emergency_rooms / emergency_village

emergency_rooms is a planning and development strategy targeting housing markets that are traditionally ignored by the field of architecture. Using automated planning procedures in coordination with modular wooden building systems, emergency_rooms delivers housing and urban infrastructure for urgent needs: housing settlements for industry, international sporting events, natural catastrophes. emergency_rooms is built upon the premise of reusability. Fixed-tenure housing built from wooden components can be transformed through on-site upgrades – or transported to new locations.

emergency_village is a pilot project for the emergency_rooms concept. Focusing on the village of Sant Angelo in the earthquake ravaged region of L’Aquila, emergency_village proposes a rapid-response settlement for 500 inhabitants that will house displaced persons until Sant Angelo can be rebuilt. The careful composition of modular building components allows rapid erection of seismically-stable settlements that possess attractive, usable collective and private spaces.

2009: planning study