The purpose of the reserarch over the Fall 2010, by four Master of Architecture candidates (Matthew Arnold, Joshua Billings, Betty Quintana, and Sara Rosenthal) and the faculty advisor, Peter Wiederspahn, was to devise a system for emergency shelter that seeks the greatest amount of efficiency possible. The goal of this system is to be a structural and thermal improvement on the tent and trailer systems currently deployed. The module based system devised would provide a light, flat packed shipment that can be rapidly assembled and dismantled. Throughout the semester long research the team considered issues including: existing emergency shelters, material types and properties, the recycling process of plastics, potential manufacturing process, transportation restrictions, thermal and structural requirements, as well as typical box connections to inform the design of the module.
