the building

When the cost of 64 completed

planning

up to $448,000, Ghana quietly abandoned Ihe venture. In Karachi, Pakistan, small aluminum prefabs were constructed, which their owners promptly adapted and expanded components, sturns.?" with adobe, making discarded them, wood, a-id ather makeshift but'uinq words, "the first prefabricated Ultimately, made most prefabricated prefabricated world, wor.ld postwar mobile-home
SOOn

by ths 1949 Housing Act. whch

programs

in Abrams's housing lor of postwar

public-housing units, Tile act's stated goal was to provide "e decent home and a suitable lIvjng environment for every American family:" But its passage led to the cestruction were bulldozed and government to clty peripheries. in urban af more homes than to help. and were built. betraying Whole neighborhoods replaced triggered segregation by freeways houainq "white flight" low-income the very families it was intended complexes,

the cost per unit

01 off-site

manufactured examples

dwellings

prohibitively Though

expensive

in the name of progress

thDse living' on the economic

margins,

Zoning pushed increasing the

homes dot America, counterparts become

Europe, and ether with their

parts of the more affordable that dre.am and

At the same time, redUntng pools of poverty

in the end they could not compete synonyrncus

areas such as Detroit,

or the new suburban

l.evittowns

of America's

inner cities and creating

with the American

prosperity,

in once-vibrant neighborhoods. Rather than fulfilling the promise of decent housing, Urban Renewal programs left a legacy of corruption. rioting, low-rise h.qh-rises sl.udents poverty, crime. dlsc-lrninatlon despair, and isolation. consisted of In the beginning apartment many of these new developments buildings, blocks

The first Leviltown, named after Its developer, William Levitt. was co nstru cted in Lo n 9 Isla nd betwee n 1947 a nd 1951_ AI. the ti me it W'2J S the largest But in terms project ~ousing development for another ever constructed reason:

by a single builder.
the landmark the concept site.

but oyer time Le Corbusier-inspired of the kind designed As a result.

of h.rrnanltartan production

design and construction, it transferred plants, from the factory

and slab apartment of the Bauhaus became

by

was significant

the norm.

in the public

of assembly-line Modeled Levittown

to the building

after one 01 Heory Ford's wartime consisted of 17,447 homes, drove through

the Original

eye 01 least. the modernist tower block became the scapegoat lor an era of tl03wed housing polk-res The sight 01 demolition cr-ews dynamiting projects such as Pruitt-Igoe, a 33-tDwer public housing project in 51. LOUIS, Missor.rt-c once heralded fur its innovative skipstop elevator s, communaL years after its constructicn housing had failed. Slums laundries, seemed and common to confirm spaces-just By 20 public opinion.

each built

by construction
aff supplies, loans. up

teams that moved from lot to lot, performing and over as trucks The homes, $10,000 Beqinnnq the area

the same task over dropping

which came in only two styles, were priced at less than for federally backed in the 19505 LeVittown-style develcpments cropped

so that buyers could qualify

the 19705 it wa s elsa rto many that the postwar had not been replaced and shoddy

approac h to pu btic

by "new towns" or
compounded the ~

in places as far-flung as Bralil went on to build developments

and the Philippines" Levitt himself in Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria, France; the dominant construction foday method

"rediant cities" but by "vertical qt-e-tos."

Poor Siting, problems cost cutting, const-uct.cn associated with tile new housing developments.Jn 1968 a

and lsrael, and hls model

lor affordable Urban Single-family

remains

hOUSing developments

gas exptcsion caused the corner of a tower block to collapse In the London docktancs. killing two residents and injuring another 260."

Renewal sxpanslon c-ot the programs begun during the Depression" In France

Two years
relocated

The postwar years also saw the continuation-and

sturri-c.earar.ce It4S
The; Future O'f HOlJsing

later in Korea. 32 former slum dwellers who had been into a high-rise housing block were killed when it came
JJ

c rashin 9 down,

1'147-$1

Charles Abrams 19"-53

New ncurna ViIL~gl:! Egyp-t

Levittown Long lslertd. NY, USA

William Levit! The 17,OOO-hDm~

Narshalt Plan The UI1~tedStates commits $ i2. billion

to
U1E"

reconstruction

of Europ-e

Levitt pioneers crt-site assemblyline construction.

Near Gouma.
Hassan FOIth.y

development foreshadows teday's "blitz builds.'

Libr.ary ~I Goll.gress

Despite

these warning

signs, the "clean-slate"

approach

of Urban

Homeowners generations. government

had been successfully Moreover. agencies., architects, form of owner-built housing and empower

building or outside hcusinq?

their own homes for the aid

t R€newal continued
the developing struggUng to

to shaps the policies

of overcrowded

cities of

they had been doing it without funding.

01

world, where they were embraced b~ governments cope with squatter invasions and explodinq populations,

WhBI were slums

but just another funding

Rather than pour money and build their

Throughout the 19605 and 1970s governments in countries such as India, Zambia, and EI Salvador approved wide-reaching slumclearance housing programs construction Ilormerty in the name of economic development. However, could not keep pace with demand, settlements Bombay), for example, and uttimateLy The population people. or

into government-built to support

projects, Iamilies

why not use government to upgrade

own homes? This was the idea at the crux of the self-help movement.]J".
One of the most notabte housing early experiments in self-help-style was the work of Hassan Fathy in Egypt. In the 19305 Fathy experimenting with mud-brick construe boo, Trained at what by the beauty and partly by a building a

these programs of Mumbai million

In

did little to deter informal

grew from nearly three

began

1951 to nearly six million

in 1976. with

2.8 million

just under half the city, living in slums." Self-Help Whether a general and Sites-and-Services of modernist Programs led to their demise. initiatives and its ability in serving the public-housing prompted to improve the needs the

IS now the University of Cairo. he was inspired partly and sustainability of traditional Egyptian architecture shortage of timber. steel. and concrete

dUring the war Alter

number of rural homes using traditional vaulted roots and mud brick.
including destroyed Antiquities a demonstration home for the Red Crescent project, near, or more accurately had a relics in the 1.0 be Egyptian in a village of by a flood. he was asked by the country's to design a large resettlement of Gourna, for finding Egypl, was situated suspiciously Department

or not the design of these buildings Loss of confidence to question in architecture the

lJ~ry public failure

lives. As early as the '305 and '40s even some within

the profession

The village certain renown

were beginning

role of architects

above, the Tombs of the Nobles. At the lime its residents authentic their cellars, government In an effort to protect planned New Gourna. presented an opportunity

of those who could least afford their services. "Of all the participants architect of practical environment toward In the business of home building. is the only one qualified a clvltized experience. develop he should to guide the house and its and possessed constituted originality wrote
Was

the site from tomb-raiders. in a new village

to resettle the community

form. Well-trained be intellectually and imparl industry.

built nearby called of a tow-cost

to to the

For Fathy the project architecture

to test out his ideas building techniques.

prevent abuses. in his landmark Leadership architects clients architect

new methods

based on the sustainable

design. Yet he fails in each of these responsiblities." survey of the housing industry. he argued. in improv.ing tripping the design of low-cost

Abrams
coming of wealthy shelter.">

The Future of Housing. homes Others felt that

that had sheltered centuries of Egyptians. To him. "apostles 01 prefabrication and mass production" did not appreciate or understand the depths of poverty in places like Egypt. "Thera houses these villaqers he wrote. address think is no factory on earth that could produce prefabrication. government It's a cruel mockery can aHord ....To talk of is worse than stupid. Nor. he felt. could of people as to be shoveled needing

from the materials "had

not architects.

over their own stylish in the profcssino. to design? Or should

egos in the pursuit for eter-ienterv the work architects activist, Should

to peopLe living in such a condition

of their condition," l.argesse alone effectively If you regard

lost sight of the requirements

A debate emerged be limited

of the to influence

the problem:

roll up their working decisions? Could to those who

It is a pity that government

"millions." into various

authorities

slsaves and take on the job of the housing

people as "millions"

not only Implementation but also policy and planning architects playa meaninqtul role in providing shelter needed it most? And if so. what should that role be? The self-help 19'8-" housinq movement

boxes Like Loads of qravel.i.alweys

things done to them. you will miss the biggest opportunity to save money ever presented to you. For, of course. a man has a mind of his own. and' a pair of hands that do what his 1949 USA

grew out of this dtsitluslonment

-----------------------------------------------------------------.----------------------~
Ge~dE5ic Come 1949 H-cu!ii,ngAc·1 Fuller North See. northern Europe 100-mph WInds cause a sea surge to crash into ccastet Britain, Holland, a.nd Betglum.In Holland the tidal waves cause dikes to break in 65 ptaces. Britain in

..

Ashevllte, NC. USA

R_ Buckmtnster

Fuller

reaches

at Bla.cl< MQuntain

College ,and invents the geodesic dome Over the CDLJrSeof the next several decades he will refine and e)Cpand on

H'" Tsunami
Hawaii. USA 50-foot waves. some moving as fast .as 490 mph. kill 96 people in the city of Hila. and destroy 46 homes, The
Isunernl W.arli;lig Rim. System stations is createc, around the with uve selsrnlc

the basic deSign, At righi, an early

exempte of a geodesic dome is ~lfted into place. Budrrnn5terf'lllterlnSh!I.J'"

sea wall's are breached in 1,000 causes 1,800 ceeths. The disaster teeds 1'(10 creation 01' the the national Storm Tide Forecasting Service and the erection of the Thames Barner, spots.
FtMding the world's largest movable ttccc barrier.

Pacuic

Hassan Fathy, plan of New Gourna Village, Egypt, 1946

Ag~ 1\~1!n.FOlJml~lior'l-

1946 and continued using mud-brick But the project beginning reLationship expected

through

1953. All the buildings craftsmanship, to develop a true who resented as finished

were constructed From the and Fathy building of their

and traditional

down to the doors.

did not to live up to Fathy's expectations.

he found it difficult with the villagers, training their

client-architect
products. but because

being rasattled

homes to be delivered viLlagers

had envisioned and employing opposition outside

in the craft of mud-brick

them to build their own homes, as a whole,

toward the project

he was forced to hire

labor. Construction

was slowed by "application-in-tripucate" viewed the project as a sentimental folly

supply procedures.

snafus, and a lack of support.

Government ministers

at best and a waste of time and money at worst. The most darnninq critique came from other architects, who felt that the town failed to fuLfill its residents' desires for modern living. The peopte of Gourna refused to move to the new village. When Fathywent back to the unfinished village some 20 years later, he found it all but abandoned. Even in failure, however, the New Gourna experiment left a lastinq legacy. not the least of which is Architecture Written mind tells them ... Give him halt a chance and a man will salve his part of the housing problem -without the help of in 20 years after construction tasl< of trying to overcome influence for the Poor, Fathy's

detailed and moving account of the project and its shortcornincs."

at New Gourna was halted, in the soulobstacles beyond institutional

it otters solace to all architects

destroying would working their control, Fathy's philosophy

who find themselves

of bulldinq

architects. contractors,
government authority an office sitting

or planners-far

better than any

by the poor for the poor

cadre of architects world. an even aid" arid mutual

ever can. Instead of one architect to be housed, each

have a profound

on a growing

up all night to find out how many houses

on issues of housing

in the developing

of each size will best fit the masses and will inevitably each private mass housing Vlelding

At the same time that Fathy was building more ambitious and far more successful

New Gourna,

family will build its own house to its own requirements. make it into a lively work of art. Here, in Longing for a house, in his eagerness is the alternative to the disastrous
J7

"self-help

person's schemes

project was under way in Puerto Rico. It was initiated as part of a government resettlement and Land redistribution program. Some 67,000 farm workers acres each. Housing organized encourage supervisor in and were given small plots of land averaging construction began in 1949, and families traveled three were

to make one himself,

of so many governments. as that of personal methods

Fathy saw the role of the architect his or her training

consultant New Work

group5 of 30 to work on each other's homes. RevoLving

to each Village to to each group. that involved Once Iarnilies were signed on, a construction

to the aspirations

of the homeowner and materials. themselves.

loan funds were set up. and officials participation. and a social worker

to the demands

of local construction

Gourna was to be a village

built by the villagers

were assigned

on the new community, which was planned to include a mosque, a school, a theater and other amenities i3S well as housing, beqan in "5"5-63
Lafayette Detrcn, Ludwig

Un(ike in New Gourna, families homes using any method

free to design and buiLd their

that made sense-whether

1958 Park
Earthquake Arequipa, Turn'? Peru a self-help rebuilding

195'
Low-Income Housing

Mich., USA Mies van der Rohe and ludwig (completed by other Urban

10,000 houses destroyed. John F. C.

mitsates

Chandigarh, India pierre Jeanneret

J.a'11"~ 8urke{1irYllI!
& Loill Pictures

l-4i1.bersheimer

developers and arctrltectsl Part of 03' federally subsidized

program

Renew.31 pra-ject, the development mctudes town houses and zt-etory

apartment blocks, grassy expanses, and.; system of closed streets.

traditional

construction

or not. Between

30,000 and 40,000 small

International housing "simple,

in 1976. with its headquarters which the Fullers to eradicate "poverty

in Georgia. The mission as a "Christian by building Within of Jesus." housing"

$: houses were built by the early 19605, This program would eventually influence a number

of the organization, mlnlstry'was

described

of self-help and mutual-aid housing initiatives, includi.ng the work of John 'F. C. Turner, who launched a similar program to rebuild some 10,000 homes destroyed by an earthquake in Peru in 1958, Turner tater
land simplified] the model to implement a number of slum-

decent homes"

based on the "economics

30 years Habitat for Humanity would homebuilder in the United States The Habitat for Humanity advantages themselves, for Humanity and lesseninq whereas 25 percent program, over typical initiatives otten forcing the burden prior self-help self-help

claim to be the lifteenth-largest model offered a number 01

adapted

"partnership"

upgrade programs, negotiating one of the first loans from the InterAmerican Bank for housing aid in Per-u."
Over time a variety concept emerged. of approaches to the basic self-help scheme. housing In this One variant was the roof-loan

and mutual-aid

programs,

Whereas Habitat process as much aid

retied primarily wage earners on already

on the labor of families to give up paid work. the construction families, cosls absorbed and mutual

involved volunteers,

speeding

approach, first developed by Abrams and Otto Koenigsberger as pari of a United Nations miss.on to Ghana ~n the 19505, families who had built the foundation and walls of a structure variant themselves was the "careof identical could followed

struggling

Moreover,

administrative 01 the funding Habitat

and orqanlzatlonat

for a typical self-help

receilled loans from a revclvinq

housing" 'core-s," scheme,

fund, repayable
Another provided

over a fixed period.

a number

for Humanity

relied on the built-in

organizational

to buy the roof, doors. and windows. in which agencies

skills of local churches to help set up and run its housing initiatives. This not only cut down on costs but also helped OVercome Local
resistance and potential sitlOg hurdles, published while guaranteeing guide entitled everything a steady Community from supply of volunteers Sell-Help
HOUSing

typically consisting

of one room that in some cases included

The families Many houses program

basic services erected

such as water and electricity

and funding, a how-to Manual in

then expand these cores as time and money allowed. In the later years of Puerto model. Rica's sell-help this "care" Then in Fuller direction.

