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TRANSCRIPT
Tortoise Tenements International
Abstract
In the developing countries of Haiti and Vietnam, thousands of families and individuals have
faced the loss of their homes and lives due to natural disaster. However, this loss of life and prop-
erty was not due solely to the natural event itself but also to the general lack of preparation or
protection available to the communities. In the aftermath of a disaster many in these countries
were, and are, left without homes. The mission of this project is to design the optimal type of
housing so that families living within Haiti and Vietnam will, in the event of disaster, have a
home to return to. These designs will be in the form of detailed computer drawings and details on
specific recommended building materials. The homes are to be built to withstand either hurri-
canes and flooding, or major seismic events, while remaining affordable and simple enough that
the method of construction can be taught to those who are to live in the homes. In designing these
homes the cultural and traditional requirements of the Vietnamese and Haitian populations were
taken into account. The materials used for construction of the homes were chosen carefully from
those that could be sourced locally, thus making the home designs both sustainable and beneficial
to the local economy. In the design of these homes the group hopes to incorporate sustainable de-
sign, cultural tradition, and modern safety principles, in order to produce architectural drafts and
recommendations which humanitarian relief organizations, such as Conscience International,
can use to build structures which can truly embody the safety and comfort of a home.
Background Meet Sahson and Chrislove and their best friend Maria. Sahson and Chrislove
(back two children) are brother and sister, shown here at ages 10 and 6. Two
years ago a horrible earthquake struck their area. These two children were
spared because they were at school playing outside as their school was leveled
by the quake. But their joy ended there. They
had no home and their entire family was killed in
the collapse of their home. To these children a
home meant security, safety and family. Now
they are without one.
Firstly, we realized that what relief organiza-
tions are doing now is the wrong approach. You
could throw up a temporary house for these chil-
dren in a matter of days, or even hours, but that
isn’t what they need. These children need safe
homes.
Our goal is to build homes for people who need
them most but can least afford them. We wanted
to design houses that would be able to withstand
earthquakes and other common natural disasters
so that the families in those areas would have a safe place.
Sahson and Chrislove are just an example of the people out there that need
our help. There are many more places and people that would benefit from our
housing design and our goal is to make it cheap enough and basic enough so
that they can do just that.
Methods
Results
Recommendations
Acknowledgments
This project was advised by Professor Edward Swierz of the Civil Engineering Department;
with help from Katie Monighetti, as Peer Learning Assistant. We would like to thank our
reference librarian Joanne Beller. We would like to acknowledge Professors Svetlana
Nikitina and Diran Apelian for their valuable instruction and feedback over the course of
the Grand Challenges Seminar.
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Dunkelberg, Klaus. "Bamboo as a building material." 1992.Web. <http://bambus.rwth-aachen.de/eng/reports/buildingmaterial/buildingmaterial.html>.
FASS, S. "Housing the Ultra-Poor - Theory and Practice in Haiti." Journal of the American Planning Association 53.2 (1987): 193-205. Web.
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Goals and Objectives
To provide a safe, survivable housing design for third
world countries affected by hurricanes, flooding, and
earthquakes.
To present said homes in a cost effective and sustainable
manner to limit the need for outside economic or indus-
trial assistance.
To develop and easy to build system that the local popu-
lation can understand and implement without any ad-
vanced training or instruction.
Safe Homes for the Third World Team Members: Hannah Bailey, Mechanical Engineering; Nicole Holmes, Chemical Engineering; John Morrow, Robotics; Fiona Ogren, Mechanical Engineering; Anthony Stolo, Chemical Engineering .
Project Advisor: Edward Swierz, Civil Engineering.
Vietnam:
A geodesic dome composed of a bamboo frame affixed together by cord.
Set on a hollow wooden platform with sloped edges, held in position by four wooden pylons.
The platform will rise and fall with flood waters with a metal coupling between the wooden
platform and the pilings to reduce friction.
The entire structure will sit on a concrete or other solid foundation.
For both home designs bamboo shingles will be used for roofing and siding.
Bamboo shingles will be used as the roof of both structures.
~To make bamboo shingles, one end of a bamboo stalk is fashioned into a lancet shape, while on the
other side a tongue is split away from the bark layer, to be later fastened to the roof skeleton.
Haiti
In Haiti, the house will also be comprised of a bamboo roof in the shape of a pyra-
mid, with walls composed of a rebar and chicken wire frame filled with scraps of
debris and covered with concrete, all set on a simple concrete foundation.
Due to Voodoo tradition, houses cannot be circular. Therefore, the house will be
constructed in a shape similar to the combination of a rectangular prism and a rec-
tangular pyramid.
The pyramidal roof will prevent roof collapse during a seismic event and during
shaking the debris filling the walls will settle, making the structure bottom heavy,
and thus less likely to collapse on its inhabitants.
Haiti
Haiti does not frequently get earthquakes, unfortunately all of the earthquakes that Haiti has experienced in the past were devas-
tating.
Nearly 80% of Haitians live on less than $2
per day.
Haiti is over the Septentrional fault and the
Enriquillo-Plaintain Garden fault.
One of the most detrimental effects of the 2010 Earthquake was the loss of homes and
public buildings, this destruction has further hindered the growth and success of the Hai-
tian economy.
Vietnam
Bamboo is the best building material for Vietnam because of its characteristics of be-ing extremely strong and lightweight as
well as being plentiful in the area.
The dome is the optimal design as it is one
of the strongest structures yet uses a mini-mal amount of material and has extremely low air resistance, which can withstand
wind speeds of up to 200 miles per hour
Typhoons are extremely common in the re-gion, with wind speeds reaching 74 miles
per hour and above.
The mean annual rainfall in Vietnam can
vary from 172 centimeters (68 inches) to more than 406 centimeters (160 inches) de-
pending upon the region.
Geodesic dome home design for Vietnam. When completed, this design will
sit on a concrete foundation and the dome itself will be covered with bamboo
shingles.
Design for the Haitian home. When completed this
home will consist of debris filled walls coated with
concrete. The roof will consist of a bamboo pyramid
frame composed of smaller bamboo triangles. The
roof will then be covered with bamboo shingles.
Rebar wall frame-
work for Haitian
design , when
construction is
complete, this
framework is
filled in with de-
bris and coated in
concrete.
Bamboo shingles of an established roof
display the potential versatility of the
material in conforming to the unique
shape of the geodesic dome.
Image Courtesy of: www.humanitarian bamboo.org
References
An image depicting the destruction to structures follow-
ing the 2010 Haitian earthquake.
Image Courtesy of www. dailymail.co.uk
The flooding caused in
Vietnam by typhoon
Ketsana in 2009.
Image Courtesy of
www.directrelief.org
The focus of this project was to develop disaster resistant homes for the countries of Vietnam
and Haiti.
~The home for Vietnam was to be able to survive the high winds and flooding that
accompany the annual typhoons.
~The home for Haiti was to be able to withstand the earthquakes to which the island nation
is prone.
We researched the countries, cultures, the disasters and the materials available.
We drafted the basic designs of the two houses.
We researched which materials would be the most sustainable for each area, in determining
these materials we took into consideration:
~The environmental impact of the materials.
~The potential economic benefits which an increase in the use of the material could provide
for the communities in which the design is implemented.
~The cost effectiveness of the material for the family which will be building the home, in
other words, How cheap is it?
~ The ability of the material to withstand the extreme conditions which we expect it to
weather.
We considered the specific needs of the families who would be living within the homes as we
designed them, taking into account the cultural expectations of the region in regards to
housing.