Emergency shelter & transitional housing

Alex Kwa
ARC605 | Spring 2009

Emergency Shelter

The shelter was designed with identical bamboo pieces and simple joints requiring no cutting to make it easier to assemble. Bamboo is a good material for emergency shelters, because it can be grown almost anywhere, stockpiled locally, and once enough material has been stockpiled, the additional bamboo can be used by people to make other items for income purposes.

Transitional Housing

The concept for this transitional housing unit was based on the idea that temporary or displacement housing changes over time, and eventually become permanent housing. In the first stage of the process, the container is a temporary host for portable architecture. Upon reaching the end of the site’s cleaning process, the container has acted as a long term dwelling for the residents. Containers are modular in nature, enabling the container-building’s structure to change through time and adapt to the spatial needs of the occupants.