From Reuters - Relief Resources
By Anton Ferreira | 30 Jul 2001
Sandbag homes may be shelter breakthrough
The Superadobe technique can be learnt in a few days.
Photo: California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) — Senior U.N. officials plan to test a building method using sandbags and barbed wire they say could revolutionise the way emergency housing is provided after natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes and hurricanes.
The officials told Reuters that the method, known as "Superadobe" and developed in Hesperia, California, by Iranian-born architect Nader Khalili, could provide durable, cheap shelter very quickly after calamities like the Gujarat earthquake earlier this year in India.
"I thought it was amazing. It is a hidden treasure," said Omar Bakhet, director of the Emergency Response Division at the U.N. Development Program.
Bakhet and his program adviser Lorenzo Jimenez de Luis visited Khalili's California research site earlier this month and said they immediately realised the potential of his building method.
"The technology is fascinating," Bakhet said. "It's a technique one can learn in a few days."
The Superadobe method involves filling empty sacks with earth dug from the building site and piling them in layers with strands of barbed wire acting like Velcro to provide added stability.
The simplest design is a circular room tapering toward the top to form a dome that sheds snow or rain. Several examples of the beehive-like structures have been built in Hesperia and elsewhere, and they have passed seismic testing required under California's strict earthquake-zone building codes.
Building with Superadobe requires no special skills, and rooms can be added.
Khalili has spent most of his career designing affordable housing for the homeless, but until now his work has had little attention from disaster relief professionals.
"I don't think there's any risk, it's a proven technology," said Bakhet. "It's cost effective, you need very little building material, just what nature gives you."
Bakhet and Jimenez de Luis said the only problem they foresaw was persuading governments to try the new technology.
"If these structures had the shape of a conventional house, it would be much easier," said Jimenez de Luis. "A government is going to be reluctant to accept a hemispherical thing."
He said Superadobe represented a far better option than the tents or plastic sheets and corrugated iron that are used now to provide emergency shelter for refugees from natural disasters or wars.
ABSOLUTELY PERFECT
"The (Khalili) initiative is very suitable because it covers the permanent character of the structure and the dignity aspect of the people who are going to benefit from the shelter - to live in one of these houses is absolutely perfect. To live in a tent is not so dignified in the long run."
Jimenez de Luis said Superadobe structures would also be better able to withstand future earthquakes or floods. This was important in regions like Central America or the subcontinent that experienced recurrent disasters.
"The (concept) is extraordinarily positive and definitely worth testing," he said. "It's just a matter of trying it once or twice for this thing to fly solo."
The U.N. officials said they were determined to launch a pilot project, possibly in Gujarat where some 1 million homes are needed, if the backing of local authorities could be obtained.
"Here you have a technology that's so simple, so effective and can be used by everybody, you are cutting the time for addressing housing needs by I don't know how many percent," Bakhet said.
"But like all new approaches, how many people would be readily prepared to embrace it? We are all afraid of anything new... So this where the challenge is."
Khalili said in a telephone interview from Hesperia that he dreamed of building an entire city in India.
"I showed them the plans I have for houses, clusters from 1,000 to 5,000 to 10,000, all the way to a million-person town that will be totally sustainable...
"Imagine, if they gave me 1,000 soldiers and a couple of hundred students, I could build a whole town for them... If you can cut through the bureaucracy, I have the design," he said.
Copyright Reuters
