{"id":78678,"date":"2018-02-20T23:50:30","date_gmt":"2018-02-20T23:50:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writemyessayfree.com\/design-project-emergency-shelter"},"modified":"2017-08-18T07:31:39","modified_gmt":"2017-08-18T07:31:39","slug":"design-project-emergency-shelter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/design-project-emergency-shelter\/","title":{"rendered":"Design Project \u2013 Emergency Shelter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction <\/strong><\/p>\n

Every year disasters happen globally.  In 2015 alone there were about 150 natural<\/p>\n

disasters which affected the lives of millions of people and that most of those<\/p>\n

disasters had happened in Asia (World Vision 2016).  Disasters caused by typhoons,<\/p>\n

flooding, drought, tsunami, earthquake, heat wave and freezing temperature occur<\/p>\n

naturally within our natural environment.  Unfortunately disasters may also be<\/p>\n

caused by human within our built environment.  Black (2008) called the Mississippi<\/p>\n

flood \u201cUnnatural Disaster\u201d.<\/p>\n

No matter what the disaster nature is, local government and humanitarian<\/p>\n

organisations need to respond immediately after disaster occurred in order to rescue<\/p>\n

lives and to provide immediate aid to those affected.  In a natural disaster, the<\/p>\n

number of people being affected can be significant.  Typhoon Komen and its<\/p>\n

monsoon rain in 2015 had made nearly 400,000 people displayed from their homes<\/p>\n

(World Vision 2016).  Emergency shelters are required by these people.<\/p>\n

This paper discusses how we designed an emergency shelter.  We referenced the<\/p>\n

general guidelines for emergency shelters from both Sphere Project and UNHCR<\/p>\n

Handbook (Sphere 2016; UNHCR 2016).  We also used Whole System Design<\/p>\n

(WSD) (Stasinopoulos et al 2009) as our approach for a sustainable design, which<\/p>\n

entails us to think laterally during the design process.  Thus we paid extra attention<\/p>\n

to material selection to the full life cycle of the shelter, considering that we need to<\/p>\n

use eco-friendly material and that the shelters should be able to be reused or<\/p>\n

recyclable to minimize the impact to the natural environment.  Users of the shelters<\/p>\n

will be from various countries thus our solution had taken social impact such as local<\/p>\n

culture into consideration.  Our design has also taken economic impact into<\/p>\n

consideration, such as capital investment of production machinery and whether we<\/p>\n

should outsource most of the components or building in-house.<\/p>\n

We focused our design of this emergency shelter for the Asian region.  There are 4<\/p>\n

phases in WSD:  Needs Definition, Conceptual Design, Preliminary Design and<\/p>\n

Detail Design.  Our solution has covered the first 3 phases.<\/p>\n

Summative Assignment 4 \u2013  T1_2016_SEB121_Group_X2_Ver2 Page !  of !5 31<\/p>\n

2.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Group Reflection <\/strong><\/p>\n

Blizzard and Klotz (2012) proposed another whole systems design (Fig 1):<\/p>\n

!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fig 1 Whole Systems Design Framework (Blizzard and Klotz 2012)<\/p>\n

This framework stated that during design process the team needs to:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cEstablish common vision  \u2013  then align goals and incentives\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPractice mutual learning\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShare all information with everyone\u201d<\/p>\n

The general guidelines of WSD have not explicitly mentioned team collaboration like<\/p>\n

what Blizzard and Klotz (2012) stated.  Our team\u2019s approach perhaps cannot be fully<\/p>\n

in-line with theirs.  We find it very hard to work effectively due to the fact that even<\/p>\n

organising a conference call can be a challenge for off-campus students.  Through<\/p>\n

the group\u2019s blog, we are able to establish what needs to be done and allocate tasks.<\/p>\n

It is also a good place for information sharing.  Unfortunately mutual learning is<\/p>\n

difficult.  The fact that we are off-campus and geographically dispersed is not our<\/p>\n

concern as we can all share ideas, discuss and even \u201caccepting input and criticism<\/p>\n

from team members\u201d (Meadows 2008; UNEP & ICLEI 2002 in Blizzard and Klotz<\/p>\n

2012)) through online media such as the group\u2019s blog.  We believe the main reason<\/p>\n

is our inability to synchronize our progress as some of us can be very busy at work<\/p>\n

thus we may not be able to catch up studying thus slowing down the team\u2019s<\/p>\n

progress.<\/p>\n

Having said that, through several rounds of discussions and each of us going<\/p>\n

through own\u2019s research, our collective opinion is as follow:<\/p>\n

Summative Assignment 4 \u2013  T1_2016_SEB121_Group_X2_Ver2 Page !  of !6 31<\/p>\n

1.<\/p>\n

Benchmarking those designs in \u201cPost-disaster shelter: Ten designs\u201d as published<\/p>\n

by IFRC (2013).  Fig 2 shows 5 different terminologies of shelters as defined by<\/p>\n

IFRC:  emergency, temporary, transitional, progressive and core.  Emergency<\/p>\n

shelter is defined by IFRC as shelters to be deployed \u201cin the aftermath of a<\/p>\n

disaster\u201d.  In our project, our team has concluded that those T-shelters rather<\/p>\n

than the \u201ctent\u201d like shelters will be more appropriate to meet the User and<\/p>\n

