Designing a new emergency shelter (photos)
In light of the Haiti earthquake, design site Core 77 challenged designers to come up with innovative ideas for emergency shelters. Here are some of their ideas.
Balloon-tent pop-up
In light of January's Haiti earthquake, design site Core 77 launched a contest challenging designers to conceive of innovative ideas for short-term shelters. Core 77 is accepting submissions through February 28, and will donate $500 going to Architecture for Humanity's Haiti Earthquake Support Program in the name of the winner. Here are some of the ideas submitted so far.
Canadian designer Richard Kuchinsky found inspiration for his balloon-tent pop-up shelter in the Dymaxion housing concept by Buckminster Fuller.
Kuchinsky envisions a sort of floating tent that could be dropped from a helicopter (or deployed from land) and kept aloft by balloons with computer controlled rotors that keep the shelter in place.
The tent could be moved as needed, and it could even have graphic markings to help identify triage wards, groups, organizations, or families and could easily be seen from air and land.
Read more in our related article: "Makeshift shelter of future: Sewer pipes, balloons?"
Teepee shelter
Read more in our related article: "Makeshift shelter of future: Sewer pipes, balloons?"
Sewage-pipe shelter
Read more in our related article: "Makeshift shelter of future: Sewer pipes, balloons?"
Box shelter
Read more in our related article: "Makeshift shelter of future: Sewer pipes, balloons?"
Floating inflatable tubes
This shelter could be used on ground or water in earthquakes, tornadoes, and floods, the designer says. It's an inner tube, of sorts, that could hold about four people. Lifting a support rod would uncoil a tent to function as a roof, while the corners of tube would serve as a back support cushion.
During floods, the inflatables could be dropped from helicopters, with refugees using them as rafts.
Read more in our related article: "Emergency-shelter solutions: Sewer pipes, balloons"
"Bomb" shelter
Read more in our related article: "Makeshift shelter of future: Sewer pipes, balloons?"