Habitat for Humanity basic house plans lwhich

1982'" It included

have changed

little since ther-! to tarmly

1968 a yaung American

The idea for Habitat

couple named Millard and mutual

and linda

took the basic tenets

of self-help Christian

aid in yet a new founded scholar

selection guid€lines Humanity affiliate. Habitat housing secured The concept advocates, its success.

to instructions on seWng up your own Habitat for Perhaps more than anything else, however, it was ability to build a grassroots former President network of zeaLous that including Jimmy Carter,

for Humanity farming

was born at Koinonia community and biblical

for Humanity's

Farm, a small, interracial in 1942 outside Americus,

Clarence revolVing Jordan, Working

Georgia, by former wiLh jordan worked

the Fullers a program

"In

helped set up a to construct but the

19705 also saw a number of significant

of self-help gained momentum, The United but as a resource. focusing

policy shifts, As the held a number and on

loan fund and orchestrated and volunteers

to build 42 homes,

the poor were seen no longer Nations at which Turner

Future owners interest, jordan

partnership"

as a burden others program

the homes, which were sold to famities

in need at no profit with no

of conferences the work

on urban settlements, and others,

died before the first home was completed, for Humanity is considered the Fullers an American undertook

presented

their work, and in 1972 the Wortd Bank, drawing Turner, launched an urban lending initiatives. in land. secure

Fullers carried on his work.

"'lthough arga~ization, Starting Habitat the first housing project on

of Abrams,

that paved the way for slum-improvement in housing. the bank advocated and utilities and, in some cases, granting

Rather

than investing services,

investinq

their own was in Zaire [now the Democratic in 1973 they built 100 cement-block to America they officially

Republic Habitat

of the CongoL for Humanity

land tenure

houses over three years

~
::

..-

On returning
1961

formed

to residents in existing squatter settlements, One of the first of these "sites-and-services"

projects

the bank

The Dealh and life 01

1'IU Architecture Without Architects

Bernard Rudofsky

GreatAmer;can CiOefi Jane Jambs

""

R, Burkminster-

Fuller's

geodesic

The exhibition and publication of the sa me name celebrate the beauty of vernacular architecture, leading 10 a ren!;'weo appreciation for traditional building arts.

r.me'n~

domes. and other forward-looking ideas earn him the colter of Time meqaaine.

funded was it standpipes, offered small

In

Lusaka,

Zambia.

Carried

out between removal.

1972 and 1975, The project also including

Although

architects

participated

in and in many cases mobilized

provided the construction

security lighting,

of roads, installation of piped water to

and garbage for housing improvements,

loans to residents

$375 to those forced to relocate

to an overspill

area to make way for The

self-help housing programs, the very concept was a negation of the traditional role of the architect. Design was not perceived as adding value, Architects in the self-help housing model were mere trainers if not unnecessary inconveniences. As Turner, one of the movement's
most p rorni n ent advocates, put rt: makes a fool of himself, people, by by and third-hand does for him, and The certified assuming professional

the new services."

Gradually introduction of pit latrines, .squatter nonprofit in America larqe-scale slum redevelopment of micro-credit water delivery, gave way to "upgrading"" housing Housing in farmer Goethert Foundation and [CHFi lending helped spur the construction

i
:

often does a qreat deal of harm to other virtue of his schooling. All that second" exerciSing

and self-help

that hE! knows more than the uneducated and intellectual

settlements. groups

Architects

such as Reinhard

such as the Cooperative in EI Salvador on houslnq governments

knowledge

and FUNDASAL sett-hetp

began to playa programs." programs.

significant

rote in advising

policy and implementing

and sites-and-services

the sitesand-services and self-help models promoted self-reliance over msntutional support. In terms of sheer numbers, at least, it was Unlike previous government-managed difficult to find fault with the approach" For example, Program, between funded by the World Bank, brought essential services to some 15 milllon people 1969 and 1984 the Kampung Improvement in Indonesia, However, Shortcomings and by 1996 Habitat in for Humanity alone had dedicated a some 50,000 homes

however, 4Sto reduce his ability to listen and learn about situations signHicantly ditferent from his own social and economic expedance-c-wlth consequences that can be tragic when he has the power to impose his solutions on those who are not strong enough to resist.~5 Onc€ again the relevance of design and of the design professional was called into question. It would require a new qenerarlon of architects, policy makers, planners, humanitarian aid workers, and
others would to bridge the gap between not only reaffi.rm of building design and policy. In dOing communities.
50,

they

the essential sustainable

rote of desiqn but demonstrate

the importance number of

Because people were unlikely models was could

time housing experts recognized

to the approaches"

The work of two mavericks stands out: Fred Cuny, who made the connection between disaster relfel and oavatopmant work, and Samuel Alabama low-cost operated shunned would "Sambo" Mockbee, whose thoughtful structures in rural brought the practice of architecture back to the desiqn of shelter. In many ways the two led parallel lives. Both men on an act"first-and"ask"permission-Iater by the establishments within by their charismatic, larqer-than-Lte relief basis. Both were and both personalities. shelter In most which they operated,

to invest time and money in building or upgrading homes they

didn't own, the self-help not be adopted Impossibility. in and sites-and-services out that both models

areas where formal land-tenure

a political

Others pointed

tended to relocate on quantity bereft

people who relied on work above quality.

in the inner city to the city's periphery,

The need to meet financial of design,

policies impact shstter

targets. placed an emphasis

be outlived

This resulted in homes so basic as to be almost Lessening their value over time. Program mandates to encourage green building or to mitigate And on the environment.

When Cuny entered had changed response,

the field of disaster

in 1970, not much

and

since World War II Tents were the standard was paid to camp planning.

did little

the

and lilt I.e attention

of human settlements

public housing-permanent

and well serviced-had

sstt-belp

where-as provided

countries the military took the Lead In respondmg to emergencies, followed by_various housing ministries and other departments or agencies. For examp'le, In the United States no fewer than 1DO agencies were tasked with responding to disaster in one form or another. [It was not until 1979, when Carter created the Federal

at little to no cost to the tenant, slill struggled

and sites-andgrowth.

services occupants invariably paid more for less, In most areas"

Improvements ~ i;. to keep pace with population

---.------------------------------------------------------------------ca. 19'10 New qcveroment-subsrdued low-cost housing in the Pbiuppmes [above] and
Brazil lbelowl. 197Z

Pruitt-Igoe Housing St. louis. Me.. USA

Mln~rot.IYamasaki St. Louis
HOUSing

AuthorilY

beqins

1'912
Freedom to Build

demolition 01 the 33-buj'[ding pubtk housing comptee

W,d~W"r[(jPi1~10:,!:

John F. C. Turner and Robert Fichter

(
Emarqancv Management Agency, that the many responsibilities lor relief experts be drastically that t.he standard modes 01 shelter in handling provision natural needed 10 disasters.

~ disaster assistance and response were consolidated into a sinqle eqe-rcv.l" This led to duplicated efforts, cor-iplexity, and confusion.
What's more, little coordination existed between the nonprofit sector and qovernment agencies. As Cuny would later write: ~Most

overhauled-particularly

Enter Cuny, wh 0, in the wo rds of one c+arqe Texan who spent his life che si-iq

encounter with the world of disaster

bicqra pher. was a "ta ketrouble.v" Cuny's first relief came when he volunteered

of lhe agencies operating at the time were oriented toward relief and charity. Development concerns were emerging, but few had yet seen a broader role for the voluntary agency. The favored relief approaches
stil! reLied mostly hiqh staff turnover, the basic response Designers shelter offered on short-term pattern of the staff and volunteers. wisdom
B@'CaU5E'

as a pilot lor the Bialran airlifts In 1969. The tragedy had begun two years earlier, when Nigenan forces cut off supplies to secessionist minorities in the country's southeast. CI.Jnyarrived as aid efforts were coming tu an end Troubled by what hed seen and seduced by·the adrenaline rush of dlse ster-rallef work, at tile age of 25 h€ founded his own for-profit called lntertect.Ilt dead panned." engineering East Pakistan

of into

Utile accumulated

was incorporated

agencies."41

consulting
sounded

LIp a steady stream of innovative emergencysystems. from inflatable warehouses to polyurethane

'firm, Fred Cuny & Associates. later better than "Save Ihe Peasants," he once

I
advisor working as an to Oxfam for the BengaU aid operations where a cyclone

domes, but most were too costly or too cumbersome to implement. Prototypes far "instant housing" that had faiLed in one disaster would reappear he.icocters in slightly altered form in the context materials, of another. "[Architectsl or commercial were typically Interest. doinq these Darth Vader things with

Less than a year later, Cuny found himself

[now Bangladeshi.

i('l

had left 300,000

and gee-whiz

There was a Lot of expsrirr

They came at il with enthusiasm s-uatlon qoi iq on,

and processes

people dead and millions more ber-reless. The disaster exacerbated the area's political instability, and the country descended into civil war, causing some 10 million people to Ilee. Arriving camps, that had sprouted up alonq the India-Pakistan was appalled comprised documentary by the disorganized described tangle of agencies response, emergency the international community's at the refugee border, Cuny and NGOs that A Fronlline supplies

Tile fact thai sheller permanent

had to come out of local material

eluded these people ..When you told them that you can build a house in Bangladesh in three days for tile same amount housnq. consultant they with 01 money they were proposing to spend an temporary

his reaction

this way:

ignored you.' recalled architect Ian Davis, a shelter the United Nations and a colleague of Cuny'S,4B Meanwhile, agencies-would to go unused tents-the because solution they arrived of be Shipped over great distances

For lack of trucks

or road repairs,

enoree for most aid

at great cost only

rotted In warehouses while people starved a few miles away. Refugee camps were constructed with no discernible thouqht to such basic matters as location or sanitation, others with the result were washed Were turned E5pecially oblivious cultures. jackets, the tropics 70s. Another hungry, 1973-76
,"l.lIb~tal f(lr Humanity buitds first project

to-o late or were sited in camps

that some had scant access to water, away in the first rains, while

away Irom homes, businesses, and livestock. At the same time studies began. to make a substandard housinq, increased urbanizatton,

still others
epidemics, studier 01

correlation between
and a comrnunuy's is almost by wrote Davis of

into death camps by cholera 10 Fred-the that many relief

galling

consummate

vulnerability to natural dlsesters. "The study of disasters definition a study of poverty within the developing world." in his book Sheller Alter Disasler!19781.

local conditions-was

groups seemed heavy woolen was in in lhe high had co way

to the most baSIC facts about the region and its One relief agency had distributed apparently handed riot realizing with a median annual unaware that East Pakistan temperature-

one of the first analyses

the design, as opposed to the logistics, 01 emergency shelter." Yet in the reconstruction of housing in dsaster-orone areas, did aqencres paid <rant attention or er-vlronmental 1972 Polyurelhane'lgloo
M;l!$=ya, Nicarepua West Germa.n Red CIQ';:~ and 8~ye, Company

10 disaster impact

mitigation

in terms

of design, siting,

out cans of pork and beans to the thet the refuqees

By tile 19705 it had become dear to many

seemingly

Zaire Millard and linda Fuller in Zaire,

TfJeFIJUerC-e""I'IlrlorttD'J5if\9

Experimental dome structures

emergency Managua, housing Nicarequa, after three

provide

in MCisaya, near

consecutive eerthqvakes strikl!O'the ar-ea, kiUing 20,000 people and rendertnq

250.000 of Naneque's uxtam 400.000 residents

of opanlnq that neither Returning refugee-camp of sociology designed

the cans, Muslims

CD

way of heating

the contents,

and

nor Hindus ate pork_52 Cuny began to develop He recognized political operations, ideas for the importance realities and families

from Bangladesh. in successful relief

pLanning and design.

and believed that bett-er

camps. which took into account

cultural mores, could save both money and lives. Whereas most
camps at the time were designed noused in mllitary-styte barracks, in a grid, with multiple Cuny's design housed victims in

smgle-family tents clustered around open common spaces. Each duster had its own ~trines. cooking areas, and other basic services.
Nith the lightly thereby burdened, knit clusters Cuny hoped to encourage help prevent ownership, of disease preventing the campos infrastructure management. Nicaragua, in 1972 following from be~l"'Igoverthe outbreak

which in tum would

and allow for better

He first tested his ideas in Managua,

an earthquake
-esults pcannlng
·0

in

the area that left thousands

surge of refuqees, other camps

homeless. The any attempt

at

were dramatic. a continual

While nearby camps built by the US military making initiated for Dxfarn the population mass inoculations Oxfam Emergency Lice. Turkey, 1975 Osrem
House-Making Unit in

experienced

a farce. in the camp Cuny designed Whereas and of disease, at Oxfarns

qUl(k~y slabi.ized. outbreak _.kewise, r-stead

curb the outbreak of disease

camp there was no major operation following an earthquake

in

therefore no need for mass inoculations.

issues plagued other camps, at Oxfam's sprouted less and self- help organizations

while security industries Moreover,

ca-np cottage

Cuny estimated

the camp cost 40 percent improvements

10
building supplies pioneered that could later be used for permanent housing. 1railblazing. It
WaS

anerate than its counterparts. Calling on many of the design

that had permeated

not that Cuny's design ideas were necessarily

development work, over the course of the next 20-odd years Cuny a od h;s associates at lntertect would rethink virtually every aspect of ;::saster families relief and

Others

cluster- based ptanning,

techniques.

core-hcusinq,

and

seismically

safer construction

Nor was he the only

reconstruction,

For example, the self-help

after an earthquake model to train Rather than

-! Guatemala

in 1976, Cuny adapted

consultant making the connection between disaster and development. But the force 01 his personality. his ability to implement new approaches desiqn, under duress, the emphasis he placed on appropriate for publishinq working his with a wide Whafs officer ended local materials, and labor, his penchant consultant

in seismically

safer construction

techniques.

