News from Wednesday, May 28

We’ve got a prototype we like!! The last few days have been spent out on the field near Moganshan Lu at Island6’s old building, testing and making changes to the prototype (Click here for PDF shelter specification sheet). Architects Vincent Degraaf (AIM), designer Karin Rijlaarsdam, and other “experts” in the field stopped by to help and feed-in suggestions. Luke has been making improvements to the design before he and Sam head out to Sichuan on Monday. The changes are good—added groundsheets, strengthened bracings, air vents and rain gutters that channel water runoff away from the shelter.

We’re challenging ourselves on the safety and durability of the shelters to make sure this thing is a sound design. We think the beauty of it is it’s lightness, size, and that it uses local materials with much less waste since the materials can be used elsewhere once the shelter is dismantled. There is also no in-factory manufacturing necessary as all of this is done during installation on-site. The design can also be winterized by adding an insulating felt layer beneath the plastic cover…always room for improvement but these are all critical factors in providing effective sheltering solutions! And we’ll need to further test when we’re on site to make sure those living inside are comfortable with the shelters. There was a news article today about a group of college kids who were talking about being cold and wet in their tents…further reinforcement that what we’re doing is the right thing.

Kim Chu and Sam and have been furiously calling to NGOs trying to work out the best way to integrate our efforts with those already on the ground—everything we read says relief efforts are in desperate need of locally-produced shelter but how to get it to them is something we haven’t yet figured out. It’s not easy. Jennifer Smieja recommended we talk to Hands on Disaster Response and they were incredibly helpful in pointing us in the right direction as well as sorting out how to legally take-in donations. HODR’s approach to relief work is to be on the ground assessing the needs of survivors and responding with speed and efficiency. Their initial team is traveling here May 30 so we’ll work with them as much as we can. Right now what we’ve heard and read here is that there are tons of people volunteering to help but there is more need for organization and instruction regarding tent installation and building of shelters. We’re also hearing that foreign agencies have been asked to cut down on their foreign bodies on the ground. Not sure what that’s about yet but it probably has to do with trying to keep the chaos to a minimum.

Blogsite is also officially UP! And we’re just working out the kinks… We’re unable to take in funds at the moment but hopefully tomorrow! Facebook is up too! More pics to come!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 8:40 pm and is filed under Shelters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.