Tiny House Living

Two earthbag home projects are underway in Haiti and are being blogged about at blog.konbitshelter.org and howsitgoinginhaiti.blogspot.com. Read more about these Earthbag Projects in Haiti on the Earthbag Building Blog.

Some students from the University of Maryland will be spending a week in Haiti demonstrating how to build these sturdy earthbag shelters.

Earthbag Shelter Training

This is a prototype of a flat pack cabin being built for deployment to Haiti. The plan is to setup a factory near Port-au-Prince and donate 1,000 of these homes to Haiti.

Cabins for Haiti

Here’s an interesting housing solution, a flat pack home that measures 7′ 6″ wide by 18′ 6″ long. It’s lightweight and has a strong steel structure. One of the coolest features is that it sets up in 15 minutes without power tools. Thanks for the tip David!

Haiti House, a flat pack home

Designers are uniting to come up with ideas for rebuilding Haiti. This competition is not just focused on architecture though, they are looking at the big picture from infrastructure to institutions.

Spontaneous Architecture Challenge: Rebuild Haiti

ShelterBox is a self contained survival kit complete with a 10-person tent specially designed to withstand extreme and rugged conditions. Take a look at the complete list of items included in the ShelterBox and learn more about how ShelterBox is helping in Haiti.

ShelterBoxes Arrive in Haiti

Haiti is on a lot of peoples’ minds right now and I know I’m not alone in trying to find a way to help. I’ve got a fund raising/design idea cooking on my front burner and hope to make it a reality soon, but in the mean time I wanted to share a list of well known organizations who are already mounting large disaster relief efforts. I also spotted this article on how to avoid donation scams which is worth a quick read before donating to any unfamiliar organizations.

Here’s a short list of well known organizations:

• Architecture for Humanity
• Habitat for Humanity
• American Red Cross
• Salvation Army
• UNICEF
• The White House, Help for Haiti

My personal favorite humanitarian architectural design organization is Architecture for Humanity. It’s a highly respected group founded to help people in situations just like the disaster in Haiti. Below is a video from a past TED Conference that describes what they do.