Home is where the heart is!
A suitcase for people going back home containing a mobile phone, a hammer and a manual explaining how they can use the simple light weight scaffolding materials which are provided by the UN Peacekeeping Force back in their towns and villages.
FOR KOSOVO
FOR TURKEY
FOR HONDURAS
FOR ....
A mobile phone to re-unite
In time of war and disasters people feel powerless. The most important thing therefore is getting control over your situation again. First families should be reunited, and then they should be able to rebuild their homes again. Restoring the physical house can’t be done without helping people to reunite. The rebuilding should happen according to the ideas of the people themselves and not according to the view of outsiders. The power to restore Kosovo or Turkey or Honduras is within the people themselves.
A hammer + scaffolding system to rebuild
Complete sections are not needed. Tools are basic building material should however be present in time. Therefore a hammer and a basic scaffolding system should be made available for those in need. These should be distributed to those leaving the refugee camps or at the local market square in the hometowns.
This should be a system as used in the region itself, for example bamboo with plastic tierods in Asia, which is a simple, lightweight, cheap, universal, recyclable and easy to assemble material. It can be put together by the people themselves and does not fail due to missing parts or tools. For Europe a simple aluminum system will work.
When
Bringing in humanitarian aid is combined with bringing in basic building materials. Not after months but directly after the disaster or peace-agreement.
Second Life
After months when the first things have been repaired the scaffolding structures can be reused for bigger jobs. When permanent homes are rebuilt the scaffolding material will be used to rebuild the infrastructure, public buildings and industry.
Social Structure
Informal trade of this material will emerge. This trade together with the rebuilding of home and town will restore social structures.
This project is a co-operation of
RUIMTELAB (Spacelab)
architectural research and design
Rene Heijne and Jacques Vink
and
Linders en van Dorssen
product strategy and design
Architecture is supposed to provide shelter. In early 1999, nowhere was the need for shelter more critical than in the war-torn region of Kosovo. Hundreds of thousands were without a place to live. Their homes in ruins and the infrastructure of the region collapsed, the returning population needed immediate and highly-dispersed temporary housing.
Architecture for Humanity hosted an open competition to design five-year transitional housing for the returning people of Kosovo. The competition's goal was to foster the development of housing methods that would relieve suffering and speed the transition back to a normal way of life. Architects and designers from 30 different countries responded. We received more than 200 designs. From these, a jury selected 10 finalists and 20 notable entries. The proposal from Ruimtelab with Linders en van Dorssen was one of these 10 finalists.
