Jennifer Conrad reports on continuing post-quake relief efforts in Sichuan:

British industrial designer Luke Cardew was traveling in France when
he received a voicemail from a friend: "China needs shelters." The
Sichuan earthquake had just struck. For Cardew, who works out of
Shanghai as a freelance designer, the disaster provided an incredible
opportunity for him to use his skills to help people.

By all accounts, the efforts of Chinese volunteers and workers have
been tremendous, but sometimes foreigners have provided specialized
knowledge that filled important needs. Cardew, for example, knows
quite a bit about creating temporary shelters in disaster areas.

He was studying design at Central St. Martins when the Pakistan
earthquake struck in 2005. Assigned to work on a self-directed
project, Cardew designed a temporary shelter made of Beeboard
cardboard. "Central focuses more on the conceptual and theoretical
side of design. However I am from a more practical background. I
thought  it might be interesting to combine Centrals' conceptual
approach with a more practical project. The solution half-satisfied me
and half the school. But I continued to be interested in finding a
cheap design solution for disaster relief."

During six months os research, he learned the types of
designs people prefer: straight, house-like side walls (rather than
the slanted walls of a tent) make a shelter feel more comfortable and
secure.

Back to work in Shanghai a few days after the May 12 Sichuan quake,
Cardew began working on a prototype for a temporary shelter; he
coordinated with partners to secure funding. The result was a
structure made of split bamboo with a waterproof tarpaulin cover. The
design, inspired by bamboo greenhouses from the Anhui provice, houses
a six-person family for up to a year.

In some cases his group, I Bought a Shelter, delivers the shelters as kits. And
sometimes, he adapts the shelter to fit local conditions.

Once he was sent by a Chinese relief group to Zundao, north of
Mianyang. After spending a few hours talking to the locals about their
skill levels and looking at available materials, he was handed a piece
of white chalk and asked, "Can you draw?"

With a deadline in half an hour, he sketched a housing solution on a
school blackboard. The walls are made mostly of rubble (reducing the
amount of wood used) and the scheme further stretches materials since it houses
two families, each with a bedroom, living room, and exterior kitchen.
The families would each be given 500 RMB for constructing
semi-permanent shelters, so he encouraged them to use that money for
corrugated cement roofing.

Although he later had drawings printed to distribute to other
villages, Cardew hopes the villagers don't build the shelter exactly
as he presented it, but adapt them based on their preferences and
skills.

"I want to see what they've done. If they've morphed the shelters,
then I'll learn something," he says.