This Amazing House Can Be Built Just 5 Hours After A Disaster

When the earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis of the future strike, these shelters--cut entirely from fiber board and super easy to assemble--could save us.

With a fifth of their population below sea level, the Dutch have historically been ahead of the curve when it comes to planning for ecological disasters. A new project from Dutch designer Pieter Stoutjesdijk takes that efficiency one step further, with an emergency shelter that can be built in a mere five hours.

After Haiti’s devastating earthquake leveled homes and put 1.5 million people in tent city slums, Stoutjesdik went to work designing a shelter for Villa Rosa, a camp southeast of Port-au-Prince. He came up with a large fluted roof that can collect rainwater, a porch, high ceilings, and a system of mirrors that combine sunlight and water to create steam.