;J...ltLdoling disaster sites. removing debris. and bringing in imported -r-ateriels as was typically done, he encouraged aid organizations to

%
ii ~ ~ a

ideas, and his role as an independent ranqe of agencies more, his military candidate before aspirations poor grades

:.2.,. families

to

dear sites and salvage materials

and permanent shelter to provide families

from the rubble of handing

to out

made him an ideal catalyst and a college 1'9"74

for change.

.. ~-'CI temporary

And instead

as a youth [Cuny was a Marine prank prematurely

"E:l1ts. he set up programs

with roofing

and other

''175
Ch:Rm Emerg~ncy

_-c=-. lu~key

Eilnhquake ...ece and Tenqehen, China

...

HOLJose·Making, Unit

~7ati

.=..::..coc' cmeless. China refuses

=.o-a: onaJ aid.

2L2.419dead and

1976 Earth~uakeGuatemala Fred CUllYworks with Oxfam and World Neiqhbcrs to design housmg . pictcqrephe" to educate Buatemalans in safer buildinq techniques after a n earthquake there kills 23,000 people and il'ljureg another 76.000 .
j::""'C"'I'lyJ.cOllr:esyl'l'i!n¥Grk5

JBJ£.E"'.O
.l!SME:tOf{ .

PLAND.,.

Conference on Human SettlementslHaaitatl Vancouver. Canada Leads to tne formation of UN-HABITAT.

Unit{l11 Natlens

which Cuny published postdisaster when you consider here, out of print. Community Design

in 1983,

IS

considered

the textbook

on cited

reconstruction-a

fact made all the more remarkable like most of the works

that it is currently,

Mear-whke, a movement
Influenced projects by the failure

toward

greater

community

engagement
public building

was taking shape in the worlds

of architecture,

pLanning, and design.

of many of the large-scale

of the '60s and the rise of

the environmental

movement,

some architects

began to see themselves

not just as professionals

bound to meet the needs of their clients but as stewards of the bUilt environment arid advocates for more sustainable development. In Europe the concept the 1969 Skeffington Britian. The report and made far-reaching legislation of community design can be traced published back to in Grea Report "People accepted and Planning,"

the need to involve the public that influenced and consultation

in planning subsequent

recommendations

in the early 19705. Publicity

became

required components 01 the statutory ptanning systsrn, prov.dinq local people with opportunities to comment on and object to development Fred CunY5urveys II UN vehicle that was damaged in an attack by gunmen in Mogadishu, Somalia, 1992. Three years Later, at the age of 50, he would disappear in Chechnya.
Judyw",lgrtn/[l;;.!la5 Momlf19 New:s.

plans and planning Belgium participation

applicatlons." DeCarlo

Architects

such as Lucien Kroll in souqht community

and Gianearlo

in Italy actively needs."

in the design process to community funeral

in an effort to make their designs In England Ralph Erskine to parlor

more responsive

based his office in a disused

in the center of town dUrin;

his military careerllent

him an easy manner with US and other

the design of the Byker Housing encourage residents

project

in Newcastle-upon-Tyne

military personnel, giving him access to influential decision makers. In time Cuny became more involved with "complex emergencies," often in conflict

to drop in talk to with the design team and raise of the community with design movement in

concerns
America

that went well beyond! architecture.f

Ihe nature was more political,

or prov.diriq
carried

zones. His work began to focus more consultants

on the logistics
However, others to

By contrast.

aid and less on design anc engineering.

roots in the civil rig his and SOCial

19705. In 1968 the civil rights or

on where he left off, including

such as Ian Davis

Justice movements

of the late 1960sand

and Lisa Dubin and groups like Oxfam, CHF, and shelterproject, name just a few. Cuny vanished remains unsolved. at the age of 50. on a mission and the mystery manner While his frank to Chechnya

leader Whitney M. Young, Jr., then executive director of the Urban League, opened the hundredth Convention of the American Institute Architects

in 1995.

His body was never recovered and his rule-breaking Cuny's influence altitude

c! his disappearance on rudeness as friends.

You

with these words are not a profession

bordered

social and civic conlributions are most distinguished

that has distinguished itself by your to the cause at civil rights,

silence and your

won him as m~ny enemies

and l am sure this dues not corne to you as any shock. You by your thunderous

can still be felt. Today. Disasters

and Development,

~19;'B':-~B5~--------------~------~::::::::~:::::;--~1~9B~5:-~9'~------------------~;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;-! ~~~~~~a ~:eaS~~~:~! II

DrOU9ht and political lead to food sbortaqes. ir)$talJitity k~lIing Jean Nouvel The architect adapts an industrial IOW-«;:051 housing.

mare lhan one million people. 1'15 Earthquake Mexico City, Mexico
f'lLeye"oe,ker.Natiot'laIBurEilu
ofSlaOOllrds

aesthetic fo-rthe construction of 11t.

units 01 Soub$idizeo Aleli{l-r~ J~~I'I Nouvel

complete

irrelevance

....you are employers,

you are key

people in the planning the responsibility happen. According Community ernerqed It was carefully

of our cities today, You st-are are in .... lt didn't just get lhis situation. of the Association design Design Cenler for practice and

for the messwe planned." president

We didn't just suddenly

10 Rex Curry, former Design, the concept trom this meeting, professionals

for an alternative would

The Cornrnur-ity

icnci

"The main difference between success a,nd failure is the degree to whi.ch poor people themselves are involved in determining the quality and quantity of the services they receive."
WorCdDevelopment Report, World Bank, 2004

where volunteer

provide architecture

olanning services to nonprofit neighborhood groups free of charqe." During the 19705 there were eighty CDCs sprinkled throughout the
country. The centers bra .... ht design through professionals, environmental site visits, or and with line in rural Alabama-people, over from Reconstruction:' not that Mockbee treated won dignity and respect, as Mockbee described them. radical "left was. them as

enqineers. government
design process, and interviews. -oarticipatorv selr-deterrnination usually

agencres, and clients togelher in the

a series of workshops, called "community the aspects design"

What made his approach these prospective though

homeowners

with hard-

The approach, desiqn.tcornbined

he did, but that he treated whether one is an architect in the- world,

of self-reliance modelso

clients. As he wrote,
The professional challenge, in the rural American South or elsewhere

that made the self-help to private clients.

compelling

the same emphasis

usually Mockbee Mississippi, Interested provided studied

on design, technical expertise, and sustainablllty that came naturally to Samuel Mockbee.
at Auburn University in ALabama practice in in 1977, then a Catholic while in private Goodman in starting

is how to avoid being so stunned

by the power 01 modern

It was a way of working

and developed wIlh Coleman

technology and economic affluence that one does not lose

sight of the fact that people and place matter. ... For me, these small them [Rural essence Studio] projects have in But more us into

architecture

his idea-s and aesthetic Coker and Tom Howorth housing

In

first in partnership In low-income

with Thomas

Ihe- architectural

10 enchant us. to inspire

1983. He became

us, and ultimately. importantly, American

to elevale our profession. without pretense.

1982when

he helped

they remind architecture

us of what it means to have an They rernmd as by the complex Architecture,

ouilt his first "charity "",lvaged In materials

nun move and renovate condemned houses in Madison County. He house" there for $7,000 usinq donated and
and volunteer labor-a model he would University later the

that we can be as awed by the simple and that if we pay attention, what IS essential its honesty, "Love your neighbor an architect functioning as yourself." to the future

this will offer us a glimpse of American

develop with his students.

1993 Mockbee returned

to Auburn

and founded

Rural Studio with D K Ruth. For Mockbee

the studio was a means housing, students

This is the most In doing so, which can likely to in the highbrow With its meager of decency

of combating the entrenched discrimination. substandard and poverty he saw around him, while giving architecture hands-on customized. embodiment so happened experience missing from most curriculums. earlier work, t~e Rural Studio built were as exuberant between

important lhing because nothing else matters.

wiLL act on a foundation conscience":

The homes

be buill upon ..Go above and beyond the call 01 a "smeothly help these who aren't help you in return, language of architecture. and do so even

as they were intensely they were the physical and client. It just were liv~ng on the poverty architect

Like Mockbees of a conversation

if nobody is watching!58

These were also buildings

that one could descnbe That, too, was a revelation.

?
"

that in this case the clients

'''9

oIi"ninya Community BaUuishna

Housing Vastu-Shilpa

"8.

Lorna Prieta Wastorwifle,

EarthquakeCalif., USA tns than use the offil:ially

'''0-''
Improved Resistant

~
Ql,lijnc:t"la- E.ar'hqU!!lke-

'''!dore India Doshi. Fcundetion

~ou5ing
Peru

One in five viClims camps outside

her hom ....rather designated

or

AHo Mayo Region.

115!u-'S.h.ilp~Ko.mcla~lQ-n

communal shelters.

ITDG Developed in re-5p{)nS~ ILl the eeethquake that struck in 1990, the
desiqn improves upon. traditional OlJincha building method; (in which walls are constructed from wooden

poles inhlled ..... smelt e r wccden ith poles] by adding roof trusses and makleq lhem more flexible end

budgets ~ rnlumns recycled.

and scavenged Curtain

materials

the Rural Studio

had invented

new palette.

walls were constructed

from car windshields, appeared

from carpet tiles. yet nothing There was certain

about the structures

poetry to their form that demanded-and

received-critical Humanitarian

respect.

"Everybody wants the same thing, rich or poor ... not only a warm, dry room, but a shelter for the soul:'
Samuel Motkbee, architect

De!iiign Today During the 19805 and 19905 others also worked to bridge the
gap between communities. for what would Indore, India, providing In basic shelter and building sustainabLe neighborhood design sense. Foundation l10mes and an near lndore, replaced the scheme patios, and in and

1983 architect

Balktishna

Doshi Laid the foundations

become a vibrant,

mixed-income

by combining
models

the best of the sites-and-services with a more heightened included by the Vastu-Shilpa

seLf-help (founded

housing

The project,

which was undertaken

by Doshi himselfl,

80 demonstration
township in Aranya Sank. the architect sites-and-service

urban plan for a new rnixad-incorne India. With funding unsympathetic designed other around with a cluster-based harmonizing Irom the World

grid layout of the typical a basic service details.

plan. The demonstration core, included

homes, which Doshi balconies, to encouraqe

The project was intended them according

new owners In a testament

to expand their homes progressively and to embellish 10 the project's tater pursued of Ludiya,

as time and to their tastes,

money allowed

demonstration
The foundation

success, by 1989 Doshi's original homes were selling for 10 times their criqinal price." an even more participatory in Gujarat, approach in hit Samuel Mockbee lcenterl with Ander50n Harrtslrlqhtl i31n,d family. tn 1991 the Rur'at Studio would build the Harrlses a home, affectionately catled the Butterfly House, and in return the Harrises would donate Land tor the Mason's Bend Chapel.
Timolhyl-'luJ'5.ley

the reconstruction Gujarat in

India after an earthquake approach Housing 10

2001.
that incorporated included a more sensitive low-income Townships development Larl in Pakistan: housing designed

Other projects community Yasmeen designed

by

the Alexandra

project

by Jo Noero in South Africa,

and the work of Jan Wampler

in Puerto Rico. The 19805 also saw a renewed

better New Alchemists world designed

Interest in adapting technology to meet the needs of communities. tn Canada John Todd and the ways of treating Machine!. Technology waste naturally an-site In parts of the devetoping Development Groupl, founded 1993
MiSSissippi River USA Flood

using plant life lsee "Living tTOG (Intermediate

tberetcre mare earthquake resistant In 1991 another quake destroys 17.000 homes. but the 70 locally whbstand the and built Improved structures Ihe tremor. demcnstratinq ettectiveoess of the design

19',
Rwandan Genocide kill Burundi, RW.<3lida,Tenzanla intl:'rahamw€ Hutu exu-amists

Niowestern

American Red Cross spends $44 mlllicn to help temitles r-ace v er; FE.MA creetes initiative prevent to buy or relocate future flood tosses. properties to

an estimated 500,000 to 800.000

Rwandans in 100days. Two million rl:'fl.Jgees flee the country, The outbreak

prcmptlnq the group to blJ'Hd another Ii.OOD:home-so

of disease in refugee camps dorms an ecotnonelsn.uuu lives.

