UNHCR Refugee Shelter at Canberra Floriade

The UNHCR is using flat-packed shelters for housing refugees. One of these is on display at Canberra Floriade spring flower festival.

The shelter comes in several large cardboard boxes, like flat-pack furniture (but looks easier to assemble than a bookcase). It has a tubular metal frame, stiffened by wires and covered with foam plastic insulated semi-rigid panels. There are small insect screened windows and a solid plastic door.

The shelter has the option of a solar panel with LED light and phone charging point. That may seem an extravagance, but otherwise lighting has to be provided using expensive and dangerous fuel lanterns. Also low cost devices can be charged for use in mobile learning for children.

The shelter is, effect, a semi-rigid tent and, as such is one step up from a tent. It would offer better protection from the elements than a tent and more of a sense of a home. However, it is not luxurious accommodation.

It should be possible to build much larger structures, for community use (for a school for example) from the same building components.

While the flat-packs are relatively small, perhaps they could have been made smaller by using open cell, rather than closed cell foam for the panels. The panels could then be squashed flat for transport, taking up about half the volume (and would expand when unpacked).

Transport for such units would be "bulked out": that is the human porter, pack animal, truck, ship or aircraft, would be limited by the volume it could carry, not the weight. Making the unit more compact, even if sightly heavier, would allow more to be carried. It should be possible to make the panels out of metal. This would make the shelters more durable (and fire resistant). The panels could be made to become corrugated for stiffness, when unpacked and the foam insulation core expands.

Ian Warden on Marion Mahony Griffin and Australian Flora

Canberra writer, Ian Warden, will give a free talk on "Tiptoe through the Telopeas: Why Marion Mahony Griffin would have boycotted Floriade", 31 January 2013 at the Australian Botanical Gardens in Canberra. This is part of the Canberra Centenary.

Canberra Spring

Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh will tour the Floriade flower show here in Canberra next Thursday afternoon. It is a good time to visit Canberra, as shown by the number of distinguished guests (US President Obama arrives in early November). Last Thursday there was a delegation from the EU talking on climate change at the Australia National Unviersity.

As I had to be at the symposium by 9AM I caught the Route 3 Bus. This winds its way through the university Campus. It was a cool, clear, crisp morning. The tall native gum trees were tall and gray-green, between the short oaks with bright green new foliage. The lawns were manicured.

Surprisingly you can see few buildings on the campus from the bus route. The campus is designed for walking, with all the main buildings along walking paths, with playing fields alongside. The buildings are mostly limited to less than the height of the eucalyptus trees, so that from the road you just get glimpses of buildings between the foliage.

In amongst the older brick buildings there are bold new designs being constructed (see the time lapse video of the biology building being built). But I suspect these trendy looking designs will date very quickly (the Undergraduate Teaching Building has an overly complex, inflexible design). The Ursula Hall Laurus Wing shipping container building, is likely to be of more lasting significance.