Saturday, January 15, 2011

Designing defences against climate change

Kara Santos in IPS: 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.

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….

Not an actual photo of the winning design -- just a treehouse

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