Prototype Housing for the South Pacific Islands

CURRENT ISSUES, CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

The communities in the South Pacific Islands are faced with natural disasters such as cyclones every year. But to rebuild after a cyclone strikes can be costly.  Located within a sub-tropical/tropical climate, the islands are blessed with natural resources that aren’t fully explored as potential resource to aid when disaster strikes. Bamboo is one of these resources with great potential and opportunities.

With cyclones getting stronger each year, how can we help solve the issues of building better and more resilient housing in the South Pacific? How can the community be resilient themselves after a disaster strikes?

After a disaster strikes, relief housings are typically viewed as a temporary solution, providing cheap and fast shelters for families to pick themselves up as they wait to rebuild their home. What if we were to look at houses beyond the solution for disaster relief? Instead, what if we viewed this as a long term solution that not only provides the community better, stronger and more resilient houses but at the same time, create an industry where it could be a source of income for the community themselves?

THE BIG PICTURE

The proposal for the prototype housing goes beyond a single prototype house, but in a larger picture, the proposal looks into the creation of a framework for an industry that could support and build houses in a longer term, empowering the community to develop skills and create an economic support system and structure that’s holistic.

The choice of exploring and using local materials for the prototype housing is an obvious one, because the building and construction industry is known to be one of the largest production of carbon emissions. Considering the climatic and geographical location of the South Pacific Islands, the subtropical and tropical climate provides us with an abundance of resources to research on and one such resource is bamboo – known to be one of the greenest material in the building and construction industry.

However, there seems to be a lack in current facilities to treat and produce bamboo for construction within the communities in the South Pacific Islands. As such, the proposal for the prototype housing calls for a long term plan and framework to kick-start the bamboo industry, beginning with planting and farming bamboo. This stage is projected to take up to 6 years as the earliest date to harvest bamboo in a mature state (depending on the species) is around the 3rd and 4th year in. As such, during the early years, there may not be enough to use bamboo as the main building material for the prototype housing. This also works in favor because within the perception of community, bamboo is still viewed as a material that doesn’t last for more than two years. With proper treatment, bamboo is said to last more than 30 years. And in the prototype housing, smaller elements such as doors, windows or wall panels could be fabricated using bamboo. Therefore, these early years would allow for an ease in transition, slowly introducing and educating the benefit of bamboo to the people.

PROPOSAL FOR THE PROTOTYPE HOUSING

The prototype housing is designed to be a prefabricated modular housing, allowing for flexibility in the configuration of the spaces, catering for personalized spaces based on individual families preferences and needs.

As the year progresses, with the maturity and better understanding of bamboo as a building material, the community can be facilitated to develop their own set of knowledge in bamboo construction. Series of workshops, training, and other skills development programs could be introduced to the local community, empowering them to learn and develop their own understanding and knowledge. Traditional knowledge could also be rediscovered and passed down to future generations as the vernacular houses in the South Pacific Islands also use bamboo as one of the materials. During this stage, the construction of the prototype housing will progress into utilizing and integrating more bamboo in not just smaller components such as doors but larger structures such as the roof for the prototype housing. This transitional period will set the path for more research and development of bamboo as a construction material and in preparation for the next stage.

The third and final stage, projected for a period of 12 years is the full transition from using a small percentage of bamboo in the earlier prototype housing to a full reliance of 90-100% in utilizing bamboo as the main building material. With the research and development stage, the community would have developed their own set of knowledge, skills, craftspersons and designers to design and produce their own bamboo housing. This is the period where the community has the ability to manage and build the industry without any external influences.

The proposal for the prototype housing looks into the following:

• Housing as a long term plan

• Housing as a self-sustaining model

• Housing as an evolution

• Housing as an adaptable and flexible model

This proposal is by no means conclusive or perfect, but it provides an idea and a framework that could be further explored by other interested parties.