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Refugee Shelter: Cheap, Fast, Lightweight And Sustainable
Published in Manuel Couceiro da Costa, Filipa Roseta, Joana Pestana Lages, Susana Couceiro da Costa, Architectural Research Addressing Societal Challenges, 2017
The recent and ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Africa have brought renewed awareness to the issues facing displaced populations around the world and to the need of providing adequate shelter for them. Unfortunately the issue of displaced populations is not a new phenomenon and some of the refugee settlements have been in existence for years and in some cases even decades. The largest refugee camps are currently located in Africa and South Asia but overall they spread over a geographic area stretching from Turkey to Thailand and encompass vastly different climate zones. In addition to dealing with difficult living conditions, malnutrition and poor health and hygiene these populations are usually housed in shelters that offer only limited relief against a variety of weather conditions. Many refugee settlements use tents as they are inexpensive, easy to install and provide a very basic form of shelter that may be acceptable in dry climate zones. Nevertheless desertic and semi-desertic climate zones present another problem as they often experience large day and night temperature variations which pose additional challenges in terms of comfort. Based on these climatic considerations alone, shelters ought to be designed as an insulated and sealed enclosure with regards to airflow and moisture while at the same time allowing natural ventilation in order to deal with hot and humid conditions. In addition to fulfilling the requirements we just mentioned and in order to be viable, refugee shelters should be inexpensive, lightweight and easy to transport and assemble. The life expectancy of such structures also mandates that they meet certain durability standards and are able to withstand repeated impacts, wind load forces and moisture intrusion for several years.
A sustainability-based model for dealing with the uncertainties of post-disaster temporary housing
Published in Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure, 2020
S. M. Amin Hosseini, Oriol Pons, Albert de la Fuente
The earthquake and tsunami that struck Indonesia on 26 December 2004, left approximately 220,000 dead (Steinberg, 2007). Some factors of the main vertices are presented in Tables 2 and 3. The approaches applied in the wake of the Aceh earthquake were the self-help system and third parties. Most of the organizations involved in the Aceh recovery program first proposed using self- or community-build programs (Da Silva, 2010). At first, the authorities decided to transition from temporary shelter to permanent housing; thus, tents and barracks were prepared for the DP as the shelter in the TH phase. However, this goal could not be fully achieved. According to Da Silva (2010), less than half of the considered population had been accommodated in barracks within a year. The decision-makers were thus forced to change their initial strategy and provide different types of transitional shelter to settle the DP until the permanent housing could be completed. Additionally, as shown in Table 2, the tropical climate conditions of Aceh were one of the main reasons for this change in the initial strategy.
Civil engineering students’ perceptions of emergency remote teaching: a case study in New Zealand
Published in European Journal of Engineering Education, 2022
Brian H. W. Guo, Mark Milke, Ruoyu Jin
University of Canterbury as an institution had developed strong educational resilience before COVID-19, and is widely recognised for such (Dabner, 2012; Richardson et al., 2015). The 2010–2011 earthquakes caused significant damage to all university buildings. In the immediate aftermath of the February 2011 earthquake, the university was closed for months, and teaching (after a time closed for reorganisation) in tents in carparks. Civil engineering students in 2011 were taught in the buildings of a nearby church, with lectures, tutorials, and computer laboratories adapted to odd surroundings.
Smart textiles: an overview of recent progress on chromic textiles
Published in The Journal of The Textile Institute, 2021
Heloisa Ramlow, Karina Luzia Andrade, Ana Paula Serafini Immich
Mao et al. (2014) studied the infrared stealth property based on semiconductor (M)-to-metallic (R) phase transition characteristics of W-doped vanadium oxide thin films coated on cotton fabrics. The authors observed that the emissivity of this kind of fabric changed with surroundings spontaneously, making W-doped vanadium oxide (M) a kind of potential material for infrared stealth. Therefore, the coated fabric could be used as an ingredient of the military textile for infrared camouflage, such as uniforms, helmets, shoes, tents, and backpacks.