Students Win Prize for Design

Five students at the Graduate School of Design (GSD) won a design contest for their plan to develop tsunami-safe housing in areas struck by the December 2004 disaster. A prototype of their award-winning design is slated to be built in Sri Lanka by November 2005.

The students—Ellen Chen, Eric Ho, Nour Jallad, Rick Lam, and Ying Zhou—conceived of their plans before the April entry date of the competition, which was sponsored by MIT’s Special Interest Group in Urban Settlement (SIGUS) and open to Cambridge-based designers.

“We felt that there was an obligation of us to do it. We hadn’t seen anyone at our school addressing the issue,” Ho said. “It was an opportunity to really help people but also at the same time there was something we can learn from it.”

Initially, the students presented their ideas to Associate Professor of Architecture Michelle Addington, who decided to help the group procure University funding.

But, shortly thereafter, the students discovered the SIGUS competition, which aligned with their goal of developing permanent housing strategies for tsumani-affected areas.

“It’s really quite remarkable how quickly all of this happened,” said Addington. “This is a credit to our students. When they heard about the competition at the end of Feburary, they all started planning for it.”

According to Addington, who became the team’s advisor for the competition, the design, entitled “The Tsunami Challenge: Outside the Tent,” is a new twist on an old concept: the core.

“It starts off with four column-like elements [cores] that would be built, and then people can come in and fill in temporarily, perhaps with tarps, or other materials they collect, and then upgrade on their own time,” Addington said.

According to Ho, the structure is five times stronger than regular houses and should help improve the region’s preparedness for another Tsunami.

According to Ho, designing the stronger structure without an in-depth understanding of the region proved challenging.

“The most difficult thing was to actually know what is happening there,” Ho said. “We did our research of the cultural context, but because of the diversity of ethnicity and religion it was a problem at the beginning.”

Aiding the cause, MIT Visiting Scholar Carlo N. Ratti, who had been pursuing his own project to help in the tsunami relief effort, saw the results of the SIGUS competition and suggested to the GSD team that they “join forces.”

The collaboration has helped to bring the design closer to implementation.

Ratti contacted the Buddhist chaplain at MIT, who is also a member of a Buddhist organization in Sri Lanka, and arranged for a prototype of the student’s design to be built as a community center in Sri Lanka.

The team will also be traveling to the region this summer to see their vision become a reality.

“The basic idea will still stay the same. Mostly the specifics would be changed,” Ho said. “Getting first hand information is important.”