Ecoshelter Education

“More than 125,000 homes were lost in Sri Lanka in the Tsunami of Boxing Day, 2004. To put that into perspective, only 5,000 were built the year before the disaster. This highlights the fact that there simply isn’t the capacity of locally-sourced materials or even the labour required for this scale of rebuilding in the regions at risk.

There is also an international shortage of people trained and experienced in disaster preparedness, risk reduction, post disaster reconstruction and community regeneration.

Specialist intervention, although often expensive, can save much more. The issue is not necessarily the cost of the specialists – it’s the value that they generate. The Shelter Cluster led by UNHCR is now yielding results. What we really need is more and better generic post disaster shelter, sustainable community regeneration and economic development programmes and a pool of purpose-trained experts on hand with the means to fund them for a year-or-more.”

Jo da Silva, Shelter Centre, Red R (The International Health Exchange), Engineers Without Borders & Director of International Development at Arup (Quality & Standards in Post Disaster Shelter Meeting, The Institute of Structural Engineers, London, 22nd February 2007).

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“Natural and man-made disasters such as floods, earthquakes and wars happen worldwide on a daily basis. Emergency shelters in the form of tents and sleeping bags are required to accommodate and protect displaced and vulnerable people in the affected area. However, thermal insulation of emergency shelters is sometimes poor and the thermal comfort of occupants inadequate. This was evident for many of those affected by the earthquake in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

Professor Saffa Riffat, Head of the Institute of Building Technology and the Institute of Sustainable Energy Technology, Technical Advisor to Ecoshelter.

For more information, see www.nottingham.ac.uk

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Ecoshelter is establishing links with Universities around the World to help create, promote and fund post disaster reconstruction engineering, architecture and design courses and course materials and to build the capacity for sustainable community regeneration and development.

To join us, click here.

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Architects for Aid is a UK-registered charity that trains and supplies architects to work in conjunction with aid organisations, charities and NGOs on post-conflict and post-disaster reconstruction and long-term development projects. Ecoshelter is raising funds to send students and architects to train with A4A. For more information, see www.architectsforaid.org