Disaster Shelter | Haiti Economic Conditions
Part 5 of a 5 part series

OK, a couple of details.

The brick gauges can be two or three sizes. The largest brick pays more. If the chipper has an accident and chips too far, there is a medium size he can chip to. Then perhaps a small one that sells for less.  The gauge is simply a rectangle and a length.

The brick gauge can be in the form of a simple backpack, to help carry the load of bricks back to the collection point. I have a design in mind and it should cost no more than a decent lunch to make.

Enterprising people can set up a brick yard, where rough stone is collected and chipped in one area. This has the added advantages of shortening travel times and creating another valuable commodity as a by-product, gravel, useful for concrete.

This project can be started with a minimum of capital. Setting up distribution will take some capital, but not much. That capital should be readily available for any jobs project in Haiti. The individual cost of equipping one worker to start, should be far less than the cost of feeding that worker for a month.

Any new export is a good thing for Haiti. Any new job created in Haiti is a plus. The ability to create a new industry in Haiti at a low cost and targeted to help the poorest, is an opportunity too good to miss.

What we need now are grant writers to secure funds to get a management staff organized, technical help from people who have knowledge inside the industries we have discussed, and activists of all types to write letters to anyone with the power to help.

Let’s work together and make this happen for the people of Haiti.

Frank Schooley
Designer; Terrapeg & Shelter In A Day

READ Part 1
READ Part 2
READ Part 3
READ Part 4

READERS: What are your thoughts?

About Shelter In A Day | Disaster Shelters
Winner of 2013 Aid and International Development Forum (AIDF) "Most Innovative Product Award." Shelter In A Day is the brainchild of eco-friendly, furniture designer Frank Schooley. Shelter's disaster recovery housing provides safe and secure, simple to construct, green homes for those displaced by natural disasters, such as hurricanes, earthquakes or floods. 

The disaster shelters are a solidly constructed, termite, rust and rot resistant house, with lockable doors and windows.  Homes are crafted from waterproof, recycled wood fiber material and can be easily erected anywhere, in one day. 

Disaster Shelter | Haiti Economic Conditions
Part 3 of a 5 part series

Solar powered cement production has been proven possible and, as a bonus, can be done not just efficiently, but without producing waste carbon dioxide, CO2, the greenhouse gas normally produced in this industrial process. The details are complicated but to quickly sum up this exciting new research, it’s possible to cheaply produce cement using solar power, in an environmentally cleaner way, producing less or no greenhouse gas by-products (CO2) and, as a bonus, the chemical reaction gives off carbon monoxide (CO) which is used as a raw material with a wide range of industrial applications.  This by-product is in theory worth more than it costs to produce the cement, making the cement production (practically) free with the assumption that the CO gas can be collected and sold.

From Nanowerk.com:

I know, it makes my head hurt too. The simple version is, solar thermal cement not only works but can work far better and cleaner than current production methods. This could change everything for Haiti... and the whole world, come to think about it.  Just think what it would mean if the cost of a bag of cement was suddenly half cost. Haiti has plenty of available labor and so many projects that need building. Dams, reservoirs, roads, bridges, houses, all would be in reach if cement was affordable.  Standards of living would rise along with jobs availability. Infrastructure projects would stimulate the economy in a thousand ways. Haitians know how to build and love to build. Inexpensive materials are the key to unlock the potential of the people of Haiti and practically free cement is now theoretically possible.

One final thought. Aid organizations and finance operations like the World Development Bank have money available for Developing World infrastructure projects that make sense financially. This project, that creates the building blocks of every subsequent infrastructure project in Haiti, should have little trouble gathering the support of those who make the planning of long-term strategy their business.

OK Frank, this is a bit long term. What about the short term problem of jobs in Haiti?

I’ve got at least one idea, in next week's Part 4.  I call it:  Haiti… One Brick At A Time.

READ Part 1.

READ Part 2.

About Shelter In A Day | Disaster Shelters
Winner of 2013 Aid and International Development Forum (AIDF) "Most Innovative Product Award." Shelter In A Day is the brainchild of eco-friendly, furniture designer Frank Schooley. Shelter's disaster recovery housing provides safe and secure, simple to construct, green homes for those displaced by natural disasters, such as hurricanes, earthquakes or floods. 

The disaster shelters are a solidly constructed, termite, rust and rot resistant house, with lockable doors and windows.  Homes are crafted from waterproof, recycled wood fiber material and can be easily erected anywhere, in one day. 

Could Shelter In A Day's disaster shelter change the world?
Part 2 of a 6 part series

Can a building be versatile enough to be useful for disaster relief, nation building, displaced populations, military personnel housing and storage, and backyard sheds without looking like a greenhouse, steel oven box, tent or yurt?

What would a better, cheaper, faster building look like? What should it do?

Here’s a wish list for immediate housing:

• Can be made quickly as needed and economically. There’s never enough resources.
• Stacks small and tall and forklifts to save cargo space. Delivers onsite with any standard truck.
• Is fast and simple to erect, without costly resources like power, heavy equipment or even tools.
• Can be built by anyone in hours, not days or weeks or even months. No training necessary.
• Can be built with or without a foundation. One may not be available and the need won’t wait.
• Is easily expandable and easily configurable for different needs.
• Can be secured to the ground with a simple to install, screw-into the ground, tie-down system.
• Uses long lasting, sustainable materials that are termite, rust and rot resistant.
• Provides immediate, lockable security for those in need, and their precious belongings. 
• Offers real, permanent protection from the elements, not just shade.
• Comfortable in any climate with screened windows and cross ventilation.
• Is affordable not just initially, but over time. Saves most building costs.
• Can be easily modified with familiar tools to adapt to local needs.
• Can be disassembled, stored and reused when necessary. 
• Damaged parts are easy to replace as all parts of the structure are standardized.
• Provides dignified, familiar looking, but most of all, affordable housing.