Rural Studio Newburn, AI a. , USA Samuel Studio Nockbee at Auburn founds the Rural Uni\lersiW.

in 1965. worked

to improve

the everyday

life of large numbers

of

people by investing in small technological improvements,

more energy-efficient of vernacular However, socially formulaic statutes housing. stoves or earthquake-resistant The idea of technology of "appropriate" technology.

such as
sake

adaptations

for technology's at

gave way to the concept responsible solutions requiring

for every project

that pushed the boundaries the community

design, there were many others or excluded In the

that relied on to new puttinq community and this led end to carrv

from the planning

and design process. time and effort workshops. many planning

19705 planners
exhibitions

had responded and organizing

public participation

with enthusiasm,

into preparing authorities

Yet public .... sponse e

was often disappointing, their commitment

10 reassess

out only the minimum work necessary. Public housing programs expe-lenc ed drastic funding cuts, and in America many community design centers, which had relied on tederst Likewise, disaster reconstruction efforts tundinq. shut down. were equally varied,

Two catastrophic
extremes which killed

earthquakes

in

particular demonstrated

the
The city

of response:

The first was the 19B5 Mexico City earthquake, earthquake hit densely recovered that struck populated longer: the industrial urban areas. According 10 Mary as

nearly 5,000 people and left 200,000 homeless. 6,300 people and leaving

After an earthquake struck Gujarat. India, in 2001, the Vastu ..Shitpa Foundation facilitated a eemmuntty-tee effort to reconstruct the viHage of Ludiya, Here, residents outside their newly rebuilt homes.
\tast<.i~hilpill"-oulld3Iion

second was the Hanshin hometess. However, Comerio. Both disasters

of Kobe, Japan, in 1995, killing Mexico City largely who analyzed

100,000 beginnir1g that property owners would have little incentive to rebuild. Yet residents lobbied aggressively to stay in their neighborhoods, With lunding a number from the World Bank and loans and concessicns Monetary Fund, Mexico responded the largest of which. to build or repair programs, from the International

after two to three years, in her book

while recovery

in Kobe took substantially both disaster-s

Dissster itits

Nome, the difference it did with economic

had as much to do with design and planning factors and potittcs."

by establishing
Renovacion more than 48,000

of housing

The Mexico City quake measured 8.1 on the Richter scale and lasted approximately two minutes. It leveled 2.3 square miles 16 sq. kmJ in the historic center of the city. which also happened to house the city's government buildings, A second quake Ihe next day compounded buildings the loss of lile and material or partially collapsed. damage. Hardest More than

Hahltar lon Popular, housing units This ambitious level community program.

was mandated

undertaking

combined displaced

the best of neighborhoodhousing residents in

design witt! a government-administered of Rights, which entitled

600

Under the program,

renewal areas

§.
~

completely

viviendas. or low-income neighborhoods. renters ratherthan owner's.

Because and almost 1'95 these residential none was buildings

where
earned

hit were the city's most occupants were low rents

were given a Certificate owners. Residents

them to low-interest

loans to buy rebuilt units, thus converting

lived in temporary

them from tenants to

metal sheds in public streets,

extremely

covered by insurance,

it was

clear from the

parks, alleys, and other rights-of-way near their damaged homes while they worked with their neiqbbors to repair their community, ~ 2001 g Earthquake
N Ludlya,

Hanshln E,arthq,ualoceOsaka Bay. Japan

Or, Roser t·h.ll(hls"nlh'.;tI-OI'l~1

Reccnstructlon Gujaral. India Foundation

200,; Tsunami Indian OLean

G~oph1~;c~' Data

vastu-Shilpa

Cerlter

175,0.00people are killed and more Ihar'l an-e million people in 13 countries are displaced

Reconstruct

jon plans. were

developed
includinq

by community some

members

officials structures

in some cities to take disaster

mitigation

measures.

New

r::; aided by technical

2BO architectural and engineering firms, and were based on a prototypical two-bedroom apartment unit In a three-story building with a single entrance gate.
specialists. to Comerio, by standarcizinq tho building design, the city

codes forced owners

to retrofit

unreinforced
install

masonry buildings

buitdings,

bolt
flood

to their foundations,

roof ties, build to higher for example. land-use

elevations, and lake other steps to strengthen

prone Cities throuqhout the role of environment notably Tulsa, Oklahoma, as protecting important areas vulnerable the United Statas, in mitigating wetlands also implemented disasters,

in disasterRecognizing controls, such in

According

was able to process

as many as 800 building permits a month arid a singte team of inspectors could monitor construction." In total the qover unent repaired or built nearly B8,aOO housing units over the COLJrse of two years. "Neiqt-oors together with their neighbors and animated by healthy SOlidarity, organized spontaneously

some citias. most

development

and preventing

to naturat disaster;

elficiently, were able to salle lives, put an end to misfortune. rebuild the city and create a promising future," wrote a reporter for
Excelsior in a retrospective published 13 years after

Conclusion
A century the world's after the San Francisco displaced earthquake, the solution to houslog this and disenfranchised remains as stubbornly

the newspaper

the disaster." By rrmtrast, recovery from the earthquake

and exposed developed Japan's countries," Wilh a population city and the world's

situation-specific in Japan took 10 years most Kobe was port. Although

and cornptex as ever, Even as we compiled

large gaps in the social net of one of the world'S of 1,5 million, sixth-largest were

book, a series of tsunamis, hurricanes, and earthquakes reminded the world once again how vulnerable and unprepared we are aqairst the awesome powers of nature-whether we rive in t.he world's
poorest country or its weaitluest. on average The Red Cross estimates and manmade by disaster world. disasters, that over and another than 98 the the past two decades, been killed annually 211 million percent reports number more than 75,000 people have each year-more What's of disasters-and climbed," continue

sixth-tarqest

more than 90 percent of the damaged structures

residential,

the city's economic importance meant that its commercial infrastructure was the first to come back on line. In the disaster's aftermath parking residents the government by lottery, in built 48,000 temporary housing units in lots and on undeveloped land and filled them with displaced of people still lived in of factors. for

by natural

have been aflected

of them in the developing of people affected cities,

more, the agency

that over the last decade the number by disasters-has UN-HABITAT substandard

Two years later thousands can be attributed

metal crales

temporary camps sited on the city's outskirts.v

recovery to a number system

Likewise, systemic
plague the world's billion The agency projects Fortunately, the ubiquitous

housinq conditions
estimates urban population,

to

Kobe's slower

that nearly one live in sturns.

Before the quake Japan had no emergency-response

people, a third of the world's that number

natural disasters. A reliance on the private market to recover tosses also contributed to the slow pace 01 rebuilding. Also, many blamed
the decision residents' to work, by city authorities neighborhoods. them from their to place temporary hindering social networks. housing outside

will double by 2030."

we .150 live in a time when technology, particularly Internet. has enabled the rapid exchange of ideas on scale, Groups such as Slum Dwellers and exchange countries, in differer!lt lnternatlonet rncoets of development CAD software

former
isolating

families

from returning and preventing

an unprecedented between

are using the Web to network slum dwellers

them from tappinq local resources to solve their own housing crises,&'5 But by far the biggest failure was that or the international aid community success and officials in Japan to learn from the mistakes and a

Mas

made professional design services more affordable and enabled architects to volunteer their services in communities near and far. At the same lime, computer advances promoting modelinq systems have led to technical buiLding design.

In the years following series of floods,

of other cities in coping with disaster, the Mexico Clly and Kobe earthquakes,
hurricanes, and other disasters did prompt

safer, more disaster-re

sistant

100.1 200~ Hurricane

LOUisiana, destruction The storm New people;

2005 neeratrcn Restore Ord~r

ZImbabwe Pres. Robert Mugabe orders a crackdown

Mis9issippi

2005 Greer; Mobile Home State University,

State, Miss .. USA

Ka trlna
Mississippi, Atabema, USA

Mi5Si!>slppi

14S-mph winds tear a path of

through the Gulf Coast and subseqoent ttccdlnq of

on "illegal structures." Iercmq stum dwellers to [ear down their own dwellings throuqhout tne country Nearly 600-,000
people are left homeless. condemns UN-HABITAT program sullering, as the- slum-clearance to human

Developed by architects at the Carl Small TOwn Center. pa-ri of tfte College of Architecture. ,Art, and Deslqn at Mi$$i~~ippiStale untversny.
#

thiS self-sutlicient.

sctar-powered

indrscrimmate, uojustlfseo. and conducted

with inditterencc

unit was deslqned as an ettemative to tl'1e traditional rnoblte home,

Jasen Pre~s9r(l-~ean.:l Mich2t!'IBe,-k

Orleans kit! an estimated 1,325 mare than one million pe-opLeo are displaced from the Gulf Coast reglor"i Emergency officials respond b~'brinqinq mare than 50,000 travel

A wider appreciation
-nrnqatlon :otlaboration aeveloprnent Development - Development, Foundation, Planners between profiled Network,

for the importance development engaged Without designers

of design in disaster has spurred in community Frontiers, greater In addition to design and Architecture Fuller

and community

and communities.

The Engineering Unit of the Thai Army erected temporary housing in Ban Nam Kaern, Takua Pa province, Thailand, following the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004.
Rc stan Rdhmarl/AFP/G(lI!~ Images

tne many architects

and groups Archltecls

in this book, orqanizaticns de I'Urgence, Borders.

such as the Aga Khan

Architectes Without

the Buckminster

Institute, Builders

Building

and Social Housing Foundation, Associates, Network, and Design

Will the start of the twenty-first

century

be remembered

as the

Association

for Community

Design, Architects/Designers/ Shelter

for Social Responsibility. World Shelters, have emerged. to designing

the Enterprise

golden era of socially conscious design? The answer will likely depend on the willingness of architects and designers to reach beyond the design community humbly Mockbee venture Ihe needs of their neighbors, and Its traditional
In

Corps, Design Matters, snelterproject, Inclusive and many others approach

Public Architecture, the Volunteer promising shelter,

audience-to As Samuel

Architects'

into the communities

WhKh they live, listen to

a more innovative

and ofler their services

once said: Proceed and be bold.

traders and mobile em 100 days after conlinues

the

homes to' the area. disaster. demand supply.

2005

At riqht, F'SMA tag on the door of a home in New Ori@ansindicates it has been. searched
to outstrip for survivors

Earthquake Pakistan-administered Kashmir

A month after the disaster thO! death

loll estimate stands at 67,000; mor€

than tW-Q rnillion people are displaced. The- United Nations exhausts us stockpile of tents. At riqht, desperate families. in Muzeftarabed, Pakistan, set up a camp using recycled adllerlising billboards in <In attempt to shelter thern~elve5
David

as winter
Pholo

appro-aches.

GlJn-""('Ifl'ht~r/AP

1 '-The 53n Francisco Earthquake, 19Q6," Ey~Witne5s to History, WNw,eyewitnesstonistory.com, lueldentttted dire-clod, Before and
After Ihe Grt:a( car1hqu<lKe and Fire:

Early films of San srenctsco. 18971916. Libr-ary of Congress. WWVl"JO{.gov

dir.. A.rchtlectures. 4- DVD series. Strasbcurq. Arte, 2003. to Amerlcao Planninq sseccrenon. "Individuals Who lnfluenced PLarlncflg Before 1978," http://'HWW,plalnning orgI25anni\ier$ary/infllJentials.htm.
ThilOHY Bar-rel, 11 Le Corbusrer. T(Jwerd~ a New NY: Dover Ardtllec!urc, Mineola. Bocks, 1985.

Philip L. Fradkin, Th~ Greal

Earthquake and Fire.s(orms

Berkeley: University Press, 2005, 209. 4 Barracks were also erected. but a study later determined they wrne
costly and inettactlve. Chartes

or

1 ~06, California
of

O'Connor er at.,

San FriJndsLrJ

Relief

Survey; The OrganlzS'lia(J.aM i'4e!hods of Relief Used Af'leirhe Earthquak~ afld Fire ofApnl18, 1906, New

vcrk.

Survey

Associates. 1913, 239. Ibid., /l. Ib,d .. B4 Ibid. 8 San Francisco was MIllie First r;ity to devetoo new building strateqles in the Face of disaster: For example, when an
earthquake and subsequent tsunami

12 S~gfrled Gi-ediolli. W"UerGropius, Mineola, NY~ Dover- Books, 1992, 79 13 J. BaldWin, Bucky WOrks: Buckminsrer Fu11ersldeas for Today. New York: John Wiley & Sons. 1996. 32 U Carol Burns et at. "Nenutactcred H(jouo;in9~ Double Wide AnatySis, A hltp:llwww·9sd.har.rard,~du/sh.Jdros/ $97Jburns/incle)(.hLml. 15 Robert Bennefield and Robert Bonnette. Structural and Occupancy
CharJ(rerisllcs o( Housing: 2000,

21 Catherine Bauer had been influenced by wetter (3;roplus and' the German SChODL.o' modernists during trips in the '20s and '30s to Europe. wh-ere she was inspired by the power of doesigli to promote social change. When she returned to the United States she was shocked by the cCtnditions she tound and became a; passionate hcusi ng advocate. In 1934 sbe wrote lhe book Modern Housmg, in which she described the Europ-ean planmng and housing strategies she had seen, and applied them to. an Ameiic<ln context. Modern housing. s.fu: argued. needed to be planned, bl,lill ~IQwly '0 reduce spaculatton. and available to ell citizens reqaroless of income. Peter H. Oberlander and Eva Newbruo,
Houser: The Life and Work ot CiJth~rine Bauer, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. 1999. 22 Kerr)' D. vandett, "FI1A Re$trl.!'during Proposals: Alternatives and Implications." Housing Poli~yDebate, Fannie Mae Fcundeticn. vol. b, issue 2. 1995.299-394. 23 Chanes Abrams, The Future of Housmg, Ne"", York: Harpe- &: Brothers, 1946 24 Ralph Steiner and Willard Van Oyke. The City, New York: American Documentary Film, Inc., 1939. 25 Ian Davis. Shelter After DiSaster, Lcndcn. Oxford Polytechnic Press, 197B. B7. 2.6 Robert Rub~iI. "jean Preuve," Yale School of Architecture, 2005. http;!/ www.architecture.yal.e.edu/trQpical_ hcuse/eeseyhtm. 27 Designed by entrepreneur Carl Strandlund. the Lustron Home was an inqsnious but short-lived expenment
In

28 Peter- Hall, ··Living for Tomorrow, Melropo{;S M~gaz.ine. Dec. 2002, www. metropolisma,9·otam/htmVcontef1t_ l-202/mit/, 29 The estate has since be-come a wett-beeted. upper-micdle-ctass neighborhood, in part dee to the cache 01 Preuve's designs. ALex Kliment, ·PrM<lb: House as M;JSS Customized Product. The Architectural Leaque. 2003, hUp)J www.archlea911e,Qr9/le~tures/ 30 Ehartes
(Dr

stra1egres/prefab5t.1Olmary.htrnl. Abrams. Man·s 5lrugg(e Sheller in S'rr Urbanizrng World,

and fires destroyed a third of mediev,:U Lisbon In 1755, reconstruction led to cne o-f the earliest e)(ampts-s af rnodern sarttrquake-prcot constructrcn. the 9<3lDla, a flexible wooden cage formed by diaqcnal trU5,5;e5;reinforcing a hcnzontat and vertical wooden lrarrte. According to lore, architectural models were built to lest the new construction
m-ethod by ITlarc:hing troops-around

them 10 simulate the effects of an eanhqu<lke The buildings and public squares of the reconstructed city stilletend todaoy. Kenneth Maxwell, "lisbon: The Earthquake of 1155 and Urban Recovery IJnder tfl€ Marques de Pombal," in Joan Ockman, ed., Ground Zera- Case Srudiesl(J Urban Reinvention. Munic:h: Prestel Verlag, 2002.31.

