MIT
and Harvard researchers design ``tsunami-safe(r)'' homes
By Associated Press
Thursday, May 26, 2005 - Updated: 03:04 PM EST
CAMBRIDGE,
Mass. - A month after the tsunami that devastated Sri
Lanka, a team of structural engineers from London visited the island
nation and noticed a trend as they surveyed destroyed homes: Walls
facing the sea were leveled, while those perpendicular to it were
standing.
That inspired a group
of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and
Harvard University to design what they call a ``tsunami-safe(r) house''
that is less likely to collapse under wind and pounding surf.
Instead of four solid
walls, the tsunami-resistant houses have thick concrete block corners
and exterior walls made of bamboo. The houses, about 80 of which have
already been built, also are designed to be built on top of blocks
of concrete or wood, one or two feet above the ground.
The design allows waves
to wash through the homes instead of knocking them over, said Carlo
Ratti, director of MIT's SENSEable City urban planning laboratory.
``Of course, you would
have water in the house, and there is no way to avoid that, but the
houses will be much more resilient,'' Ratti said.
Buro Happold, a London-based
engineering firm, used computer models to show the houses would be
five times more resistant to a tsunami than Sri Lanka's traditional
homes.
``When the wave comes
through, the water flushes everything out, but the walls remain standing,''
said Domenico del Re, a structural engineer at Buro Happold.
The design is for a
home measuring about 400 square feet, and costing roughly $1,200 to
build. It was designed to be made from materials readily available
in Sri Lanka.
``These house are high-tech
in the conception but low-cost in the construction,'' Ratti said.
Tenzin Priyadarshi,
a Buddhist chaplain at MIT who has helped coordinate the project,
already has raised more than $100,000 to fund the construction of
the houses. He hopes to build up to 1,000 of them.
``We asked people (in Sri Lanka) what they
wanted,'' he said. ``They said they had plenty of clothing, plenty
of medicine, a lot of temporary shelter. Permanent housing was the
next concern".
Relief agencies
are also building houses for families whose homes were destroyed
by the Dec. 26 tsunami. Habitat
for Humanity hopes to build or repair homes for 25,000 families
in India, Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka over the next two years.
About 600 already are under construction in those four countries,
said Mario Flores, director of the Georgia-based group's disaster
response office.
Flores said Habitat for Humanity also has looked at ways to protect
the homes from ocean waves, such as elevating them or reinforcing
the connection between the foundation and walls.
``If you have a mega-tsunami like this one, there is really very
little you can do (to prevent damage),'' he added.
Hawaii already has a ``strong tradition'' of building wave-resistent
homes, del Re said.
``It's a concept that exists in other forms of architecture, but it's
not necessarily local to Sri Lanka,'' he said.
|
| |