Would you believe this house exists!  How was it done? What’s changed?

I have been a cabinetmaker for over 45 years. My kitchen shop has a computerized (CNC) router, a relatively new technology that cuts all my cabinets, saving time, mistakes and money. With the collapse of the building industry in 2008, I found the time to take up my longstanding dream and began designing furniture to be cut with the CNC router. I was cutting fiberboard because it was the least expensive material I could get to practice with. Slowly, I came to respect this seldom used material.

To get around fiberboards’ connecting problem, I re-invented an old-style carpenter’s joint, the mortise and through-tenon with locking peg, making it possible to cut all the parts using a CNC router. This new Tool Free joint is designed to be assembled without metal fasteners, using just a hammer, cut from the same fiberboard material.  The joint overcomes the connecting problems of the material and magnifies all its strengths. It forms a connection that has proven to be both easy to assemble and surprisingly strong, allowing the use of fiberboard for structural applications for the first time. These three leaps forward, (the ‘Green’ fiberboard material, the new joint, and precise cutting with a CNC router) working together, make Shelter In A Day a breakthrough development and an innovative, new technology.

According to World Population Balance website, our world population will add an average of 200,000 people every day. Additionally, millions, even billions of people now have unsafe, substandard housing made from found materials (that’s a nice word for junk). All these people need housing and this housing should be made from sustainable materials if we care about our future generations. Sustainable materials are used and reused and easily replaced, are natural in origin, are grown, not mined, and familiar to people

In February, my Shelter won a People’s Choice Award at the Inventors Fair in Palm Beach. This spring, Shelter In A Day took the really big prize, Most Innovative Product, from the very people who really know the Disaster Relief World, in a landslide vote by this year’s participants at the Aid and International Development Forum in Washington, D.C.

Can I really build a house, school, clinic or church…in an afternoon? 

Check back next week for Part 3.  Read Part 1.

READERS: What are your thoughts?

About Shelter In A Day | Disaster Shelters
Winner of 2013 Aid and International Development Forum (AIDF) "Most Innovative Product Award." Shelter In A Day is the brainchild of eco-friendly, furniture designer Frank Schooley. Shelter's disaster recovery housing provides safe and secure, simple to construct, green homes for those displaced by natural disasters, such as hurricanes, earthquakes or floods. 

The disaster shelters are a solidly constructed, termite, rust and rot resistant house, with lockable doors and windows.  Homes are crafted from waterproof, recycled wood fiber material and can be easily erected anywhere, in one day. 

About
Frank Schooley, Designer | Disaster Shelter

On the day of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, furniture designer Frank Schooley was saddened and moved by the destruction he saw replayed on the news.  It’s been estimated that 3 million people were affected by Haiti’s earthquake with approximately 316,000 souls perishing and 1 million Haitians left homeless. Haiti’s government also estimated 250,000 personal residences and 30,000 commercial buildings were either severely damaged or just collapsed altogether. Over three years later, sadly not much has changed. A traveler to Haiti today will find that the same disastrous construction is being rebuilt in the same dangerous way.

Being an industrious furniture maker, Frank knew he could help. Using the same techniques and materials he originally developed for his eco-friendly furniture line Terrapeg, he immediately starting drafting plans for a disaster relief shelter he calls Shelter In Day.

Learn more about Frank Schoolye's innovative disaster shelter or contact us today.

About Shelter In A Day | Disaster Shelters
Winner of 2013 Aid and International Development Forum (AIDF) "Most Innovative Product Award." Shelter In A Day is the brainchild of eco-friendly, furniture designer Frank Schooley. Shelter's disaster recovery housing provides safe and secure, simple to construct, green homes for those displaced by natural disasters, such as hurricanes, earthquakes or floods. 

The disaster shelters are a solidly constructed, termite, rust and rot resistant house, with lockable doors and windows.  Homes are crafted from waterproof, recycled wood fiber material and can be easily erected anywhere, in one day. 

We are excited to announce that Shelter In A Day won AIDFs 2013 Most Innovative Product Award for our disaster shelter.

Shelter In A Day is the perfect home for Haiti or those displaced by natural disasters. Shelter In A Day's disaster recovery housing provides safe and secure housing in a hurry. 

Shelters are incredibly easy to construct. Our green disaster recover shelters are a solidly constructed, termite, rust and a rot resistant house, with lockable doors and windows. Homes are crafted from waterproof, recycled wood fiber material and can be quickly erected anywhere, in one day, without tools, or electricity.

Frank Schooley, owner of Shelter In A Day Day said “We’re absolutely thrilled to have won this. We were not expecting to win and we appreciate the recognition.”

About Shelter In A Day | Disaster Shelters
Winner of 2013 Aid and International Development Forum (AIDF) "Most Innovative Product Award." Shelter In A Day is the brainchild of eco-friendly, furniture designer Frank Schooley. Shelter's disaster recovery housing provides safe and secure, simple to construct, green homes for those displaced by natural disasters, such as hurricanes, earthquakes or floods. 

The disaster shelters are a solidly constructed, termite, rust and rot resistant house, with lockable doors and windows.  Homes are crafted from waterproof, recycled wood fiber material and can be easily erected anywhere, in one day.