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Too often we see footage of refugees huddled in tents. They are usually in some windswept, unwanted corner of the Earth, where nighttime temperatures would freeze Glycol and daytime temperatues fry eggs.
Since the nature of refugee relocation programs is to extend beyond all reasonable expectations
of original timeframe estimates it stands to reason that a more permanent, portable housing solution would make sense.
Used shipping containers could be modified to incorporate a few small, multipurpose rooms.
Water storage (hot in the roof, cold under the floor), solar panel sunshades that fold out and minimise heat absorption whilst providing power, plywood interiors, telescopic legs, foldout furniture, lighting, a simple chemical toilet unit, shower facilities and a bottled gas cooking unit and you'd have a pretty good home.
Several other designs for public buildings (containers come in 20x8x8 ft and 40x8x8ft units), refrigerated units for perishables quartermasters' stores and you could set up a very comfortable camp in a short time.
The only issue is to transport the "container city" in on trucks. This is certainly achievable in a relatively short space of time. Most refugees travel along existing roads.
Refugee Housing thread at thinkcycle.org
http://www.thinkcyc...te?tc_note_id=36088
One of many sites where cheap refugee housing has become an exercise for budding architects and interior designers. [jutta, Sep 15 2002]
The Modular Building industry in general
http://directory.go...ding_Types/Modular/
[jutta, Sep 15 2002]
prisoners dying in containers.
http://www.cbsnews....ck/main519509.shtml
[po, Sep 16 2002, last modified Oct 17 2004]
The modular way
http://www.emtunga.com/
This company has made a living of building modular biotech and pharmaceutical production facilites, living quarters for gas and oil industry AND finally telecom shelters. Maybee their ideas can bring this subject a bit further... [rlresult, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004]
[link]
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Yes, there's a mob called World Homes who do something similar, but this is a lot more basic and a fair bit less expensive. I have done some quick numbers and these would come in at less than USD2000 each to refit (less if you used local labour). Old, disused containers are becoming something of a blight. |
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Interiors can be precut and simply stored inside, with a stock of non-perishable foodstuffs. The occupants get a bit of help from a construction team from the aid agency who deliver the units. This further reduces costs. |
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I see containers used as living quarters in the context of building sites, room shortages in schools and such, but when faced with a large-scale refugee catastrophy, wouldn't inflatable, foldable, and tent based solutions just kick this one's ass in terms of pricing and space/benefit ratio? |
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Questions I don't know the answer to:
How many people do you think one such container would end up housing?
How much money is usually spent on housing one refugee? |
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If a container is available, and it can be used to ship stuff, then reusing the container as housing rather than shipping it back empty seems like a good idea, especially if there are too many containers. But I'm not convinced that moving containers in especially for the purpose is efficient. |
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I am very familiar with the use of modular housing (train & truck deliverable) having worked in the early 1980s for a transport company supplying logistic support to construction and mining companies in remote areas. |
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I agree with you, Jutta, on the speed and efficiency with which tents can be delivered. What this is really about is alleviation of the problems of 'temporariness' of tents. |
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When a refugee camp has been in the one place three years it starts to come apart at the seams. |
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This may not be a halfbaked idea. It is, however, a real idea. For some strange reason it has been running in my subconscious 24 hours/day for about 5 days now. |
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Making it easier for the Australian authorities to load refugees back onto boats? |
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[Don't know if Aus will live that down in a hurry. My old school in the UK is getting it in the neck for imposing a quota on Jewish refugees in, get this, November 1945. A shocking episode which has been unearthed recently & lots of grubby name-calling going on.] |
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Housing is actually secondary to water & sanitation, but yes, anything to get people sheltered deserves a croissant. |
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GW, you know not of what you speak, I'm afraid. |
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Our popular press seems to have wilfully Pilgerised the entire debate on the issue, for some time. Most of the people in detention by the middle of this year were here of their own will. The bulk of them have been returned to Pakistan, from which they were never truly refugees. |
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It's becoming increasingly clear the refugees were pawns in a political game being played by the Muslim government of Indonesia after we made them look silly by taking the high ground on East Timor, in 1999. |
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I don't need to till these fields again. |
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Steady on there, big guy. I'm not saying the Tampa was another SS St Louis, I'm saying I don't think Aus will live it down in a hurry. A classic hospital pass, & how could Australia play it right? Likewise with Protestants protesting at Catholic schoolgirls in West Belfast, one understands the justification, but on the news it looks hideous. |
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['Pilgerised': ie, leftie polemicist John Pilger? I'd got the impression that the Aus press had gone all Send Em Ome.] |
