Artist fundraises to build prototype disaster relief shelter

An artist from Amherst, Virginia is currently fundraising to build a prototype temporary house that can be quickly and cheaply built for displaced families.

With the help of www.Kickstarter.com, a New York based website that helps artists find funding, Craig Pleasants is trying to raise roughly $28,000 to fund his project.

So far Pleasants has raised nearly $7,000 from sixty-nine people, but must raise an additional $21,000 by the end of June to begin manufacturing and marketing his structures.

The shelter is shaped like an octagon to maximize space and is designed to withstand storms and wind. The octagonal design provides 20 percent more space than a square structure and also allows the wind to naturally flow around it.

Using pre-cut panels made of steel and expanded polystyrene, which act as insulation, the structure can be quickly assembled as the pieces are bolted to a slab with self-tapping screws.

“It’ll go up pretty much instantly,” Pleasants said. “It would be a good, immediate solution for transitional housing.”

“These panels have been tested for years,” he added.

Pleasants plans to build a 400 square foot prototype complete with windows, doors, siding, and roofing.

In addition Pleasants said the structures are flexible and can be expanded to create a vacation cabin or scaled down to create disaster relief tents.

“If you want it to be permanent, it can be,” he said.

Following the devastating earthquake in Haiti last year, Pleasants said he designed a smaller version of his shelter for disaster relief.

“I adapted my octagonal as a very tiny one, nine feet across, with 72 square feet,” he said. “In Haiti, I thought, people are living under blue tarps. A nine-foot structure would be so much better than a tent.”