Operating Specifications as specified in the project.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

!<\/p>\n

Fig 2  \u2013  Overlapping definitions  (IFRC 2013)<\/p>\n

2.<\/p>\n

Use a style similar to either the B.3 or B.4 design.  For roofing, wall panel and<\/p>\n

support bars, we intend to use Wood Plastic Composite (WPC) material which is<\/p>\n

eco-friendly and recyclable (APR 2016; Innovation Seeds 2016).<\/p>\n

Summative Assignment 4 \u2013  T1_2016_SEB121_Group_X2_Ver2 Page !  of !7 31<\/p>\n

3.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Impact Assessment <\/strong><\/p>\n

3.1.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Social Impact <\/strong><\/p>\n

3.2.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Economic Impact <\/strong><\/p>\n

3.3.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Environmental Impact <\/strong><\/p>\n

Summative Assignment 4 \u2013  T1_2016_SEB121_Group_X2_Ver2 Page !  of !8 31<\/p>\n

4.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Design Process <\/strong><\/p>\n

Our design process began with a common goal of providing mass producible<\/p>\n

emergency shelters that are in response to natural or man made disasters in the<\/p>\n

asian continent. Through this design we envision sturdy, durable and sustainable<\/p>\n

shelters that comply with the The Sphere Project and the United Nations High<\/p>\n

Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) design standards.The design was directly in<\/p>\n

response to the objective we set out to achieve in our common goal. Taking this into<\/p>\n

we implemented the three phases of the whole system design into our approach in<\/p>\n

design the shelter.<\/p>\n

Approach to Needs Definition: Phase 1 of Design Process<\/p>\n

Firstly to have a fully functional and well purposed and sustainable design, we as a<\/p>\n

group needed to fully understand the extent of the problem we were trying to<\/p>\n

address. The asian continent historically has suffered from a variety of natural and<\/p>\n

man made disasters. These range from earthquakes, floods, drought, tsunami,<\/p>\n

cyclones and war torn places.  All three of us did research on the proportion of<\/p>\n

people affected by the disaster and what were the circumstances around the<\/p>\n

disasters. This resulted in drought being the cause for the most amounts of deaths<\/p>\n

related to war torn regions of the continent. (Centre of Research on Epidemiology of<\/em><\/p>\n

Disasters) <\/em><\/p>\n

Approach to Conceptual Design: Phase 2 of Design Process<\/p>\n

Drawing from the common goal and information gathered from what we were trying<\/p>\n

to achieve Mohammad took on the responsibility of choosing three conceptual<\/p>\n

designs along with Raymond and my collaborated efforts. Using references from<\/p>\n

post disaster shelter designs published by the International Federation of Red Cross<\/p>\n

and Red Crescent Societies and A framework for sustainable whole systems design<\/p>\n

the three conceptual designs were chosen. Design attributes like materials used,<\/p>\n

rigidity of the wall structure, rook framework, ventilation, geographical deployment,<\/p>\n

cultural and ethical backgrounds, sustainability had to be taken into account before<\/p>\n

making our final choices.<\/p>\n

Approach to Preliminary Design: Phase 3 of Design Process<\/p>\n

The preliminary design was personally undertaken and drafted by myself taking into<\/p>\n

account the information gathered from research during the needs definition phase<\/p>\n

and the three conceptual designs chosen. This whole system design system<\/p>\n

approach played a vital role in the determination of the preliminary design.(A<\/em><\/p>\n

framework for sustainable whole systems design)<\/em>. Referring back to the elements<\/p>\n

taken into consideration in the needs definition phase of the design process and also<\/p>\n

the attributes that arose in the conceptual phase of the design process I came up<\/p>\n

with a design that has a combination of rigidity and sturdiness along with versatility.<\/p>\n

The building materials used in the manufacturing, options to customise internally, the<\/p>\n

molecular building segments that make up the structure are some of the attributes of<\/p>\n

Summative Assignment 4 \u2013  T1_2016_SEB121_Group_X2_Ver2 Page !  of !9 31<\/p>\n

the design that are sustainable for the environment that it would come in contact<\/p>\n

with.<\/p>\n

5.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Needs Definition <\/strong><\/p>\n

5.1.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scope <\/strong><\/p>\n

Asia is the most disaster prone area\/ region in the world. Evidence of physical and<\/p>\n

economic effects can be seen across the whole region.  These have risen as a result<\/p>\n

of natural and man-made disasters. Information published by the Centre for<\/p>\n

Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) show that in the last 100 years<\/p>\n

the death toll arising from these disasters have been staggering. The majority of<\/p>\n

people requiring shelters point towards the drought affected regions of Asia. The<\/p>\n

main reason for correlation is that fact that the drought in these regions have arose<\/p>\n

from political instability, lack of infrastructure and war (The guardian).  <\/em>The shelter is<\/p>\n

significant to all post disaster regions especially the war torn areas. It will seek to<\/p>\n

provide decent and dignified accommodation that could weather the natural<\/p>\n

elements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction Every year disasters happen globally.  In 2015 alone there were about 150 natural disasters which affected the lives of millions of people and that most of those disasters had happened in Asia (World Vision 2016).  Disasters caused by typhoons, Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78678\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}