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DEPLOYABLE HOMES FOLLOWING NATURAL DISASTERS
Description:
Duke University is partnering with Habitat for Humanity and the Planning and Housing Departments of St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana to assist residents of the gulf coast area by attempting to identify relevant technologies that show promise for improving the durability, affordability, and accessibility of housing. The structured approach for achieving this integrates a number of instructional courses at Duke and service-learning opportunities (some of them longer term) in Louisiana. Specifically, in the spring of 2006, Duke is offering an interdisciplinary, service oriented course to undergraduate, graduate and professional students that will conduct a life cycle analysis of natural disasters. Currently, 170 students are enrolled for the spring semester. Invited experts will discuss the range of meteorologic, hydrologic and geologic factors that cause disasters; explore how societies plan for and/or respond to the immediate and long-term physical, social, emotional and spiritual issues associated with survival; and present case studies of response, recovery and reconstruction efforts. Webcasts and podcasts of the lectures will be available on the course website (to make them available to the wider community). As part of the class, students may elect to participate in a service learning experience, in which they will be formed into interdisciplinary teams to plan and carry out response activities over Spring Break in an area of the gulf coast ravaged by hurricane Katrina. As part of their experience, students will keep a journal of their activities, write a brief synopsis (1-2 pages), and make a group oral presentation of their findings following their return. An outgrowth of the experience will be a series of intensive summer internships, which will be structured to spawn ideas to be explored during the academic year 2006-2007, where students enrolled in four design courses in the department (Advanced Living Technology Design, Architectural Engineering II, Integrated Structural Design, and Integrated Environmental Design) will be involved with developing housing rehabilitation strategies and housing reconstruction designs that demonstrate innovative technologies, energy efficiency, accessibility, green building techniques, and/or other features of innovative design to be incorporated as part of the reconstruction effort.