Washington, DC: US Census Bureeu. Nov. 2M3, www.census.gov!pra.d/ 2003pu bslc2kbr-32,pd f 16 Carol Burns. "Manufactured f-Iou:;;ing: A Double Wide Analysis of Clockwork and Cloudwork,·· Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Graduate Schuot 01 Design, 1997. hltp:/lwww.gsd.harvarcLedu/ s.tudios/s97/burl"l5/intro.htrnL. 17 Sears, Roebuck and Co., "Chronology of the Sears Modern Homes Proqram," hltpJ/www.searsarchlves. ccm/nomea/chrcnotoqy.htm. 181he Malt-Order HClIJse,· CBS News Sunday Mn-ming, Aug. 24, 2003, http://www.r::.bsnews. com!5toriesI2003/05/14/SLJnday/
mam553963.$l1tml. 19 Sears, "Cbrcnctoqy" 20 Sandra

Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 1'166, 160. 31 See http://www.freeenierpriseland corn/BOOK/UTILEBOXES,htrnt. 32 It was tater determined that the bUilding. called RQIian POint. was structurally unsound. Kenny Shaw, From Here to Madernily, london: BBC/The Open University, hllp:/I'NYJVt' op.ef12.net/modernityl http://news
bbc.co"uk/onthisday/h,/dates!sforiesJ

may/16/newsid_2514000/25142n strn. 33 John F. C. Turner anc Robert Ptcnter,

Freedom 10 Bulld~ DweJ/er Process, Contral New York: tor fhe l10using

MacMillan. 1972_ 294.

34 "Slums: The Magnitude of the Problem. ~ lata Institute of

Fundamentet

Research,

http://theary.

tjfr.res.in/bombay!.;mellitl-es/hQusing,

Rihs and Denlet Katelt, "The of Slum Clearance Policies in London and PSrtS," United Nations Centre for Human Settlements [UNHABITATI .v ol.1, r'io,3. Sept.
Evolution

slurn-stats.html. 3S Abrams. rhe Future of Housing, 129. 36 The first "sell-help and mutual aid" project in America tooll. place In the coal-mining areas of Pennsylvania
dLJnng- rtre Depression. In the wake

low-cost

housinq.

The homes

zoot.

we["e made from pcrcetein-cceted steel panels mounted on a steel frame. Th~)' w~rf! advertised as being rodent-proof fire·proot.lightnin9proof. rustproof and maintenancetree. Each dwelling cost $7.000. but menutacturinq qlftcbes led to cost overruns. Despite a qcvernrnent commitment of $&0 million, only 2..498 units were ultimately produced, and the government torectcsen 011
the company in 1951. Although some

of mass unemplojmerrt at the mines, the program sought 10 bring unemployed mine workers living in slum conditions "back 10 the farm" by paying them to build their own housing Peter M. Wa,do Self~Help Housmg;A Crilique, London: Mansell. 1982,2-6

current owners have compared living dw~lIin9' 10 li ..... ing In a "lunchhox," the survlvinq homes have earned a cult foLLowing.Douglas Knerr, SlJburban St!!f.. r;,~M.;Ignificent
jn the manufactured F.aflur'e Df Wf! Lustron 1945-1?51, Unjversit~ Cotumbvs: Coroorenon. Ohio

State

Press, 200'.

37 Hassan Fathy,

Arrhiledure

for .Ihe of Chicago

46

Poor, ChiC:~'90: University Press, 1976.32

38 Ibid .. passim. 39 Roberto Chavez.

MeL:H1ie Zipperer, John

Julie Vitcrie, enc "trnerview wiih

F. C. Turner. World Bank for-um. WOI$hingt:oofl,DC, April 2-3,

2002> www.wortdbank.orq/urban/ for,um2002/docs/turner-e:o:ceropt.pdt; Ward, S€Ir-Help HOI/sing, 23.

the 1920s-30s a series of HIlcludil'1g th-e Mississippi River flood of 1921, which inundated an area almost as large as New England and left 700,000 peop-le homeless, and the Long Beach, Ca.mornia, earthquake of 1933. which caused a number of school
During disasters buttdinqs to couapsel prompted to

51 Scott Anderson,
ro Salle lIJe Wodd, House. 2.000> 71.

The Man Who Tried

New York: R3ndOfTl

.1 Ibid .. 141. 62 ~r~e~~;~t~a;:~~r~:~;r~:~~'~'~~:red

52 Jones, "The Lost American:

53 Barbara London: lttstey. Commr.mity Planrrmg, Royal Town Ptannmq 63

the United States

Ccnqress

.40 Robert WilLiam Stevens arid Hebltat for Humarlity, eds., CQmmunity SelfHelp Housing Mailual. Parlnership in Ac~iorl, Croton-on-Hudson. NY: Intermediate Technol'O~ Development 'G'f"OUp of North 41

pass a numb-er of flood conlrot measures and orher leqielaticn aimed

Institute. Oct. 2"002, httpo://'W'INW. rtpi. Qrg.l,Jk/resour("l;'s!plJb ~i(;:!1ion'5/ ot:l:lmmunity-pt30rmin-g/Olnomehlml 54 Mary C. Come-rio, "Design and Empov,rerfn"!'l")t 20 Y~Qrs Q!
Community Architecture." Buill Environment Oxford: Alexandrine Press. vol, \3, no. 1,1987.15 55 Jon Coaffee and Chris Brccktebank Byker Urban Design Ccrnpetitior» D~\'t:~oping ~ Statement of Community lnvolvement," Newca5tlf'

CHy,U Excelsior, Sept 20. 19"98, http://www, tencrissimo. comldomingo/ArtidesJe)(ceL9209B. htrn. Foshizo ldo Igoovernor of Hyoqo Prerecurrel. "t.earnlnq to U v e with Risk." World Corrterence on Disaster Peouctiorr. Kobe, JaQ{!i"I. by
Mexico Jan 1a,2005

at disaster-mitigati-on and relief The Reconstruction Finance Corporation g<lv,," disaster 1(J1mo;:for
repair and reconstruction of certain

public facilities.
Enqlceers control Bureau

Thl; Flood Corrtrut

1'982. It was Intended that the squatter community help defrav the costs of the new services by payinq for water usage and other services and
America, by repayinq thcuqb, their loans. Ultima.1cly, were

6.:i Michael Zietenziqer, "Kobe Stitl Peets frum Earthquake: M(!nyare Hornetess. Gecernrnent Leqs." San JO'"eM~uryNe""5,J.iln, 20,1997, IA
ss Davrs.Jnterviewwrth 6b Between Stehr; '2000 arid 200~ dlsesrers

Atl g3V~ the us Arm-y Cerps of

greater authority 10 build levees and implement other Hood

proj!"(:t$. of Public and b~ 1934 the Roads
WE5

Uniltflr.sity Global Ur,oan R€s.earch Unit Jan. 2005, \ly"NW.ne\"fC:;iI~tle,gov.1.lK.

56 President L~-l1d{ln.B. .Jch nson

OlJle:l;;teQ une-tnkd more people lhan between "1995 and 1999 lntematienal Federation of the Red Gress, Wtl.{d Dj~MJ},n; RepQrt 2005, [able- 3, 196 67 -Millennium Development Goats." '2003, UN-HABITAT, http://www.

qiven for

slow to pay their loan installments and resent-ed being charged lor s-ervices
many residents If We,ellihy Lusekans to pay for did f'IL11 have

the authority 10 provide fUPldrng hignw'Jy$ and brtdqes eameqed

natural dlseeters.

Still.

as

in

by most

later ewerded Young the Medal of Freedom 'or his civitrights work. 1968," Archvokes. July '11, 2003., hHpd!WWlN.ardlvoices.org.
57 Brvan SSlIl, ed., rJo<Jd Deer.h, De5fgn: Community Architecture, Architectural Press, Samuel Mockbee. Good Service Through 2004, 63.

countries. disaster recovery was h,mded en an incident-by-mcldent

LJnhab[tat,org/mdgl

them. they.arqued, why should they. especially when they

received much lower lev~t$lll service [tor exarnpte, trash was often not

basis. arid assistance to lndlvlduats was considered largely the domain of voluntary eqencies and private
charilY Congress did not establlsf "~t:MA Hi5il(JI)',·' Management a

New York: Princeton

58

collected at all if"! the project areal.

NO{1E'thel~so;, the pr'llgram W::lS

coordinated
Federal

disaster relief proqrern

until ths 1950;;.

ccnsroered a success. ,imd offered an alternative approach for cities

strl.lgytin.g witl"l
M

"Architectural Design: The Everyday and Architecture, 'l '198, http://W\NW ruratstucio.corn/sambomernorlal
n

Emergency

ezploslcn "Lusaka

(If Site'>

Agenc:!l', Oct. 23, 2'004, '!O'fIiOl.gov/abaut/hislory, 47 Frederick Oevelopmen!. 2nd -ed.,1994, 4B

http://\'IMW.
sh 1m

59

htm 821U:.rishna Doshi, of Aranya

squ<'III"1"'eettkements.
and Services Project,"

CLJIiY, D/sa,Oiters and

Upgradil1';J

Urban CQrnml,ln~ti~~, Thfo World Bank Group, 199'9-2001. htlp~lIweb"mit

edu/urbanupqrec

Dallas: lntertect
19

Press, with
11

"Architect's Record Community Housinq," Geneva: Aga Khan Award for Architecture, 199"5.
Doshi designed a master ptan

Ian ,Davis, telephcneIntervlew

case-exam
1.2 Nabeel

i ng!upgriildin9! ptes/ce -ZA -lus.htrn Hou5ing Without

Kate Stohr.clune 13, 2005 4'1 DaVIS, She{/er Afler Disaster,

and model homes for an innovative mixed-income sites-end-services

Hamel.

SO Sherry Jones,
American,"

Hr.wses: Participation, F/~xrbirilf. f"ni.'lblement, Landon: lnterrnedtete

Technology Pubtlcaticna. HGusmg. 1995

dir .. "The Lost Fro(lUine, PBS, O-ct 14,

19"97, www.pbe.crq.

&\.3Ibid .. 2.0.
44 Ward, Set/-Help

devetoprnent. Homes, whlch mctude bekonies and look onto a. shared courtyard, ere grouped ill cll)s.ers of ten along a centra! sprne. Septic tanks are provided lor each 9 IOUp of 20 houses. arid electricity and water
<Ire available thrnuqheut. The f1i".W

45

Turner

anc

Fichte-r. Frf:'E"dDm to Build,

1,7.

development will eventually house a population of 60.000

60 Mary C. Ccmerlo. Home:
Di'siil5ler /-/lf3

New PoNc,y for Urban Housing Rewvery, Berkl:'~ey: UI);v-er$ily or Califomia Press. 1998. 129

Emergency Transitional Permanent

• •• •••• ........ ...... .......
••••
y

....... •• •
· · •
• •
0

Homelessness
.. ..
••
•

....•••..... ...••.•.....
..

"

~ ..............
l••••••••••••

•
0

.:.

....... ...
;-

...

.:.

- .... .......-... . .

.
• • • •

• •••••••••

....
••••

.+

. .. .......
II• •

........
J ,. • • •••

• .. •••· •• .. ... •· .. ••• •• .. ... • .. .....

0 0
••

........ ..• • ·.." ...

,

...... ........ ......... ....... .......

..
...

••••••

....... ....... ••••••• ••••••• .......

•••••••

· · · ·

,0

. . •· ·.. · .·
•0

·· . . . ·.
'0

"

·...... .... ...... ·.. ...... ... ·.. · ·.. • · ·..... ·.. ·•. • .. • •• ·.. ·. ... ... ·... . • •••• · ·. . •..... • •••••• ...... ••• · ........• •• ·•. • · .... ·. •••••• ..... • ·. ....- - ... •••· ·. .......... ............ · .. ............ •· · ......•.•.•• ............. ..........
•
'"
o.
,

••

'

'

In war-torn countries and areas devastated by disaster, the presence of UNHCR tents is one of the first signs of aid.
[)esigners have tried to rethink structures this basic tent for decades. prefabricated Every1Ming from to shipping But as the agency

containers to polyurethane yurts has been

Lightweight Emergency Tent

Location_Various D.te_2002-present Organization_Office Commissioner populations Duign (onsultant_Ghassem 'MIInufacturer_H. IPvtllimited, Atea_178 Ferdanesf
&

suggested

or attempted.

poLitely points out In its gu~de to emergency

materials, to date none of these systems

has proven effective Most shelter arrangements in refugee situations. will have been made

fail simply because other emergency

01the United Nations High internally displaced

before these systems even arrive. Some tent alternatives are perceived as "too
permanent," host fora refugee difficult making to return them difficult to site In

for Refugees IUNHCR)

End client_Refugees,

communities and creating less incentive

home. Others are or costly to replicate.

