Let’s Improve Classrooms in the Philippines By Turning Them Into Storm Shelters

We have developed a single furniture module which can do just that.

Earlier this year, a team of designers and do-gooders visited a special school in San Pablo, Philippines. This small, but important, structure is unique because it is built primarily out of discarded plastic bottles (the first of it’s kind in Asia). Jock Brandis of the Full Belly Project, my ongoing collaborator and Doc Brown to my Marty McFly, was there to lead the group in experimenting with a rough prototype of a modular classroom furniture system which could be built by just about anyone with basic skills and access to materials.

While there, the team met extensively with the local community to talk about their needs for the facility. A major realization of these discussions was that, in the Philippines, classrooms are not just classrooms. Here, and throughout the developing world, schools are used as emergency shelters during crisis. The existence of a school structure often results from the pooling of community resources. These buildings are usually the most substantial around, and therefore the most resistant to conditions brought about by natural disasters, warfare, or other humanitarian crisis. As a result, these sites are natural centers for triage and shelter immediately following a crisis event. The conversion from school to shelter is carried out in improvised and often ineffective ways. An adapted state can remain for some time during recovery, compromising the usefulness of educational space. Furthermore, classrooms here, like many throughout the developing world, lack the educational equipment and furnishings to create an effective learning space even during “normal periods,” often resulting in students sitting on the floor and going without proper work surfaces.

In light of the recent and almost incomprehensible devastation brought about by Typhoon Haiyan, it is eerie now to go back and review interviews from just a few months ago where community members and aide personnel explain how the country is “on the front line of climate change” and that the villagers run to the school when “the wind becomes too strong.”

After his visit, Jock came to me and asked, “Toby, you’re a furniture guy- can we build something to create a better shelter and classroom?” In the intervening months I have tinkered with the idea. My main goal has been singularity; one simple, modular furniture unit which can be transformed to serve both shelter and classroom functions effectively. Because there are lots of places around the world where classrooms double as shelters, I wanted to develop something that can be manufactured anywhere using common tools and materials.