Flatpack Shelter

Project Type:
architecture

Project Mission/Goal:

respond to our growing need for clean water, power, shelter, healthcare, education
address humanitarian crises

Project Description:

The Response: Our team, comprised of architects, structural engineers and material engineers at Cal Poly, chose to respond to the increased need for post-disaster relief. Although there are many critical areas for consideration (medical attention, food and water supply, infrastructure, etc) the combined expertise on our team led us to focus our effort on what is commonly referred to as sheltering, that is providing basic shelter for persons displaced due to the loss of their permanent housing.
Project Goals: Given the realities of emergency shelters, namely that temporary shelters are often pressed into service as permanent housing in settings where the resources to replace it are limited, the team crafted the following set of goals for the shelter design: 1) efficiency, 2) lightness, 3) packability, 4) constructability, 5) adaptability and 6) re-usability. These goals address both short-term considerations of producing and providing a viable shelter, as well as longer-term considerations of the shelter’s re-use in other locations or re-purposing in terms of permanent housing.
Prototype 3: The latest prototype shown here uses plywood as a surrogate for a composite material of kenaf fiber and recycled polypropylene or a craftpaper-faced honeycomb panel made of agricultural by products (soon to be prototype 4). As in the previous prototype, the design was developed in Rhino and fabricated at full-scale using CNC technology. The precision of digital fabrication allowed the team to explore friction-fit connections that reduce the reliance on hardware, lower cost, and allow simple field construction with few tools. The cladding for this prototype is recycled corrugated polypropylene in varying thicknesses and translucencies. All parts are designed to be modular, particularly the floor which is designed to hold all

Project Details:
Project Location: California Polytechnic, San Luis Obispo, CA
Date(s):
Project Phase: Construction of Prototype complete
Client: Displaced people from natural disasters
User Client:
Description and Number of Beneficiaries/Users:
Major Funding:
Concept/Lead Architect(s)/Designer(s): Robert Arens and Ed Saliklis
Project Architect(s)/Designer(s): Robert Arens
Structural Engineers: Ed Saliklis
Electrical/Mechanical Engineers:
Contractor/Manufacturer:
Additional Consultants:
Total Cost/Cost per Unit:
Area (if applicable): 2.4m x 2.4m x 2.4m
Other:
Photo/Image Credit(s)
File Specifications:

Nominated by Jessica Scanlon