[GSBN] building in Haiti - and now Christchurch, New Zealand

[Tom Hahn]

Hi all...

First, congratulations to Bruce and everyone involved in the EBNet 
Haiti project!!  Well deserved, and in amongst stiff competition from 
what I have seen.

Second, a former staff member and dear friend of mine was very near 
one of the major events in the Christchurch earthquake.  She was at 
work at her architecture firm's office about 50 meters from where a 
huge boulder fell out of a cliff in Sumner, NZ, and crushed the 
Sumner RSA veterans' club.  And her house (which was partially 
wrecked) is in sight of the beach where the famous Shag Rock 
collapsed.  She and her partner are safe, thankfully, and have moved 
in with friends with power and water outside metro-Christchurch.

I mention this because she is local (Sumner is a seaside suburb of 
Christchurch), knowledgeable with design and building, especially 
with alternative methods, and likely looking for something to do... 
she says her firm's primarily custom-residential work will be at a 
standstill for the foreseeable future.  Also, she already has 
disaster response construction experience, having worked, during 
graduate school, in New Orleans on building a demonstration 
affordable eco-home for Katrina victims.  Graeme (and anyone else), 
if you are aiming to help out in Christchurch and can use some local, 
able hands and brain cells, I can highly recommend Shana.  Here is 
her email...

Shana Payne <shanapayne at gmail.com>

Best wishes to the Haiti teams, and to anyone venturing into the 
Christchurch area...

Tom Hahn
Ecosa Institute
Prescott, AZ


>Hi Bruce - well done - amazing how an approach using local stuff works.
>
>One mesh idea that seems to work well that I have just started using 
>is Cintoflex D - a polypropylene mesh - very light and cheap but 
>very strong and easy to use - easier than any bamboo lath or metal 
>lath I have used so far.  Very tough walls can be made using bamboo 
>uprights, with either a spit bamboo lath, or by tying on a mesh, and 
>then installing light earth daub or plasters.
>
>Good keying between earth and lime seems to be essential,  esp if 
>there is much risk of high levels of  moisture around - I have seen 
>de-lamination between earth and lime if driving rain forces moisture 
>in as far as the earth under-layers that can both soften and expand.
>
>On a different note, we may need aspects of your design down here 
>too now that we have our own earthquake disaster in Christchurch to 
>deal with.  Its  a real horror story - it was a very shallow quake 
>right under the city and local ground accelerations were up to a 
>massive 1.88g under a city that was already recovering from the 
>effects of a larger quake a little further away last September.
>
>  Any references to a strawbale emergency shelter design that really 
>works may also be of great benefit too if anyone has one -
>most people have some temporary shelter, but winter is coming on, 
>and it is harsh down there, and around 10,000 house are 
>uninhabitable.   A lot of people are camping out in their yards with 
>no power or water supplies.  Emergency services are coping really 
>well it seems, even though 40% of city center buildings are too 
>unsafe to enter.
>
>Cheers
>
>
>Graeme
>Graeme North Architects
>49 Matthew Road
>RD1
>Warkworth
>tel/fax +64 (0)9 4259305
>
><mailto:graeme at ecodesign.co.nz>graeme at ecodesign.co.nz
><http://www.ecodesign.co.nz>www.ecodesign.co.nz
>
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