If your house is destroyed in a disaster, you don’t want to live in a tent. The Rapid Deployment Module can be assembled in 20 minutes with no tools and will last at least 10 years.
It’s never easy setting up shelter for disaster victims–just look at the lack of safe housing in Haiti years after the country’s infamous earthquake. Tents are hardly a long-term solution, and trailers are bulky and difficult to redeploy.
A startup called Visible Good has developed a shelter–also known as a Rapid Deployment Module (RDM)–that falls in between a tent and trailer: It’s light (none of the pieces weigh more than 20 pounds), takes about 25 minutes to set up with no training, folds up, and is completely modular. The RDMs are well on its way to deployment–the Army selected Visible Good through a grant program to design an extreme weather shelter, and the company has sold 26 RDMs to BP as part of the second phase of cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico (the trailers are used by staff in ecologically sensitive areas where trailers aren’t allowed).
Visible Good was founded by architect John Rossi and Tina Newman, a former consultant. For the past two years, the company has been working on the RDM. It’s not modeled on any other shelters out there. “There are a bunch of what I would call anti-models–we did not want to be this, we did not want to be that,” says Rossi. “The reality is, there really is a gap that this little structure fits into. It’s got the hard walls and insulation of a more conventional building, and it’s compact and packs into its own floor, so you don’t lose parts, things don’t go missing, it doesn’t fall apart, and you’ve got a very neat little package that’s easy to ship and easy to set up.”
The RDM resembles a trailer more than a tent, and it does have the amenities of a sturdier structure–good insulation, hard walls, windows, and locking doors. But it’s also nimble, with adjustable feet to lift it up and away from minor flooding and vermin and a shell made out of high-strength, high-impact plastic. No tools are required for setup, and the modular 9 foot by 14 foot base unit can attach to other prototype units, including a shower unit and latrine unit. “They ultimately function like LEGO sets,” says Newman.
Visible Good’s shelter can last between 10 and 20 years, except for the roof, which needs to be switched out around the 3 to 5 year mark. A decade might seem like a long time for a shelter to stay standing, but it’s not. “Haiti just had its third year anniversary, and look at where the tsunami hit in Thailand. There are still people displaced and tents in Palestinian territories that have been there for 28 years,” says Rossi.
At the moment, Visible Good is working with the U.S military on an extreme weather version of the RDM that can withstand Antarctica as well as the desert. According to Rossi, “The military requirements are very specific and they’re very aggressive.” But the end goal of the military grant isn’t to come out with a product that can only be used internally–it’s to develop a rugged RDM that can be deployed widely.
The Latest Bing News on:
Disaster Shelter
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A former Massachusetts prison is the newest location for an emergency shelter for families experiencing homelessness.
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Bay State — a former minimum-security prison — was decommissioned in 2015, but the facility is still in good condition, Scott Rice, the state’s emergency assistance director, said in a statement to ...
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- Salvation Army emergency housing shelter now rebuilt and operational againon May 10, 2024 at 4:40 am
Nothing much goes on around 3020 Legion Street during the day, but at 4:30 p.m., the scene shifts. Men, women and children can be seen trudging toward the 52-bed Salvation Army emergency housing ...
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House, the local emergency housing shelter, closed on April 30. It was open for seven months, beginning October 1.
- Mass. emergency shelter residents limited to nine months in system after Healey signs billon April 30, 2024 at 4:12 pm
Massachusetts emergency shelter residents will only have a maximum of nine months in the system after Gov. Maura Healey signed legislation Tuesday that also hands her administration a much-needed ...
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Gov. Maura Healey on Tuesday signed into law a new nine-month limit on how long families can live in Massachusetts emergency shelters, and stamped her approval on the Legislature’s plan to pull up to ...
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Rapid Deployment Module
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The manufacturer was the sole bidder for a Pentagon assignment to manufacture High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) over a five-year period.
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Spectrum Control Inc. announces a revolutionary new Direct RF extension to its SCi Blocks family of miniature, modular, and intelligent RF+Digital™ system building blocks. This new DirectRF+™ module ...
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- OTS cadets push through the Blue Thunder obstacle courseon April 19, 2024 at 2:57 am
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- Actiphy Unveils Rapid Deploy: Revolutionizing System Deployment for Businesseson April 10, 2024 at 5:00 pm
TOKYO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#ActiphyInc–In an exciting development for system integrators, value-add resellers, and original equipment manufacturers, Actiphy has announced the launch of Rapid Deploy, a ...
- Joint Army, Air Force exercise highlights rapid deployment capabilitieson April 8, 2024 at 5:00 pm
The outcome of these advanced training scenarios are to help organizations identify personnel and equipment needed to quickly deploy assets into a theater and refine those processes to make it ...
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