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Still, I agree with you that this is a real idea. I was in East Mostar in 1994 and we could really have done with some of these to house the c. 50-70,000 strong population, when there was barely a building left that didn't have a wall or roof replaced by a flapping UNHCR tarpaulin, and we didn't know how long the war would drag on. If nothing else, your containers would have been bulletproof. I endorse this with all my sway [+1]. |
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How about something made out of memory metals? Then you could ship a container full of...compacted containers. When delivered, the temporary housing is heated and restored to shape. Later they can be compacted again and shipped somewhere else. |
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phoenix: Then someone leaves the container of flatpack containers in the baking summer heat for a few hours, and suddenly they reach their critcal temperature and there's a massive TWOINGGGGG, the airis full of flying metal boxes and the already overloaded medical services have an even bigger problem on their hands........ besides, Nitinol is very expensive compared to sheet steel. |
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A few containers full of galavnised iron sheet and 4 x 2's can be converted into amazingly durable buildings with nothing more than basic hand tools. |
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Yes, 8/7, you can fit a lot of stuff in a shipping container. that's what they're about, after all. |
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I may well take the time to extrapolate further on this idea in an appropriate forum. |
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These could be sold to mining companies, at a profit, to finance the basic refugee models. |
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The fact that they would have a lot of usable space inside them means they could be used to transport non-perishables, clothing, bedding, medical supplies, water purification plant... etc. |
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The establishment of a ready response unit within the UNHCR or as an adjunct to CARE or WHO means these could be stored in stable areas near developing hotspots. That way it's just a short trip to establish a camp. Moving 2,000 containers is a big job, but not a massive logistical exercise for a modernised transport organisation. If it can be done under the aegis of UN troops then a temporary canvas camp can be fairly rapidly built up to a more permanent solution. On a decent road a prime mover can shift 6 (or more) x 20ft containers at a time. Road trains of 3 x 40ft trailers are common in this country, though I see no real mention of them elsewhere. Doubledecker loading is easy enough with containers. It's what they were designed to do. The upper loading can be quite light. |
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I'm not sure they're bulletproof, GW, but certainly shrapnelproof. Will a shipping container stop a ball round from a .300+ calibre assault rifle? |
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// Will a shipping container stop a ball round from a .300+ calibre assault rifle? // |
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Won't stop 7.62mm NATO. Won't stop 5.56mm. Will slow/deflect 7.92k (AK47) but still tends to perforate. |
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Put this idea to a friend of mine in shipping insurance today. She says that the container look is very in in Nigeria, which accounts for the high wastage & hence premiums on any ships putting in to Lagos. |
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//Won't stop 7.62mm NATO. Won't stop 5.56mm. Will slow/deflect 7.92k (AK47) but still tends to perforate.// |
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Out of curiosity, do you have any figures on range, etc? I presume the Eastern Bloc 7.92 performs so because it is a heavier projectile with a lower charge? |
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The idea of a round coming in one side and bouncing around because it can't exit the other side is a little scary. We used to occasionally hit a "superball" in a squash court. It would "get" someone about one go in three. |
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[GW], does that mean they are being stolen for this sort of use? |
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Yes it does. They get loaded off & just... disappear. You've seen what container yards look like even in the tidiest countries. Miles and miles of fencing to guard. |
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Thinking back on it, I'm not sure if the mobile hospital in Mostar wasn't containerized. It was a joint Red Crescent / MSF venture, so it would make sense. I'd just have to check my diaries on that. If it was, the whole structure would have been something like 10 x 2 containers, in 2 corridors, with about 1/3 of each container wall open. And there was sniper sight-line tape on the ground outside, which may or may not be grounds for assuming the external wall was relatively secure. The walls might have been sandbagged. Funny what you can't remember. |
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Better to develop hardening bubble tents. Maybe you would need a compressor and a canister of hardening junk. Blow it up, let it harden, then anchor it to the ground and cut holes in it to suit -- probably cut it in half to make two domes. |
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Well ...... Inner and outer skins of polypropylene or similar? Pressurise the inner skin with an air blower. Inject polyurethane foam mix into the gap between the skins; it expans and forms a thick, rigid shell - maybe 200 to 300 mm. if this is a hemisphere, needs to be about 3m tall in the centre. Allow to harden; turn off blower, move to next shell assembly site. Weight down perimiter "skirt" with rocks. Membrane floor provides water barrier; to make windows, just cut with a saw. Provides insulation against heat and cold. Not amazingly durable, but better than a tent. Problem - flammability. |
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