Build Forward – Help Design a Stormproof Philippines
Build Forward
When disasters strike in Manila, a tragedy can feel rather immediate, like in the cases of Ondoy and Habagat. However, when disaster strikes in some other region, it is sometimes easy to lose touch of a tragedy…unless it is a rather big one.
Typhoon Yolanda, internationally named Haiyan, was one of those “big ones,” a super-typhoon that has gone down in history as being one of the strongest ever to make landfall anywhere. Devastating most of the Visayas—in Tacloban alone, the damage was intense–it garners media attention to this day, as the survivors struggle to pick up the pieces. Aside from the loss of life, what makes it hard for us as a country to move on is the massive damage to infrastructure in the affected areas. To some extent, that damage was unavoidable—this was, after all, a literal perfect store. But, on the other hand, being a tropical country prone to natural disasters such as typhoons, stormproof architecture should be a priority.
Enter Habitat for Humanity’s Build Forward, a currently-running campaign to help the Philippines adapt to the climate changes it is experiencing and will continue to experience. Its aim is to give a long term solution by crowdsourcing climate adaptive designs. This corporate social responsibility project, created in partnership with the Department of Science and Technology and Ortigas & Company, encourages aspiring architects to contribute their efforts to building a better Philippines by submitting their designs for the perfect, storm-proof habitat.
The competition has two categories: House Design and Public School Design, and is open to all architecture students. Entries should be designed with typhoons as strong as Haiyan/Yolanda (250 mph winds) in mind, and will be judged based on innovation, strength and feasibility/affordability, and winners will have their blueprints executed as Habitat For Humanity Build Forward homes in the Visayas. For those who aren’t interested in designing, but want to help, Build Forward is also open to sponsorships for those homes.
So When In Manila, or wherever in the Philippines you are…if you want to help out with a national effort towards climate-adaptive homes, consider joining the Build Forward movement. To find out more, visit https://buildforward.com.ph. Submission of entries is until March 28, 2014, so sign up now!
