Emergency housing

[Sal Cerda]

The topic of emergency shelter frequently comes up after a natural disaster.
What does not get discussed is what it takes to provide, erect and use
emergency housing.  Let's confine the discussion to domes (this IS a dome
list.)

First, some general questions:
Question 1- Who pays for these domes? Governments?  NGOs? The users?
Question 2- What kind of foundation will be required?  Emergency housing should
require little or no foundation.
Question 3- Where will these domes be erected?  Suitable ground must be located
and property rights should be considered.

Emergency shelter implies temporary shelter in all of the above. Disposing of a
temporary shelter or subsequent reuse needs to be considered beforehand. Also,
emergency shelter implies a minimal useful spaces, although it does not require
a minimalist structure.

What follows is mostly an extemporaneous 'brain dump' on the subject of
emergency domes. Readers should feel totally free to critique these ideas.

EPS panel domes made from light SIPs could be dropped into affected areas along
with adhesives or fasteners. Australian dome builder Robert Lusher has
experimented with foam domes, with some success. These domes would have to be
easy to build; perhaps numbered or lettered on each panel with pictures of the
erection sequence printed on each panel. Language and literacy barriers
prohibit written instruction. 

Dome sections (orange peel) could be stacked and dropped from a helicopter. 
These domes could be fiberglass, waterproofed fiberboard or other rigid
material. Entire lightweight domes could be stacked on a pole next to each
other through a ventilation hole at the top, and simply dropped into place from
a helicopter.

For surviving winter, these domes should be insulated and fire-resistant. Water
and heat need to be provided. Could this be built into the domes?  Perhaps an
interconnecting network of poly pipe could supply water to a cluster of domes
from a central potable water source so that each occupant could have drinking
water.  Freezing weather makes this a problematic solution.  If the water is
heated, it could provide radiant heat and hot water for tea.

Shelters could be individual or communal. Using a large central dome and many
attached smaller domes, a group of people could be provided with a common area
and yet have individual spaces for privacy.  

The success of these housing arrangements will depend largely on the underlying
cultures of the affected residents and what they will accept.  Family groups,
gender separation, group affiliations etctera, all play into the design of
emergency shelter.

Here's a brainstorm - use a one-piece, tough fabric dome with built-in channels
where struts would go.  Include a can of expanding, hardening foam to fill the
channels to provide structural integrity.  An alternative would be to fill the
channel/struts with air from a hand pump, which would have to be included with
each dome.  If there is infrastructure and volunteer help available, the domes
could be inflated and then sprayed over with hardening foam. This would make a
kind of Monolithic Dome with no concrete.  Ground anchors need to be devised
and implemented to prevent these lightweight domes from blowing away in storms.

I can envision a web-reinforced fabric, stretched between light, curved tubes.
For a more permanent structure, the tubes could be filled with a hardening
mud/adobe/cement mixture.  With a hub/funnel at the top which connects to each
tube, these structures could be designed to be filled from an overhead source.
For even stronger structures, each tube could have an integral reinforcing
cable which would be encased in the cement mixture.  Obviously, a pump needs to
be available for that. 

What is a reasonable target cost for emergency shelter?
All of these structures require that question 1 be answered first.




--- J & D Goldman <jmgoldma at dwx.com> wrote:

> Thanks for the info on the BFI and related work, I'll take a look at
> that.
> 
> I had several interesting messages in response to my posting, but they
> all came directly to me. If any of you would care to forward the
> message you sent me to the dome list, I'm sure others on the list
> would be as interested in your comments as I.   You each have a
> perspective on this issue that would be valuable to share with the
> group.
> 
> - Dan G.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Spencer W Hunter <shunter at u.arizona.edu>
> To: domesteading at sculptors.com <domesteading at sculptors.com>
> Date: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 1:40 PM
> Subject: Re: Emergency housing
> 
> 
> >On Tue, 11 Oct 2005, J & D Goldman wrote:
> >
> >> So the climatologists are telling us we've had 50 years of unusally
> good
> >> global weather and that things are really going back to "normal".
> Their
> >> point is, don't expect the frequency of storms and earthquakes to
> let
> >> up, we had our rest from them, and now its over.
> >>
> >> So, along with that, the need for emergency housing has never been
> >> greater. FEMA buys how many millions of dollars worth of trailers?
> >> Certainly an advantage having built-in utilities in a ready to
> live-in
> >> format, but in some cases, people would be happy to just get under
> >> cover.  I think those people in Pakistan, in the cold rain, would
> be
> >> delighted to have one.
> >
> >The trailer decision should be the last straw for the incompetency of
> >FEMA.  RVs have very limited utilities on their own and need to be
> hooked
> >up to external water and electricity, and those chemical toilets will
> be
> >needing attention.  Meanwhile, a viable solution was staring them in
> the
> >face the entire time.
> >
> >> One wonders what it will take to get domes to a point where they
> are
> >> available and actually used.  I just placed an order for some
> samples
> >> of plastic greenhouse pots made from PLA, essentially corn starch,
> and
> >> have been visiting with some others about soybean resins used for
> >> insulation and foamboard perfectly suitable for structures. When
> you
> >> look at what is being done with honeycomb panels now, I think I can
> >> see how this could really come together.
> >
> >*knock on wood!*
> >
> >> I know some people are working on at least some emergency housing
> demo
> >> projects to give domes  enough exposure to start the ball rolling.
> >> Anybody see anything happening in domes for emergency housing?  No
> >> lack of need....
> >>
> >>  Dan G.
> >
> >Check out the cover news story at http://www.bfi.org/ .  The
> Buckminster
> >Fuller Intstitute Emergency Shelter Special Projects Committee is
> working
> >with World Shelters ( http://www.worldshelters.org/ , partly run by
> the
> >folks who brought us North Face tents) to develop the kind of truly
> >autonomous dwellings the victims of these disasters are literally
> begging
> >for.  So, there is some hope.
> >
> >Spencer Hunter, Tucson, AZ
> >gopher://www.u.arizona.edu:80/hGET%20/%7Eshunter
> 
> 



	
		
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