Sheikh Noor-ud-Oin $100

Sons

But in recent years there has been a

growing sense wltMln the agency that the cesiqn of the standard family tent could and should be radically overhauled. In most

Lahore. Pakistan sq fL/16.5 sq. m people

Cost per unit_Approx. OccuplnCY_4-5 Dimen.ions_IS We;ghl_91

emergencies ft./5.5 x 3 x 2.1 m

sheeling complexity

the agency sends out plastic

on the size and may last resort of the crisis, this sheeting of firstand

x 9.8,69

first. Depending

to./41.5 kg

be the response

However, in cases where local materials are not available to build more permanent structures, where families cannot find
shelter within the community provides more durable a ridge-style or are alternativesdisplaced for tonger periods of time, the or cer-ter-pcte-doubte-

UNHCR
typically

fly tent made from canvas. Yet these canvas tents are not only heavy, cumbersome to
carry, and costly to ship, but because canvas rots they deteriorate quickly and cannot be stockpiled tor Ionq periods. Wear and tear on the weakened material in the field Significantly the shelter. In 2002 the dispatched shortens the useful lifespan of began testing a new

UNHCR

design for the baSIC family tent it regularly to areas of crisis. The agency's

technical emergency

support,

supply

rnanaqement,
dlvisions of several

and

with close quarters

ca n be an explosive

and security

developed

specifications durable,

over the course

years. The tent needed

to be lightweight, shelf life than its

and have a longer

combination, often increasing the incidence of the physical abuse of worn-ell and children. To mit~gate such violence, the designers created a fabric partition to divide the tent.
creating children, create a sem iprivate The partition a semipublic space where worn en can change and parents can sleep away from can also be used 10 to care

above lett Standard UNHCR canvas tents shelter Sudanese retugees in Eastern Chad in 2004. If stockpiled for too tong the canvas rots, shortening the useful lifespan, of the tent in the field.
1-1. CamtUW·ICR

canvas. precursors. But bE'CaU5El tents can cost a 5 much to sh i P as to make, the primary consideration was one. of volume in terms
of both weiqht and size. "We are tetklnq in terms of 50,000 to 100,000 tents,' explained Ghassem Fardanesh, a physical planner in the UNHCR Technical Support Section who helped specifications The resulting spearhead the project 'Even when we hit the riqht design, some of the didn't come easily." design employs a tunnel

workspace

for the

wounded or sell supplies. The agency mads an initial p-oducton

run of 10,000 units, and the new dasiqn has since been field-tested to the Darfur affecled in

above rlqht The lightweight Em-ergeney Tent in use in Meuhlboh, West: Sumatra, after the Indian Ocean tsunami (If 2004. The tents are arranged at an angle to- prevent those in facing tents 'from being abLeto see inside when the flaps are opened.
1;,l"an:j.aM5-h/tit'lI1C~

Chad lin response

Indonesia

cnsis] and In areasof

by the tsunami of December 2004, But it could be years before the lightweight traditional it's really new, and The tent surveillance

shape to maximize headroom and usable 'pace, An Inner tent With a 'bathtub" Liner provides insulation and flooring, to guard Air against

model replaces the UNHCR's canvas tent. "In our business difficult

to say, 'I have something

opposite 113ft Cumbersome canvas tents required as many as four people to,tarry, A man transports the new dasign 1)1'1 the back of.a bicycle in K':reungSabe, Indot1'esia. The tent packs in a .carrying case and can be easily erected.
G,F<lWilll;;-",h/UI1,",cR

circulates through vents and window flaps

lined With mosquito rnetare. rather spaced netting Guy ropes a t the fro nt and bat k than IMe Sides allow the tent 10 be

let's replace [the old version].'

we have now has been under for Fardanesh, number

20 years, This is a newborn baby," said who considers the tent a work
and expects it will undergo a tweaks and other before for the il is fully adopted. of manufacturing

opposite right The new tent's partition affords refuaees and displaced families, a modicum of privacy
G, Fl!n;"a~E-5.h/LIt1I1CR

closer to other tents, Because it is materiafs, the tent can be stockpiled in greater quantities. and its
made from synthetic smaller volume and weight 191 pounds. [41.5 kg] compared with 176 to 242 pounds [80 to

in progress modifications Speclf"M/oo,

lightw.,ght Emergency

l' 0 kglforlraditional

canvas versionsl

Tent lor the UNHCR's traditional canvas tents

are provided in UN Int-er-Agency Procurement
Services Office, "Emergency Relief Items VoL.1 Compendium of Generic Specifications," Un/t.d Nolions Development Programme, May 2000,

saves on shipping costs and allows for easier ""tandling. II even comes in its own "handbaq.'

The most innovative aspect of the design

s ts recoqmtion cefugee of the need for privacy. In menta lity com bi ned cam ps a survival

http//Www.iapsoorg

'~ "
"In our business it's really difficult to say, " have something new, and let's replace [the old version]: The tent we have now has been under surveillance for 20 years. This is a newborn baby."
Gh.ssem Fardaneah, senior physica I planner, UN
Q

HeR

,. .

••
Intervle"

Shelter Frame Kit

Laciiltia"_ venous

Bruce LeBel World Shelters

Many designers have commented on the difficulty of breaking into the relief "industry. "
Underfunded. overworked aId organllatlOns are often unwilling to take chances with new deSigns. In lheirdefense not a month goes by that the major aid organizations aren·t besieged by some designer somewhere offering the ~alest panacea to the world's housing crisis, As one aid worker deadpanned, "Sometimes enthusiasm overtakes expetience' For Bruce LeBel, however, experience has never been an issue. In this tnterviewcondocted in March 2005. he talks about the inspiration behind his and his partner Steven Elias s Sheller Frame Kit. their slruggle 10 bring N to miJrket, and, ultimately, their decision to produce and distribute the design through their own nonprofit, World Shelters. HDW YDU did first get involved in providing humanitarian aid? I started out as a hich-school science teacher. Idid my first disasterreliet project in 1976 in Guatemala afterthe earthquake there. I was part of a group from LheMoh,wk Nation that worked in small villages that hadn't received aid from other sources. The un-einforced adobe-block walls and tile roofs were what had collapsed and caused most of the death and injury in the villages. CAREhad a program olfering roofing materia! for anyone who could get up walls So what

Oate_1983-preseot Organization_World Shelters

End euent emergency Design Dlspteeed populations, Elias, Bruce LeBel Fuller Institute field operations

team_Steven

Projec:t partner _Bu-ckminster

C•• t per unil_$365 Are._269 sq. It./25 sq. m Occupancy_6-S people

Dimensions_24 x 11)( 8 fi.l7.4 x 3.4 x 2.6 m 15" 15.60 Packed dimensiDns_

in.!

38,38" 152cm Weight_66 Lb./30kg

clinic set up by the nonprofit International Medical Corps in Uganda using the Shetter Frame Kit A health
WarldSIleLter:;;

I developed building

was a combination

of Japanese

and Mexican
We

traditional

techniques. tutorial

Instead of thick adobe blocks, with Bucky Fuller.

used posts and

woven-bamboo did a graduate

lattice with adobe applied as stucco. Then, in 1977, I

That must have been interesting. What was it like worlcin9 wilhBu<ky? He was someone you could spend an hour with anc then have a
month's hewould worth of work to do. He had an amazing Ithink way of asking the question that lor on satient question. would take me high schools. that was the key for me. It was just the way

take the work I was doing and ask the salient design science

10 the next level. I had a twofold program with him,

curriculums design with an emphasis

one part of which Was developing tenseqrlry. tensile When I finished Berkeley, company tents. structures. my program

"Then, we had lunch with Fast Eddy. He saw what we were doing and how dialed it was. He said, 'Tomorrow we are going to meet at my office. I am only going to take 20 percent off the top. I've got all the channels worked 'out, and here is how it"s protected: We looked at each other and said, 'We cannot go to this meeting. Time to get out of the country ." •
Bruce LeBel. World Shelters

The other was structural

with Fuller,

my wife and I moved to in backpacking USAID sheetinq brought material. and When we found OUI about this male rial, we in samples

and I went to work for The North Face, which was the first that used Fuller's principles of "tenseqrity" of The North Face.

Bob Gillis, together with Bruce Hamilton

developed the first flex-wand backpacking tent. That's the basic technotogythat we still use (or our disaster relief shelter; We still buy clips from Bob [see ""GripCllps"l

started making shelters with it. Then, when

we found that USAIOwas distributing this to disaster sites. we thought. well, this is. just reaL clear. Not only is It an excellent material. but u's already there. Whal we realty need is shelter frame kit without the sheeting field With the sheeting extraordinary sheeting We hired Roy brought manager matenal

Fr~me Kit come into being? Was ;!something you started white you were alThe North Face? A colleague I had known through work with Fuller. Steven Elias. also
How did had experience [Offic-e of Foreign dOIng disaster relief work. He had a little business to lcosa Village. a division lnc.! The OFDA af lr e United States called lcosa Domes. (Nole: Unrelated Disaster Assistance, Development Agency for International

IheShelter

a desiqn that will operate as" material and have it made in the
this

that's there. That's the seed tor ourwork,

that shows up after every disaster. for us with DFDA. We

as our sales rep, and Roywas able to make Ihe contacts

and get an appointment manager

and pull the strings

In our demo shelter and demonstrated

and to the procurement

it to the program
setting here are ~ ~
I:"

(USAIDI] had used Icosa Domes

and the logis.tic~ officer .... their teeth because

in Guatemala,
logistics. cardboard shipping

Ir-an. and Beirut before realizing

the hard part is the

for relief work. The said. fiame-

And, here we are out on the tront tawn of the Slate Department this thing up, and they are sort of gnashing these young turks from California

And doing something and in-country

In

that was as heavy and bulky as the was too

Icosa Dome just didn't work logistically handling

with this idea. And then the director

difficult.

After Fullerdied focus On developing retardant, on product durable desig n.

<83. Steven and I gottogetherand human-transportable,

of OFDA comes dawn while were just about to set this thing up, and it .ust went up so Jast.ltwas beautiful tnc way it went up, And the director says, "We really need to rnctude So there we competition this shelter shelter: in the evaluation that we're doing." national

.~ ~

"We really ought to just do sor-iethinq. a lighlweight, shelter."

Ther-e's a legacy here. Let's Dymax and began working

were, and aUof a sudden we were in OFDA's first

for emergency

So we started

How did you come up with the idea of using stan~ar" sheeting rather than SUpplying your own <overing?
It was a phone calL We were exploring materials andwe and decided that USAID would probablybea

reliel pl.stic

What was the competilion aILabout? Wer,.t~ev testing different designs? They were doing a competition to procure tent supplies fer-various
relief operatlcns. After winnowing down the entries in the national various and going lhrough competition company. a bidding process, they decided to do a fletd test in El Salvador and

a range of diflerenlsheeting good contact.

shculd find out what they use. We then lound there was a fellow this would have been In 1984. who had done a for USAID on temporary [thatl developed shelters. This was right for the to get going, loa. He put us in the specifications

Guam and other areas.

going globally. products

So now we're

'or

named Roy Limpitlaw, study and a write-up

and after going through

filters,

there were two

left: ours and one from an outdoor in 50 of our shelters

equipment

at the time that Fred Cuny was starting contact with the supplier

The first test site was El Salvsdor. there. They brought

back in 1985. after the earthquake to different distribution

.. _.

centers. ho
IS

So we get the call from USAID about this, and we say, "WelL, to be

test, and then we continued developing contacts,

working

with relief organizations

arid in.

going

the evaluator?"
"This

And the fellow who they designated

but we were just never successful

breaking

to ne the evaluator company we going to go to

was the sales rep

from their

the outdoor

equipment

So, we thought.

is interesting.

Tell you what, we of interest. stuff to get

are
because

El Salvador
callinq

just to watch. ,. It was a. huge mistake them on conflict

The big problem cultural big problem,

Why do you think th,at is? with shelter is that the logistical
issues totally overwhelm the designs, Once people are living someplace, perfectly for six months the materials

Issues and the is

were

essentially Frankly,

In particular. land

We get to Et customs, and

Salvador

and it takes a week for waiting

the

through

they aren't going to and the next day turn into are onLy a smaH part of

I think theywere

for us to run out of patience

move unless they've one that will perform dust. Ours lasts two The geometry. the total package,

got somewhere else to go. So. the- ideal solution is years.

evaluator. who actually ends up writing some objective reports, And we take some photcqraphs of how the plastic sheeting on its own was being used, which for the most part was nothing more than using it as a lean-to, or draping it over walls Of roofs that had holes in it. They'd hangl il between trees. It was just
We spend some time with the draped. There was absolutely reinforced Howdid the validity no structure to it at all. So it very much of the concept behind the Shelter

leave,

the dimensions.

Frame

Kit.

To me, it's really not only having an ability to solve the logistical problems but also being able to maximize the use of locally available materials and labor. You can make World Shelters shipping in nothing more than what I refer to as "user-friendly live ware." ALL you need is to ship in one of our associates, and as long as there is
cord, sheeting, supporting and some kind 01 pole material, we tan produce selfstructures get the

the lest go? What was the' response

to your design?

We learned quite a bit

from that experience, During the time we had available whi le Ihe shelters we re clearing customs, we were following the trail of where aid money goes and discovering now little of it gets used foraid and how much of it gets siphoned off. It was really extraordinary to see where so much of the moneywas going. Basically.
power structure was siphoning it out and getting the money

Ho,wdid you eventually finaUyused? 11'1 end the

kit into'the

field?

