Tom:

Following the 1997 earthquake Slovenia's emergency services made extensive
and very imaginative use of standard shipping containers as temporary
accommodation units, frequently in association with damaged but still
partly usable rural, village and suburban housing units.

Because of the country's location close to the Adriatic and
Mediterranean ports, as well as major rail and truck freight routes both
within Europe and linking Europe with the Middle East, they found that
these were available in almost unlimited numbers more or less instantly in
large numbers and on a very modest rental basis from commercial
international freight and logistics companies.

The containers could be taken by road to most locations, where they were
off-loaded with the aid of a medium sized portable crane, set up and
levelled on suitable temporary foundations, such old wooden railway
sleepers, often immediately alongside earthquake damaged private houses,
typically in the garden or adjacent farmyard. With the main container
doors propped open a temporary "front wall" with windows and a door
could be built out of timber etc. and they could then be quickly
provided with a temporary mains electricity supply for lighting, heating
and if necessary cooking from the established supply to the damaged
building as soon as this was re-established.

Many of the containers were used for a matter of months (or even longer)
primarily as sleeping and living accommodation in place of structurally
damaged accommodation at risk because of after-shocks, or while repairs
were carried out, while it might be possible to continue to use ground
floor kitchens or sanitary facilities with some temporary strengthening or
shoring up.

This might not be much of a solution in more remote parts of the world
where containers are not available in large numbers or when the roads are
inadequate for their transport into the areas where such temporary shelter
is needed, but they certainly seem to have been a very good solution in
more "developed" regions, not just for earthquake relief, but perhaps in
other emergency situations, including flooding, e.g. by providing
temporary shelter above the flood plain.

I'm not a salesman for shipping container sales or hire companies (!) but
I have seen another excellent use for these in relation to emergency
preparedness & response. When emergency planning for earthquake and fire
risks in particular began in earnest at the original J. Paul Getty Museum
at Malibu it quickly became clear that in an emergency situation the
Museum's excellent range of equipment, stored throughout the extensive
building, particularly in the ground floor car parking area, could well
be inaccessible in an emergency situation.

After reviewing the situation, three or four sealed shipping containers
were installed in screened, inconspicuous locations on different parts of
the site,m and all the emergency equipment and supplies - including food
and water - was dispersed through these so that there would always be a
full range available whatever direction of the threat.



Patrick J. Boylan
(Professor of Heritage Policy and Management)
City University, London,
Department of Arts Policy and Management
Frobisher Crescent, Barbican, London EC2Y 8HB, UK;
phone: +44-20-7477.8750, fax:+44-20-7477.8887;

Home: 38 Kingsmead Road, Leicester LE2 3YB, UK
phone & fax: +44-(0)116-288.5186
E-mail: [log in to unmask];  Web site: http://www.city.ac.uk/artspol/

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On Mon, 26 Mar 2001, Tom Sackett wrote:

> I am a final year student of architecture at the university of Derby in
> England. I was wondering if anyone at all out there had any information
> about the use of prefabricated buildings that have been used for either
> temporary or permenent shelter in relief situations. This topic is for use
> as my dissertation and I am mainly interested in the last 10 years and
> looking to the future. If anyone has any suggestions to where I should be
> looking or any information at all please contact me.
>
>
> Tom Sackett
> +447968102397
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> Or: [log in to unmask]
>