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.
(more…)