Where was i't

it was

back-burnered For seven or eight years, and then

the military

we got a call from the group thaI was doing the next test for OFDA. Once again there was a set

out of the country. We met this fellow, very high up, We Commerce, seven Fast Eddy, who was very well connected. given his name by

of specifications

and a lest process and a X number

commitment of

that they would be purchasinq around and said=just

of units.
product,

The our

were

the

American

Chamber

upshot was they turned budgets

as happened

in the

and after we held lunch with this fel~ow, after beingthere having put together willl

previous go eround-v'Thank

you very much. wonderful

to eight days and financing redevelopment

and the tractors

a whole

scenario

for

'have, been

cut." smart at that point. Even though entrepreneurs. task. It's not a we Because

Low-tech

walls and getting all rei'idy-I

the bank worked

We started

getting

and the land brokering

mean, it only took scenario were doing and the channels And

and I are dyed-in-the-wool

the government is a

my partner Steve realized: Youknow, we

trying to sell to

us a week,
out-then,

and we already had this redeveLopment

should start looking at this as a nonprofit.

we had lunch with Fast Eddy. He saw whatwe off the top. I've' got Time to get but it wasn't

50-year

five-year

how

dialed it was, He said, "Tomorrow

we are going to meet at my office.

task. One day it will happen, but we can't bank on it. do we gOlt it to the NGOs. when sheller everybody's

So we

task 0 r a 1O-yea r thought. approach hoW it as and

I am onLy goijn'Q to take 20 percent worked out. and here is how its

all

is nobody's main mission well,

protected,"

We looked at each other and

scrarnbllnq,

and we thought,

we should

said, -We cannot go to this meeting,

out

ot the country." what

a nonprofit ourselves.
In 2002 we started Through to somejoint !International working tundraisinq, with the Buckminster Fuller Institute. clinics, we were able to get units out to IMe used them as temporary which put some units along as

"Ie left, And that was it. Never did see one of our structures

go lip. 50 we

learned What

an extraordinary

amount, just

about

you

think,

Medical Corps], which Red Crescent,

about the bid wiith OFDA? kept things on

the

Jordanian

the border hall sing

for for

lie folLowe·d the test and Ne got reports :esiyn. ::lt -a"e

hold

for production. the other tent

of Iraq, and to the Mexican

R~d Cross. A German agency aLso used them shelters

back that they weren '1 able to perfect

and our tell! went up Like" dream. W@won the compeution,

in IKosovo lor redevelopment activities ..They were used people who we re dorng construction OJ nd as Ie mporary
people until they could move into their new homes. How:muc.h did you r,aise and how many sheLters

unfortunately then the feedback from OFDA was "Our budgets been cut. We are not going to be buying any of these tents that , e thought we were going to be buying thousands 01." And the same
itself 15 years later,

were you able

sct:I"',;no repeated What happened --"., ,ere used

10 produce?
We raised about $20,000 to $25,000, and With that we were able to as part of the first OFDA

in the meantime? n Guam and Mozambique

produce

and distribute

about 50

25-square-meter

[269-sq.=tt.]

sheLters-including

shipping,

That'5 the thing that so many people don't reaLize" Shipping can be half the cost of manlllf,acturing the unit5, if not more. That's one of the things that we're working on right now. We're trying to put tcuether production facilities and warehouses, managing the logistics from start to finish. The other re<lliy important part of design is not just having a product but having an organization, taking the responsibility to create an organization that is going to make it happen, All of the issues around designing and initiating and coordinating and building are handled by non profit organizations, and I've discovered them to be just critical. Since we spoke with LeBel. World Shelters hes gone on 10 provide
emergency strli'lter to the Red Cross after Hurricane the Gulf Coast of the United States, to International Uganda, and in rhe tsunami-affected areas of indonesia. it has also provided shelterin Katrina pounded Mediciil[ Corps in and Banda Aceh. the Andaman

World

After the Indian Otean tsunami of 20Q4, Shelters' structures were Llsed by ,a monastery in Sri Lanka. The Sllelter Frame Kit is intended to "tum sheeting into shelter." The design tali<es advantage of the plastic sheeting supplied by the Unite,d Nations, l.ISAJD, and other agencies to disaster areas. The kit includes S-hooks, PVC pipe, cord. guy lines, anchor stak'es, dips, connectors, and a pic:torial instruction manual.
World S ~lters;

... ...
:t:
C

oil

3'

" ..

Sri Lanka

India {including

Islands}, Venezuela, and £1 Sa'ivador:

• •

GripClips
Lo.cation_Various Dafe_1975-present

Designer _Robert Gillis

Manufacturer_Sheller Systems

It would be safe to say that few people know the ins and outs of tents better than Robert Gillis.
Not onLy did he design the first geodesic backpacking tent, based on Buckminster

component working difficult

of relief projects.

However, meant finding "lt was puncturing

with plastic sheeting to join the material

a way to "hold on to it." Gillis explalns: without

Cosl_$8-' 0 [set of 41

it. But puncturing it is a bad idea because it weakens it The material deteriorates less if you don't injure it." The designerwent through
more than 10 different arriving at Ihe GripClip, iterations belo re and ties it

Fulter's ideas, for The North Face in the 19705, but he also lived in a collection of tents (with his wife and three children] for more than 20 years-aLL ofwhich he designed
himself. including the tent that housed the J'amiLywashing have stemmed machine. from efforts to improve his he

a small plastic fastener

that clips onto any type of sheeting to a frame, Reducing fundamentaL the sheeting the shelter element, to its most

the connection

between

and the support,

enabled Oillis to dome structures. a ova ntage:

ALthough many of GiLLis's tent innovations own living conditions, saw the potential emergency plastic sheeting sheLter-in from the beginning particular

desfgn a number

of tents. from a basic shelter

frame kit to more elaborate They allowed

The clips aLso offered another

for translatinq

his ideas to using the

for a range of shapes. Whereas

most relief agencies distribute

tents beca use the structure

tunnel-shaped

that has become a standard

can be covered

with one large sheet of material, these tents are less stable in the wind than dome-shaped rents. Using GripClips, Gillis found he was aole to layer sheeting in shingles to create a ""'lore stable structure' that would also shed 'din. "And I didn't have to sew it or heat-weLd : or any thing," he recalls. "Here was the eerfect thing: It was tolally wonderful." More recently Gillis has focused on :reating dips and fasteners to attach plastic sheeting to ro-ofs, frameworks, piping, or plywood, allowing familiesto turn damag'ed structures into transitional homes while T1ey rebuild.

opposite

A Gripittip. secured to a cross-piece of frame, shown from inside a shelte~. 'The frame pieces are secured with plastic wrap. above GripCLip's two plastic parts are designed to be twisted together with a piece of sh'eeting tHaween them. The clip i.lset! can be fastened to oil frame structure with plastic lies, rope, or pi,pe clamps, right Robert Gillis inside a tent built with GripC~ips.
All p.nll-tQgra.phs @'WWW_d.ometen150.t.om

•
BOLD (Building Opportunities a id Livelihoods in Darfur)
Location_Darfur Province, Sudan International

Date_2004-5
'Qrgilnization_CHF

End dient_Displaced
Design team_Scott

populations in Darfur
MlJlraom'Y, Isaac Boyd Hill

Additiol1al l:onsultant_R.ichard

Major f'undinQ_USAID Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance Cost per unit_$90

Oc:c;upancy_ 4-5 people

Af"ea_67 sq. ft./6,25 sq. m

One of the difficulties relief organizations often encounter working in areas of conflict is finding a balance between a host community's desire to prevent refugee camps from becoming permanent communities and the needs of refugees for income generation and community building,
BOLD IBuilding in Darfurl-a launched for families succeeds the in Opportunities and Livelihoods lack of work and food in the camps meant that wamen were traveling exposing themselves outside the camps in search of fueL wood, potentially to physical or sexual attack. an income of 250-500 Sudanese dinars temporary displaced in striking housinq initiative International projects that by civil war in western

2004 by CHF

($1-21 per day, enough to buy chickens and eggs and add an important source of protein
to their diets. The shelters pe rmanent.

Sudan, is one of those-rare

are not intended to be

caused Still, and repaired.

a balance between

In an effort to provide a source of income

generation and improve the makeshift program housing of the camps, GHF Launched BOLD in dwellers

A strong rai nstorm

two,
cobbled together from

some to be damaged shelter, Perhaps

At the time many people in the camps were Hving in shelters cardboard were difficult and plastic sheeting, "The tents

they offered an improvement generating "They are

i3

on the existing

2004, The

empLoyed camp

more important,

by
they

surrounding

the town of Nyala in

income for the weavers,

to get iln and out 01, dark. hot,

South Darfur, to displaced temporary

where glrass was plentiful. persons in camps in North to create

helped to improve camp life in other ways. step up." said Grimes of the would like to see these design. "Everyone

and poorly ventilated. It just wasn't a great scurtion." explains Elin Grimes, OJ project coordinator, Whafs more, the plastic s: eeting used to construct them, while .vaterproof, degraded extreme and tore quickly nl under North Africa's heat. At the same time

to weave mats. Those mats were provided Darfur, where grass was scarcer,

people living in belter homes, but trying

to balance what you can do financially, what's immediately available, and what will allow you to do doesn't C_HFhas in-come-

sheLters modeLed on traditional rskubss. Constructed from bamboo frames, the shelters were lashed toqether by cord
recycled from rubber tires. The progra~ employed oftnem some 3,000 people, 85 percent Each weaver produced them with one women,

the government

government
shelters

restri clio ns on perrnane population housing. to build

give you a whole lot of flexibility"

preven ted ag andes from working

since used the same mat-weaving,

generation program

w ~Il[he displaced
ore permanent

to build community

Furthermore,

to two mats a day, providing

centers in other camps.

:i' ...

..
...
::z:
r::

• ..

w ,-

'" o

above
The mats 'Were woven in the south, where grass is plentifuL, and Were Used lo,cally as well as transportedl to thearicl regions in the north, where grass does not grow.
tseec Bo)'d

opposite Women and men hang woven mats from a frame to make a shelter.
Isaac BD~d

It's often said that only from great complexity does simplicity emerge. This was certainly the case with the Global Vi llage Shelter by Ferra ra Desiqn.] nc.
The father-dauqhts r d I3sig n team be hind th is several years, this is not their intent, "'The shelter is designed with a definite Mia Ferr8ra.ln that the shelters limited tact, were sheilf life," explains she says, an official expressed designed concern

basic folding refuge experimented wilh more than 100 different configurations before

arriving solution

at an elegant.

simple,

cost-effective sheller. cardboard,

at the United Nations

10 providing temporary

Made from

Iaminated

corrugated

"to last too long." Structures can often remain years after associated and sometimes

the hut can be erected

in less than an hour to house provides

meant to be temporary in use months a disaster,

by two

people using onlya set of diagrams tools. It is designed comfortably, explains Mia Ferrara, The corrugated

and common a familyoffour

leading to problems

with poverty, "This is often caused by not moving to the next step in the relief efforts," notes Ferrara. for this." "The temporary nature

lob I Village S t rs
Lo£atioR_ Grenada Date_ 1995-2()05 Design firl1:l~Ferrara Design, Inc, Design team_DarnieL A Ferrara, Jr.,
Mia Y. Ferrara

cardboard, strength,

privacy, and just enough give

to allow the units to be folded for sase of tra nspert. Daniel Ferrara tens of thousands began develo pi ng prototypes in 1995. Soon afterward, of Tutsis began to flee of the folding shelter

01 the Global Village Shelter does not allow

However. structure, with shipping company standard one as with any portable, temporary associated

the cost and leqlstics

the unit can often be greater itself, The compared with

Rwanda, crow-ding refugee camps in Burundi, Tanzania, and Zaire. Hoping to provide shelter to these refugees, Ferrara researched manufacturers turned to produce his design. As it had the capacity 10 in sheets Large design company's needs, The idea

than the price of the shelter estimates shippinq container,

88 units can fit in a

Milteria~ development_Ferrara
WeyerhaeusE!r, Inc, Manufacturer_Weyerhaeuser, Weyerhaeuser,

Oesig n, lnc., Inc.

500 to 1,000 te nts. Still, Mia Ferrara believes the ease of of the design more setup and the sturdiness the competition interest especially

out, only three paper companies. corrugate laminate

of them Weyerhaeuser, machine simmered back burner turned

Major fUnding_Arch itectu re for Humanity,

lnc.: Ed Plant; and other ind ividual donations

than make up for the extra expen.se."When is a simple tent, it is difficult new," she concedes. to accept change,

enough to meet the firm's on the industrial fcr seversl

10 get yourself apart from that and generate

for something "People are hesitant

Cost per unit_$400 l.ifespan_8-12 months

years. III 2002 Mia back to the prototype, several winters Working with to refine the ..

Ferrara joined the firm. and she and her father their attention which by now had withstood in their backyard Weyerhaeuser, material retardant

when every penny counts, But this Design partnered with

does not mean chanqe should not occur." In 2005 Ferrara Architecture based architecture Reconstruction prototype more than for Humanity. the Miami-

in Connecticut. the pair continued

design and developed strength

a coating that provided with a fire has also pit situations.

firm Arquirtectonica,

and betlerwaterproofing

and Grenada Relief, Recovery, and [GR3] 10 field test a of the islano's by powerful housing of their design in Grenada after

They infused the corrugate

and added a lock to the unit's door

to provide security" The company latrines to be used in emergency the designers the shelters

85 percent

adapted the design to create enclosed Although maintenance"

stock was destroyed Seventy shelters transitional areas of the country,

hurricanes. to rura I

were distributed

believe that. with could last for

where they served as

homes and health clinics.

left
Global Village Shelters, in Connecticut

above Global Village Shelters provide much-needed snelter toa famity in hurrlcsne-ravagee Grenada.
GIU/Arc.l'Iii1eoenrre for !-fwrn.ar.ity

Qlobo1

Villose

Sheller.

BmSlAt'S!!mblr

1n;:1.rtf.fllOI!l~

Global VI!boge Sheijen

Raof

8--e:amAss9mbly IM.TU'CtIOnt

~
.~'~I~
.... oflc!,~ ~ fDClng'llP'llr.arth.

;--1 '

(} /8 I r--~-t

;-'--.

-~
,;:-

...,,--~

-II.'
above and opposite above Instructions for deploying the unit

left The shelter packs nat for shipping and unfo,lds to

form tlile walls and roof. opposite It variation of the clesign adapted fol' use 3S latrines

~aoIt,III"'"J>

......,.f ..

=--"'!_-n ~-.,

~o)_ota

.... l"II.II!

z.. ............""" (... nn.:..)

~'i"~

ITif" d

"o:._"jtl.at1"~

~>§I~

",.kI"",:t.:I,fll,"",!~o!J!;!i..;IJh>

,------------------,

<t7~
f~i~11)(1'{ ~~iomlO fo!::i1g
:h:iIt1h111 ~

Ql

m..

iiJl"olJl'ld

~v
......

