Purdue EPICS students designing disaster-resistant homes for Haiti
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A group of Purdue University engineering students is working with Habitat for Humanity International to develop disaster-resistant homes for Haiti.
The students are in Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS), a service-learning program at Purdue in which teams of students work with local partners for community improvement.
About five years ago, the Purdue EPICS team began working with Habitat for Humanity International to develop housing that could withstand natural disasters. For the last two years, a group of five to seven students has been working specifically on developing affordable housing for Haiti that could withstand hurricane-force winds.
In the wake of the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti, the team now will investigate ways to create housing that is both wind- and earthquake-resistant. In addition to being disaster resistant, the housing must be affordable and efficiently designed to be built on a mass scale under time, material and worker-skill constraints.
The project team completed designs of several modular homes last semester and is currently searching for a professional partner to assist in the in-depth structural design of the homes.
The team hopes to have final design work completed in a year.
For more information on the Purdue EPICS program, contact the EPICS office at 765-494-0639 or go to https://engineering.purdue.edu/EPICS/
Writer: Judith Barra Austin, 765-494-2432, jbaustin@purdue.edu
Source: Pam Brown, Purdue EPICS, 765-494-0639, pamb@purdue.edu
Nate Cooper, Purdue EPICS, nscooper@purdue.edu