THE STRUCTURE
14:07
On the first visit to Calais, we met and begun working with Ben Guillespie, to design a shelter for a pregnant Eritreans lady with funds raised by a wonderful women from Birmingham called Hayley. Ben and Hayley were the first two British people I met in the jungle (Calais Migrant Camp).
We went to the local equivalent of B&Q and on the back of a scrap of paper in aisle 3, we hashed out a rough design on the materials they stocked and built it. Since then we have constantly improved and adapted the design.
The first shelter was the basic wooden frame clad in Damp proof membrane (DPM) sheeting. It had an assortment of pallets and a flap for a door, which was assembled there and then. We now have a fully functioning workshop, with 2 chop saw stations, 2 panel assembly stations, 3 cladding stations, a loading bay and organised all our materials and tools into racks and bays.
The evolution of the shelter's design very much serves as symbol for the overall project. Started as a one step initiative, this has, with the support of L'auberge de Migrant and so many donors and volunteers grown into a functioning shelter programme housing families in the Calais Jungle.
The shelter consists of a timber frame worthy of a permanent home, albeit a single room on a single story. We clad the external face of the panels in 300 micron thickness DPM, and the internals with aluminium foil insulation fabric. Today we received our first shipment of a triple layered foil, which will increase the insulation factor by 4 times on the previous material! The roof is now made out of a separate (5th) panel to mean the basic structure can now be assembled onsite in approximately 20 minutes. The floor still needs tweaking as pallets struggle on uneven ground to give a desirable base surface and need covering as they leave a big draft! But we are looking at creating a single piece rigid base plate to sit the structure on and must find a design which takes less than 30 minutes to install on uneven ground. We then glad the assembled structure in tensioned tarpaulin to stop the wind stressing the DPM plastic cladding so it can concentrate on keeping the water out and the tarp controls the wind. We finish with a door, which has a lockable sliding bolt, and a window is being incorporated into as many as possible to allow natural light in. The front and back panel have closable vents to allow a degree of natural air for fresh air and combating condensation problems likely in a plastic clad space.
We have begun joining shelters together in pairs, which saves a side panel, and allow the spaces to insulate each other and foster communities in this organically sprawling mini town. We would like to build them in rows of 5/6 huts ending with a communal cooking kitchen to again help encourage community empowerment and self-organisation.
We went to the local equivalent of B&Q and on the back of a scrap of paper in aisle 3, we hashed out a rough design on the materials they stocked and built it. Since then we have constantly improved and adapted the design.
The first shelter was the basic wooden frame clad in Damp proof membrane (DPM) sheeting. It had an assortment of pallets and a flap for a door, which was assembled there and then. We now have a fully functioning workshop, with 2 chop saw stations, 2 panel assembly stations, 3 cladding stations, a loading bay and organised all our materials and tools into racks and bays.
The evolution of the shelter's design very much serves as symbol for the overall project. Started as a one step initiative, this has, with the support of L'auberge de Migrant and so many donors and volunteers grown into a functioning shelter programme housing families in the Calais Jungle.
The shelter consists of a timber frame worthy of a permanent home, albeit a single room on a single story. We clad the external face of the panels in 300 micron thickness DPM, and the internals with aluminium foil insulation fabric. Today we received our first shipment of a triple layered foil, which will increase the insulation factor by 4 times on the previous material! The roof is now made out of a separate (5th) panel to mean the basic structure can now be assembled onsite in approximately 20 minutes. The floor still needs tweaking as pallets struggle on uneven ground to give a desirable base surface and need covering as they leave a big draft! But we are looking at creating a single piece rigid base plate to sit the structure on and must find a design which takes less than 30 minutes to install on uneven ground. We then glad the assembled structure in tensioned tarpaulin to stop the wind stressing the DPM plastic cladding so it can concentrate on keeping the water out and the tarp controls the wind. We finish with a door, which has a lockable sliding bolt, and a window is being incorporated into as many as possible to allow natural light in. The front and back panel have closable vents to allow a degree of natural air for fresh air and combating condensation problems likely in a plastic clad space.
We have begun joining shelters together in pairs, which saves a side panel, and allow the spaces to insulate each other and foster communities in this organically sprawling mini town. We would like to build them in rows of 5/6 huts ending with a communal cooking kitchen to again help encourage community empowerment and self-organisation.
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| CAD Drawing |
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