There’s been a lot of talk about the different kinds of tents, modular homes, and shelters that can be provided rapidly to Haiti that could also hold up to hurricanes and additional earthquakes. The Miami Herald rand this story about InnoVida:
Efficient, inexpensive and nearly indestructible, the little blue-and-aqua hut sitting in the parking lot of a North Miami-Dade factory represents cutting-edge building technology -- and many like it could soon could be headed to Haiti.
The company that made the prototype house and the space-age composite panels it is built from announced Wednesday that it will donate 1,000 of the cabins to people left homeless by the Haiti earthquake.
… InnoVida Holdings officials also said they have lined up $15 million in investment capital to build a factory in Haiti that could produce 10,000 houses a year.
… designed by renowned Miami architect and planner Andrés Duany as permanent housing. The company is in talks with the Haitian government and several interested volunteer organizations working on quake relief.
It is not clear what final design will be built, but it appears to be similar to those on this page.
A point I want to make that I have not seen addressed yet: Houses that are useful (stable, affordable, rapidly deployable, etc.) but that do not build community will be a problem. Famed urbanist and author Jane Jacobs often wrote about the need for designing streets and buildings to facilitate community. I hope these firms find or hire some sociologists, planners, or anthropologists (see this group of community planners called PPS to get the general idea of what I am talking about) that can work with Haitian community organizers (animator) and governments to help make sure these designs, and the patterns the are placed in, facilitate healthy communities.
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