July 25, 2001
Senior UN officials plan to test a building method using sandbags and barbed wire they say could revolutionize the way emergency housing is provided after natural disasters like floods, earthquakes and hurricanes.
The officials said on Tuesday the method, known as "Superadobe" and developed in Hesperia, California, by Iranian-born architect Nader Khalili, could provide durable, cheap shelter very quickly after calamities like the Gujarat earthquake earlier this year in India. "I thought it was amazing. It is a hidden treasure," said Omar Bakhet, director of the Emergency Response Division at the UN Development Program.
Bakhet and his program adviser Lorenzo Jimenez de Luis visited Khalili's California research site last weekend and said they immediately realized the potential of his building method.
"The technology is fascinating," Bakhet said. "It's a technique one can learn in a few days." The Superadobe method involves filling empty sacks with earth dug from the building site and piling them in layers with strands of barbed wire acting like Velcro to provide added stability. The simplest design is a circular room tapering toward the top to form a dome that sheds snow or rain. Several examples of the beehive-like structures have been built in Hesperia and elsewhere, and they have passed seismic testing required under California's strict earthquake-zone building codes. Building with Superadobe requires no special skills, and rooms can be added.
Khalili has spent most of his career designing affordable housing for the homeless, but until now his work has had little attention from disaster relief professionals. "I don't think there's any risk, it's a proven technology," said Bakhet. "It's cost effective, you need very little building material, just what nature gives you." Bakhet and Jimenez de Luis said the only problem they foresaw was persuading governments to try the new technology.
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