State of Shelter

Please add the Hexayurt (url above) to this page. Thank you!

I was thinking about this issue last night. I wasn't so much thinking about the myriad ways that designers and manufacturers have been developing temporary disaster structures, there are a lot of great ideas out there, what I thought about and what got me a bit angry is that it seems that all the work that went into this post-Katrina and post-tsunami are still just a lot of great ideas.

Have any of these options been deployed? Have any NGO's, and/or governmental organizations been serious about listening to the design community? Conversely have designers been listening to aid organizations to reduce costs, manufacturing processes' and delivery systems? Just curious if anyone has any information about test cases to put anything like the options discussed into use.

Thanks.

Mark, I could write volumes about what I have learned trying to actually launch housing solution from the ground up. However, I am going to exercise great restriantant here to follow Design Observer's comment policy of keeping thing short.

My personal experience over the past 5 years since Katrina has boiled down to several key findings or hard lessons learned by a designer:

1. You can not design for the "greater good" and expect it to go anywhere on merit alone. The "greater good" is broke. That is to say, you can not just solve the problem and expect it to go anywhere with a solid business case and profit projections – no matter how brilliant the solution is.

2. Solutions for promotion vs. real solutions over the years has also been an issue. Mark, you are right there have been tons of solutions since Katrina around housing and virtually none have been built. I would like to propose that the majority of them were not serious attempts to solve the problem but as an exercise within design/architecture studios which where then submitted to every design publication for promotion. This effectively created a wall of noise making it hard for the legitimate solutions to be filtered out of this. This makes marketing a solution very difficult - especially if you are an individual. My system really only got traction once I joined frog design and they attached their name to it. My housing solution coming from this one designer that no one has ever heard of, made it extremely hard to compete for headlines against staritects and their brain farts. Core77 has turned me down because my solutions was not "fresh" meaning housing systems by designers have been covered already.

3. The government views housing as "insurance". I have literally been told by one senator's chief of staff that "son, you better hope for another hurricane to roll in, because you are just selling insurance".

4. Most aid organizations and NGO's do not develop products. They do not offer grants to have products developed. They only procure supplies and run inventories of those supplies. Housing system components (even tent like options) take up a lot more shelf space than MREs. So, this leaves it back up to individuals to bet the farm so to speak on their solution and develop it with the hope that NGO's will have the budget to buy it so they can recoup their expenses (not talking profits here).

5. Existing manufactures that could easy step laterally into selling housing systems for disaster relief need strong business cases, market research, and profit projections. The manufactures I have talked to expect the designer to bring all of that home work with them. So, not only do you have to solve the problem, you have to get your hands dirty as to how someone else will make massive profits from your idea. It gets to be a dirty feeling, at least for me, at this point when your original goal was only to those in need.

I go on and on but I am jaded and tired. I hope this helps clarify Mark. As for talking with NGOs in regards to their needs - have you ever tried to set up a meeting like that? Believe me as an unknown designer, no one calls back or puts you through to the person with the calendar.

-michael

Michael,

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond. I know it must have been hard to restrain yourself in recounting your frustrations in attempting to bring real world solutions to the fantasy world of design and architecture for the greater good. I truly appreciate your struggles and the problems that you laid out here. It is pretty much as I suspected as an outsider in product design, when it comes to aid organizations, manufacturers and government. Unfortunately the saddest indictment that you make is in your assessment of promotion v. solution, "See how clever we are, see how much we care, see how fast we are moving on to a featured spot at the TED conference.

Thanks again for your attempt to transcend this insurmountable problem. I only wish that a design conference somewhere would invite you to speak on this side of the issue of Design for the Greater Good.

Cheers.

Mark,

You are missing one of the most promising temporary housing designs of the decade: check out the Reaction system, by designer Michael McDaniel; http://www.protectthehuman.com/videos/reaction-housing

Best Wishes,
Robert

I was already familiar with Michael's design and system. My concern and initial question was that these new and promising housing solutions have not been able to make the leap from “Hey!, that's a great idea” to production and implementation.

Michael was gracious enough to relate his story in the comment above mine.

      It is such a sad story. A lot of people in Haiti died and many other people should be helped. If new and innovative shelters are used for victims in Haiti, recovering Haiti disaster will be going smoothly and fast. Helping victims is much more important than any economic value but, in the long term, economic value isn’t abandoned for better ideas and solution. It is a kind of problem of realistic value and idealistic value.

Michael

What kind of material(s) were used to fabricate the EXO? Looking at your design makes me wonder about the ventilation and VOC's. I'm sure you've consider all this, but I was curious. I think the concept is great. I like the reference to IKEA in your video. Everything needs to be modular and flexible in adapting to a disaster environment. With all the military bases that have closed over the years, I would think most cities, counties and states with programs implemented for Emergency Preparedness like the San Francisco Bay Area could utilized these bases for storage.

In the U.S. and around the world, aid organizations are walking a fine line, trying to encourage skilled professionals who can provide indispensable assistance — and waving off those who might not be up to the task.

The concrete canvas emergency housing seems like a brilliant idea. I think costs should come down once the company is more established and receives contracts. I think Haiti would be an excellent place as well as many parts of Africa for this type of housing. This type of housing also seems more secure and suitable for storing rations and medicine.

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