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Colorful Architecture Helps Locals Adapt to Climate Change

Published on 14 September 2015 Vietnam

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RE-AINBOW is a community center in Vietnam that locals can use as a safety center during heavy weather.

The Duc Tho district of Ha Tinh province in Vietnam has endured more than its share of the destructively changing climate, and is the center of a community building effort to combat it anyway possible. RE-AINBOW aims to provide immediate shelter for locals caught in storms while simultaneously sponsoring productive dialogue about the problem.

Due low incomes leading to weak construction and being located near a path for heavy storms, the citizens of Duc Tho have spent the past decade rebuilding structures they know could disappear the next day. RE-AINBOW has entered the community to serve as a permanent, storm-proof structure with both static and dynamic qualities.

As a static station, it offers permanent aid for citizens in need. It includes a health station, sanitary washrooms and ancillary rooms easily converted for whatever the locals need most in an emergency.

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The center’s roof has a sloped sheet metal covering capable of enduring hurricane-force winds, and reinforced steel pipes to maintain a supply of usable water. Solar panels provide electricity even if the local grid goes down.

As a dynamic quality, it contains classrooms, meeting spaces, a theater and sports center to serve a community center where locals can meet and talk about how positive change can move forward.

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Even the building’s construction was an exercise in community building, as all the construction materials but the solar panels were scrounged from broken and discarded local refuse.

The pieces of construction throughout the facility are multi-color as best seen in the sheet metal and pipes. The construction team wanted a rainbow to remind the value of each piece they used and how each individual of the Vietnam city changed the area to protect one another.

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Though this is a local project, the idea has legs. If it succeeds, more affected by climate change and heavy storms could follow the example for their own ends.

 

 

Source: PSFK.com | 11 September 2015