‘Paper Tube’ Houses On Beer Crates Create Shelter For Earthquake Victims
The 7.8-magnitude earthquake near the Turkey-Syria border left 1.5 million people out of homes, and it is expected that 500,000 new housing units will need to be built to make up for the wreckage. Shigeru Ban Architects, which has been designing emergency shelters for years, has now prepared a possible solution to supplement the shortage.
The Japanese studio has already set up tents for a temporary hospital in Antakya, the capital of Hatay Province in Turkey. Its latest huts are a much sturdier construction—reinforced by the firm’s own Paper Partition System (PPS), they feature wooden-panel walls with paper tube columns holding them up at every 1.2 meters (nearly four feet), plywood decking, and paper tube-connected roofs.
The walls provide occupants with the privacy they need in the unfamiliar evacuation centers. Meanwhile, the houses are supported on beer crates weighted down by sandbags. The entire structure will stretch 3.6 x 6 meters (11.8 x 19.6 feet), ArchDaily reports.
The company has been committed to building portable shelters under its Voluntary Architects’ Network initiative, and has provided temporary refuge in disaster-struck zones in Japan, Rwanda, and neighboring countries of Ukraine since way back in 1994.
Each cabin will comprise eight large cardboard tubes, with holes drilled into their ends to be attached to smaller paper tubes. The design is said to be an improvement on Shigeru Ban’s existing temporary housing solutions as it can be installed faster to keep up with emergencies.
Large holes are carved into the plywood roofs so builders and volunteers can continue their work without climbing to the top, which can be dangerous. The architecture firm has also added insulating features to the floor, walls, and roof to keep inhabitants warm in the cold climate.
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[via ArchDaily and Shigeru Ban Architects, images via Voluntary Architects’ Network / Shigeru Ban Architects]
