A self-built shelter in wood and agglomerated cork panels for temporary use in Mediterranean climate areas

Abstract

In recent years, the situation of migrants seeking protection in Europe has grown exponentially since 2013. In Italy, the greatest difficulty is related to landings. Over 170,000 people registered on the coast of southern Italy in 2014. In emergency situations, it is necessary to ensure shelter and medical care to everybody. Many centres are makeshift structures, such as old houses or hotels, which are difficult to manage and entail elevated costs. The shelter prototype can be used for humanitarian emergencies or post-disaster reconstruction projects but also for tourism purposes, in highly naturalistic environments, or for seasonal agricultural workers. The objective of this paper is to propose a prototype of a building module, composed of wood and multilayer agglomerated cork panels, as an environmentally sustainable shelter that can be assembled on any terrain. It takes advantage of the characteristics of cork, such as acoustic and thermal insulation, fire resistance, natural origin, resistance to moulds and microorganisms, and shows high thermal performance. It can be built in different geometries and volumes and not necessarily by skilled workers.