"'iI~,.;~

~19Fi't;~~

is-

!!:!"'!i!",Idt!''M'''Nlil-'!o!'

k'4Pi1

n!rll

• ..
r
0::

01-£11

hi ~Rd~

(I:",.,fou.

diwn,yoo '!rIp'

'f.axlb~ R~

""'~IQP).

will m.an;him

'"

;;'

1hiI:rsh.:<wfLoI:ro:.lyllilod: OCIOIIIihl:lrrt f~ibl§n~oiJiI'IlPlGclt. hQl'r.,.lIk'inII.'Iu k ~~dffel,;iblt pbm: rtfp~1:X1"1nbo)

0
CO

",;;>

"

r:
-< 0

;;

"
OJ

q> ;j

'"
3

'"

..
.,

•
Burning Man Shelter Tests
L.ocafion_8ljrnimr Date_2001-5
Main Festival. Black Rock Desert, NeVild<l, USA

In 2001 three distant cousins of the "Bucky Ball" ernerqed

executive-turned-designer. watching decided, a TV pmgr.3m

In May 2000- he was on hornelessness and

from the desert at Nevada's

Burning Man Festival,
Now over a decade old, the annual draws 30,000 freethinkers Desert, where temperatures

"If people are livinq in a box, we need box:' Sanford went tlwroug.h on the geodesic Laten-he was testinq before settlinq

to build a better 200 iterations

lcosa. Seventeell months

event to the Black Rock

can soar to and

his pod under the b,akil1g Nevada 5UI'I. He based his design on

two

main

over 100 • F [38 °C] and dust storms

might would seam like

high winds are the norm. To some, this

the

last place on earth one

go voluntarily: for emergency shelter designers, it is the perfect Location lor testing their latest prototype. The lcosa Pod instantly became an Icon
at the event, with its futuristic-looking and lightweight material. The shelter shell was

its triangular forms sustain mor-e stress than rectanqles and its dome shape provides more usable space, The fire- retardant, waterproofed lam i natedcardboard watts create six-inch-Tlfi-cm-l thick cavities providing passive insulation. ~n
more temperate climates the cavities Chloroplast, at Burning can be

principles:

filled w~th insulation.

translucent plastic

TIle pod's windows wfth a five-year

are

made from UV-resistant Since its appearance

a white Lifespan. Man, the

designed

by

Washington-based

Sanford

Ponder, a musician-turned-Nicrosoft-

pod has shed its cardboard skin fora mere

durable

laminated-plastic

shell and is now

being sold at two price points, for retail

... and humanitarian

.. despite number unfeasible spectrum his small,

use, Detractors
tool-free

the shelter's

say that assembly. its

of parts make the time of assembly

for an emergency situation, On the other end of the Burning! Man

lies Vi'nay Gupta, who tested low-cost refugee shelter, to create the as the the fest iva I in 2003, is designed in its production. around he heard where

Hexayu rt, at

The Hexayurt

little waste as possible Rocky Mountain the US military

Gupta got the idea while hanging Institute,

Podvitle
Localion_Bu IDate_2001 IDesigln firm_lcDsa rning Man Festival,

about Strong Angel. a project instigated to test emergency systems shelter and communicationeight-foot Construction

by

Black Rock Desert, Nevada, USA Village Inc.

R'obinson

[see below].

The design can be built using any tour-byO.2-by-2.4-mJ requires of sheet material. only six straight cuts make

Ilrrian,'or _Sanford Ponder Additional consultant_Markus Cost per lunit_lcoPod, [for humanitarian use only]

across

the diagonals Burning

the

sheets,

to
was

$1,175; DecaPod, $2,698

the roof triangles. Gupta's Man prototype cardboard built from Hexacomb by Pactiv Corporation Heatshield, insulation Innovative flexibility a reflective developed

Are.iI_leoPod, 108 sq. ft./1Osq, m; DecaPod 472 sq.lt.!43 sq. m

Website_www.thepod.net

and connected

with fiber tape. It was then wrapped vaporbarrler and waterproofing Energy. Separating elements in the materials coolinq

in
for by

developed allows for

the structural

and waterproofing the area's extreme an emergency swamp computer plastic cooler,

used. To handle A lOI-watt a 12-voll a eml to to

heat, Gupta also jimmied system. to an improvised air through

solar panel was connected case fan pulling

in this instance,

tub filled with four inches even further. and portable. difficulty.

110

of water. This helped temperature be lightweight However, "ops" carried undertaken former military being affordable,

drop ths internal In addition is designed

the Hexayurt

One adult can test of relief was and

opposite above

carry the hut without

by

far the largest

out during

the festival

by a group of current
consultants

and personnel. Construction 0,1an 1,05a Village DecaPod at 'the Burning 'Man Festival in 2001 opposite below The completed "IPcdville" at sunset
Both phctcqrephs lecsa Village lne.

In 2000 US Navy Medical Rasmussen initiated called Strong Angel

Corps Cmdr. Eric which

a series of exercises The exercises.

are held every few years ill Hawaii and involve a wide range of players. academic, military, including and humanitarian

...
N

Location_Burning Man Festival, Black Rock Desert, Nevada. USA

Date_2003

Desipet V(AaY S-upta ~~_Beatrice .fvnllln,_'Self-funded;

Aranow

donations rrom Pactiv C~(atlol'l.

""
Area_161

n Energy. 3M. SketchUII ltIIit_$BO-250

sq. ft.!15 sq. m

opposite Designer VinClYGupta's rnrnpleted Haxayurt orntotype at the Burning looIan lestival in 20013
"'"7y

GUpta

err to right. top to bottom The cardboard shell LInder construction; application ot the reflect'ive heat shiield; transportinq the shelter: - e design,er, left, wiitil friend Beatrice Ara now -~ front (If the completed "IaU-scale unit

relief protassionats. coordination betweerl relief civilian-led

are intended military around efforts

to improve

operations the world. in the a,t the

and

Each year in preparation

a core team of participants official event. Burning

for these exercisE's, gathers

desert of Nevada be-lore convening for attracting

Unoffici,al Strong Angel Training Exercises

!.oc;atio!l_8Hm ..ing Man FestivO!L,Black Rock
desert" Nevada Date_200t-5

Man, with its reputation

free spirits, might be the last place you would expect to see a military base camp. For Rasmussen il was the best austere
environment for: testing new ideas he had

Drganization~Strorlg

AngeL

ever seen, His team had been prornotinq the idea that the restoration of roads, bridges, ports, water, sanitation systems, shelter, and other basic services could be planned for, practiced, and responded to qukkly through better
communications networks and the intelliqent Hhe group has a use of cheap technoloqy. for exampls.] In 2004

Pro~ect tealm_Dal'e Warner, John Graharn,

Steve Birch, Cmdr. Eric Rao;mul;sen

SheUer' d.esi!ln_World Shelters Website_www.stmngangel.org

turned Pringles cans into Wi-Fi antennas,

the

team erected

dome [desig:ned by World Shelters, see ·Shelter Frame Kin at the Burning Man geodesic
festivities shelter in relief After to test the depLoyment and cornm urtication operations, Burning Man the team tcokthe of

i ntra structure

Strong Angel. operation

communications the 2004 tsunami"

to Banda Aceh,
in the wake of 5urveying

Indonesia, to assess and supportemerqsncy

infrastructure
time in, helicopters

They found that aid workers

were

spending

areas of the disaster zone that others had ",lr'eady assessed. Had information been shared through a network such a,s Strong Angel, they could have used the helicopters
transport Rasmussen food and shelter to those in need, noted. He and his. team hope to

to

apply

10 future disasters, speed:ing relief end recovery efforts.

Strong Angel·s metbodclogy

opposite

[clockwise from top lett] Streng An:geLparticlpants ,erec~algE!odesic dome desi'~nedl by WDr~d Shelters dUliin~ unoffic:i'al kaining el(e·rcie5 held at the Burning Man

Festival in 2001;; the shelter is used 10 create a: communications network; a solar-powered GPS bot collects milppin9 data; a powerful Wi·Fi
dlrectlonal antenna can be made from a Pringles
can for Less than $10; the

adapt a simila:f "cantanna" camp's wireless network,

i;.loo:::kwi~~ from top' left, ph:1tQ'9j;"aphs.

StrolOg!Angel partlclpants design to expand the

l-t.,
6 Dii!YI;! WarJlH; 5 Gre'3loJTY Re~

Invented by Peter Brewin and William Crawford, engineers at the RoyaL College of Art, Concrete Canvas is a "building in a bag."

Canvas
Date_2003-4 Design, team_Peter

Concrete
Brewin. WilHam Crawford

In.flate the bag. and 12 hours Later a Ouonset-sha backgrounds degrees structure operations, storing ped structu re is ready for before pursing their master's use. Its desig ners, who booth had milita ry in industrial design, belLieve the medical clinics. or

overdryinq, the structure

at dusk,

should

be deployed structure inner

I The

result

of 172 square feet

116 sq.

is 11 th in concrete rn]. A plastic

lining bonds with the concrete

to create a instant

sterile waterproof interior.

could be well suited to housinq field

emergency food and equipment. First, positicn the fabric and fill t'he A

Althouqh
shelter

the idea of delivering

in a bag is intriguing,

at 500 pounds

Cost per unit_$2,OOO [prototype) Areil_l72 sq. 11./16 $~ rn Weight_507 lb./230 kg We bsite_ www.. oncretecanvas .on:J.uk c

1230 kg) the sheerweight

precludes lightweight relocate concerns

of the sack

Here's how it works:

distrl butio n by foot and requ ire s a truck. ALso, water can be scarce FieLd operations tend to nature of it once use. and environmental such as how

sack of cement-impregnated the water-to-cement for 15 minutes clothlike chemical inflates

it with water, [The size of the sack controls ratio. eliminating need for measuresnent.l Then leave the bag hydrates. a

in an emergency,

as political

dictate, and the permanent raises questions or repurpose

while the cement

these structures

fiber matrix and water-absorbent reaction that mixes the cement. which then via a chernlcat voLume of leave it to Finally. (To avoid

to dispose of the building

bonding agents draw water. creatinq Next. unfold the structure, like an air mattress
i3

it is no lonqer needed for emergency That said. Brewin and Crawford developed prototypes. Standards conduct continue a number of small-scale

have

Last year Cone rete Canvas won Design Aw.ard from the British which allowed the team to in UgEHlda. They have and plan to Institute.

pack that releases

controLled inflates,

the Sustainalble

gas, Once the structure'

harden and then cut doors and ventilation holes a ut of the cone rete "cloth." leave the concrete to cure overnight

field research

filed a patent on the technology to develop the idea,

Delivery

Hydration

Inflation

SetUng

""Ifthis was avaitable now, we would buy 10 today."

MQnica C<l$teUarnau,
Medecins Sans Fronthkes, Uganda

above

Basic assembly sequence for the ubuilding in a bag"

opposite

A srnalt-scete mod'e' of the concrete shell aner deployment

AU i mages Peter- BFewi
f'I,

WiltiJ rn Crawfordl

.... ..

• 139 Shelter
Location_Eth iopia lunbuiltl

Dat'e_1989 Design firm_Future Systems Design team_Jan Kaplicky, David Nixon Structu ... l engiineer _Ale{ier 1 a
Mec;haniul, (formerly engineer _ARUP Dve Arup & Partners] peopLe peopl'e/30 minutes

Future Systems is best known for its NASA-inspired conceptual designs and award-winning work, such as the Selfridges department store in Birminqharn, England.
Btlt in 1989 the fi rrn conceived exceedinqly to providing emergency and internal shelter, conflict had led to Ethiopia. of an approach

139 Shelter,
responses explains

0118

of the

lew architecturaL

simple and pragmatic

to the famine. Kaplicky.

'There was no place

and

Cost

per uflit_$3IJ,OOO sq. fl./500 sq. m

lor people to 'lie down once they arrived," "You watch television you see people baked are inspired, The sheller. woman's large-span immediate air or freight undercarriage

Occupallcy_200 Area_5,382 Assembly_12

Drouqhl
widespread food aidto

famine throughout

by the

sun during the

Th e govern men! responded forced resettlement compounded of aid workers dependent

by withholding ,10 bel areas and implementing a

program to rnovs people the efforts

day or dying of cold during the nighl, and you of course." based on the principle was designed unfolds of a to serve as

from the north to the south. Crop failures,

parasol,

by

fighting.

hindered

a supply distribution structure

center. The collapsible to provide for

to deliver

relief supplies,

By 1985 as many as 5 miHion people were on food <lid. news coverage as to aid where it around comm unity attempted to distribute The famine dominated the inlernational pressure officials

refuge from the elements

up to 200 people. II can be transported cargo, then hooked to the of a truck or airlifted

by
lothe by 12

site, Once on site it can beassembled the "umbrella" or weighed of lightweight are anchored PVC-coated

was needed. Ev,ery night televisions the' wo rld broadcast hungry families food distribution protection clustered

people with the turn of a winch. The ribs 01 to the ground A canopy reflects warmth down with sandbags.

images of thousa nd s of around makeshift of the people and without any

centers-many

polyester

near death from dehydration from the eLements.

up to 80 percent ofthe sun's heat, providing shade durinq the day and retaining during the night. Ventilation through the central hub. is provided

II was Just such an image thai prompted

Jan K.apLicky and David Nixon to design

1q

3,

, I '[/
/

9\ I
/)
, 1./

I r

!
I

'l

'i

I
J
I

ency shelter, designed .~ Future Systems: em~r:as,y transport and opens in 1989. couapses;~nClh. Twelv~ people ca:rding with the turn of a ,'3D minutes, ace assem bLe the stru ctu re 1m 'ts designers, to j System, AU irnaqes Future

:
:

L.1f"TING

I
t
I

I I

I
j
,

I
i
I

4\
,

-----

----~i i
.<.

"CO"" •

Q
"
Q Q

"

"

"

"

:
36'C

fj o

'
o
,0

'"

I. =

~~~::~~:47~'C~~~~~oO:1 .~~~20~'~C==~~~~
i
27'C
0

p
COOL GROI..Nl' RADIATES,

INTO ENCLOSURE

V
GROUND

V
SIDRES

V
COOLTH

Tr n itional
C mmuni 'y
Harnbantota, families advisor_Sandra Babister Ali Haider Hoque and (DEC] D'Urzo and settlement Location_Tangalle, D..te_2005 Organizatiol'l_Ox:fam, End tlieot_Displaced Shelter Great Britain Sri lanka

Shelter architect_Elisa~eth Shelterengineer_Zullicar Water/sanitation Additional Construction_Volunteer support_Local

engineer_Enilmul

and self-help
engineering

construction

support
Emergency Committee

Funding_Disasters

Cost per unit_$580

Total C051_$9.860

.i

... '"