IPS 24 January 2019
As the impact of climate change worsens around the globe, a disaster-resilient village is poised to be a solution for urban poor battling the constant floods and typhoons that hit the Philippines. (951 Words) - By Kara Santos
Beating climate change through design gathers momentum. Photo: Kara Santos
The concept village, submitted by Johanna Ferrer Guldager of
Denmark, is designed around elevated housing clusters. Each house
employs green building technologies, such as the use of sustainable
materials like bamboo for the floors, walls and roof. Roofs are
used as a rainwater collection system leading to a water
conservation tank, while small gardens between houses ensure food
production even in times of disaster.
The concept won the global architectural design competition dubbed
Design Against the Elements (DAtE), which aims to build the first
green, liveable, affordable and disaster-resilient village in the
country.
A panel of international and local jurors picked the winning
architectural design from among 119 entries submitted by
professionals and students from 30 countries.
"We were very impressed with the different ideas from all over the
world," architect Eleena Jamil of Malaysia, who served as one of
the jurors, told IPS.
Jamil, who designed a school made of bamboo that won the
Millennium School Design Competition for disaster-resilient schools
organised in 2008, said that the winner was chosen because of its
sustainability and practicality.
"The ideas in the winning design are very easy to implement but it
considers a holistic approach. It considers the way people interact
within the community and how they could grow their own food," she
said.
Criteria for the judging of entries factored in
disaster-resiliency, innovative construction technology,
socio-economic sustainability, cost-effectiveness and adaptability
to other sites. Since the village will actually be a resettlement
site for marginalised families, the design also needed to be
practical to build.
Another design that allows houses to float by Dao Thanh Hai of
Vietnam won in the student category of the competition. The design
envisions a two- layered house, the core made of bamboo and wood
set on floats and enclosed inside a wind and storm-proof frame made
of ecobags, ecobeams and concrete frames. This ensures that the
house inside floats up as floods rise while preventing the
structure from being swept away.
"There were some very exciting ideas in the student category
especially the idea of a floating house and the use of sandbags.
It's actually a house that you can repeat everywhere, so that's
very good," Jamil told IPS.
According to DAtE, approximately 44 percent of the country's
population lives in informal squatter settlements which offer no
shelter from possible climate disasters. In Quezon City alone, the
largest city in Metro Manila, as many as 26,974 families live in
what are considered danger zones, according to the Urban Poor
Affairs Office.
Houses of informal settlers hang precariously along the backs of
creeks and waterways, near or under power transmission lines, along
sidewalks and on dumpsites, making them the hardest hit when
disaster strikes.
"Sustainable housing and environmentally safe villages should not
only be the privilege of the well-to-do, but should be accessible
also to the poor who are physically the most vulnerable to
disasters," said Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista.
The local government has promised to build the pilot village to be
called the House of San Miguel, after corporate sponsor San Miguel
Corporation - which co-funded the competition - to accommodate
roughly 500 families. "We hope to build this as soon as possible.
We will be prioritising the poor who are most vulnerable to climate
change," the mayor told media on the sidelines of the opening
ceremonies.
Bautista stressed the importance of preparing for disasters
especially with the ill effects of climate change being seen around
the world.
This week, the strongest La Niña weather system in 50 years
brought devastating rains and flash floods and is battering
Australia and mountain towns near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Meanwhile, a drought in Argentina is putting agricultural
production at risk.
Illac Diaz, the founder and executive director of non-profit group
My Shelter Foundation, which spearheaded the competition, says that
the goal of the contest was to plan homes and communities that
could survive for weeks in the severely restricted conditions of a
post-disaster situation.
"Rather than spend millions on expendable handouts after disaster
strikes, we wanted to work on something concrete ahead of time,"
said Diaz during the opening ceremonies ahead of the announcement
of winners.
"We don't want to just keep on implementing whatever design that
has been used before," Diaz told IPS. "Now through this contest, we
have designs that hopefully will change the concept of low-income
housing."
The Philippines ranks as one of the ten most afflicted countries
in the world in terms of lives and property lost due to climate
change. In September 2009, Typhoon Ketsana dumped an average
rainfall of an entire month in only six hours and cost 240 million
dollars in damages.
On average, the country is battered by 20 typhoons every year, and
stronger typhoons as well as droughts are on the rise. As part of
the Pacific typhoon belt, more than 7,000 islands that make up the
country are susceptible to sea level rise and storm surges with
extreme changes in temperature.
Green building trends seen in the exhibited designs include roof
and pocket areas for urban farming, use of solar panels, maximising
natural light sources, rainwater filtration systems, and gray water
recycling.
All the entries will be compiled in an encyclopaedia of
architectural and planning solutions to address climate change and
will be made available to designers and researchers
worldwide.
"The future of the Philippines will be climate-challenged and we
need change to happen now," says Diaz.
Originally published by Inter Press Service. © www.streetnewsservice.org