Very happy to have received a Special Mention for my entry in Kaira Looro competition to propose a concept for an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) in Sub-saharan Africa, facilitating initiatives that provide aid and deal with humanitarian issues like disease control, natural disasters and armed conflict.
Participating in this competition has been truly eye-opening on the horrifying scale of populations in need of humanitarian assistance in the world and truly challenged everything I knew about vernacular and emergency architecture.
Here's a link for the competition where you can see all the winning entries:
http://www.kairalooro.com/competition_emergencyoperationcenter/winningproject.html
DESIGN IDEA
The design aims to act within itself as a response to people in need of humanitarian assistance.
The design aims to act within itself as a response to people in need of humanitarian assistance.
VISIBILITY:
When an emergency occurs, people are lost and confused, the first thing they need to figure out is where to get help. This is why this design is a high, visible structure with vibrant flags standing as a beacon of hope for people who have no place to go. The bright flags on the high gate structure create a positive contrast with the surrounding sub-saharan desert, which makes it visible from kilometers away and easily recognizable as a place to seek help.
COMMUNICATING WITH THE PEOPLE
People form long, crowded, exhausting queues in front of EOCs, uninformed of the service being provided, and potentially endangering and infecting one another through crowding as in the case of disease control. Instead, letting the gates communicate to the people, resolve the confusion through the service-specific gate that categorizes the people-in-need, for example the gates could communicate several cases:
• CASE A (Natural Disaster Response): As in the case with cyclones, floods and hurricanes. The gates would communicate five queues: 1. Medical queue
2. Food and drink queue
3. Women and children queue
4. *Building volunteers queue
5. Exit
*Volunteer builders are able-bodied people from the community (men, women, teens) who want to learn the earthbag building technique in order for them to build long term shelters of their own around the EOC, the plaza inside the building is used to help the NGOs communicate that knowledge.
• Case B (Conflict Danger): Deals with immediate danger posed by violent extremist groups for example, the red flags signifying danger are hung right away to signify to the people waiting outside the EOC to “Take shelter inside immediately!”.
• Case 0 (Post-emergency): After the emergency the building could function perfectly as a primary school. It could aim to serve the people around the vicinity of the EOC who have already built shelters using the earthbag technique, which will have been taught to the volunteer builders in the plaza of the building throughout the duration of the emergency.
The building is built using the earthbag building technique, an easy, cheap and quick building technique that could be taught to almost anyone. The building provides an indoor plaza that will provide volunteering people with the necessary tools to build shelters around the EOC for people who are misplaced, turning entire area into a long-term residence.
MOUNTING/CONSTRUCTION PROCESS
• STEP 2: Setting up the wooden structure for the columns and roofing. (This is the only part that must be done by professional builders, to have a clear guideline for the locals mounting the walls to follow)
• STEP 3: Filling the foundation earthbags with soil and gravel. Mount the first three rows in the hole dug beforehand. (Adding a row of barbed wire between each course for stability).
• Step 4: Filling the wall earthbags with soil or sand (no need for gravel) and mounting them on top of each other while still adding a row of barbed wire between each course. (Use cheap wood to create windows and doors).
• Step 5: Mounting the corrugated sheet roof on top of the wooden structure with an offset that allows for light to reach the indoor spaces, slightly tilted outwards to lead the rain outside of the building.
• Step 6: Using white wood, or cheap woods found around the sight along with rattan and fabric to create the wooden structures of the gates of the building.
• Step 7: Using the traditional plastering technique “Banko” (a mixture of mud and cow excrement) to plaster the walls of the building.
USE OF MATERIALS
Using mainly materials that are found within the location for ease and quickness of construction:
• WOODEN FRAME: Using locally sources timber for the columns and white wood for the rest of the roofing structure.
• WALLS: Using the earthbag building, a mixture of soil, sand and gravel is used to fill the bag. Earthbags are standard materials that are readily available almost anywhere in the world, there will also be no shortage of them in a disaster site either since earthbags are typically stockpiled for emergencies by suppliers accustomed to delivering large orders. Barbed wire is the last cheap ingredient and it could also be sourced locally (Bamboo stakes pierced into two courses of bags could be used as an alternative).
• ROOF: Using corrugated sheets as it is the quickest material for roofing in the area. The material provides good protection from the rain and the sun, it is to be slightly slanted outwards to lead the rain away from the building.
• WOODEN GATE STRUCTURE: Being a light structure the use of white wood is ideal, while using local rattan to fill in the sides and create a perforated shading device.
Thank you
