Interior of Red Emergency Housing by Obra Architects for Emergency Architecture
Red Emergency Housing was design by obra architects to commemorate the first-year anniversary of the sichuan earthquake for emergency architecture,on emergency housing exhibition at the NAMOC. The design has been developed as an in-progress embodiment of the following 10 points of architecture on the edge of survival, they are: universal application, effective performance, economical, transportable, ease of assembly, renewable materials, digitally pre-fabricated, open work, urban/rural, and flexibility of use.
Red Emergency Housing
Red Emergency Housing proposes an approach that tries to incorporate both the advantages of fast-response solutions, such as the deployment of military tents, with those of slower and more considered responses such as neighborhood reconstruction efforts involving local traditions and user construction.
Universal application: this prototype aspires to universal applicability. its development contemplates a series of simple modifications that would make it a useful solution anywhere in the world: add insulation and a stove for cold climates; remove doors and windows for tropical climates; replace materials according with local availabilities, etc.
Red Emergency Housing Interior
effective performance: the project makes economical use of materials by enlisting the structural strength of post tensioning. the bamboo plywood strips of the dome support the enclosure, with the same force with which a bow propels an arrow into the sky.
economical: the project proposes the use of locally available low-cost materials. the materials are always replaceable and are chosen for their performance rather than appearance. when working in different locations materials which become exotic can be replaced with ones that are locally abundant.
Queuing Room Red Emergency Housing
Eransportable : all parts are collapsible to flats and can therefore be easily packed and transported.
Ease of assembly: all connections are a simple friction bond of male/female parts which are then secured with a minimum of fasteners.
Renewable materials: in china the project is proposed almost entirely in bamboo plywood, one of the most renewable of materials. the cover fabric can also be considered as woven out of waterproof bamboo fibers.
Basic Bed of Red Emergency Housing
Digitally pre-fabricated: digital pre-fabrication makes the project economical in its speed of production and also easy to assemble due to the precision of its fabrication.
Open work: the cruciform house, while iconic, retains in its biaxial symmetry a certain ‘indifference’ that allows its easy recombination with other locally and diversely made structures.
Chairs Construction Red Emergency Housing
chairs constructed with three slats of wood
Urban/rural:the geometry of the crosses, when deployed together in groups, defines in-between spaces of infinite flexibility that can suggest an ‘urban’ context for a field of houses. likewise, if a house is erected by itself, the exterior of the cross creates spaces that mediate between interior and exterior providing a context for people to spend time outside.
flexibility of use: the geometry of the cross allows the inhabitation of the house as either 1, 2, 3, or 4 different units of housing.
