SHAIR

它能做什麼

SHAIR is a stadium auditorium seat. When the stadium becomes a shelter, SHAIR can be instantly transformed into a private living space which provides those homeless victims suffering from regional disasters a higher living quality and larger personal space.

你的靈感

Taiwan is frequently hit by natural disasters that a lot of refugees need to be evacuated to disaster shelters. However, shelters are usually overloaded due to great amount of people that flock into the spaces. The average living space per refugee will be gravely compressed. It ends up with refugees losing their most primary right of privacy. Under this extreme environment, the refugees could not get enough rest, and their stress will also increase by the time they’ve gone through in the shelter. On top of those, the process of setting up the shelter is pretty exhausting. It also consumes a lot of man power and material resources.

怎樣運行的

SHAIR is a stadium auditorium seat which takes asylum needs into account. It is composed of modular units and simple tenons for victims to assemble easily. SHAIR can be instantly transformed into a private living space which provides those homeless victims suffering from regional disasters a higher living quality and larger personal space. SHAIR has a shell that is fixed on the pads below. When the stadium becomes a shelter, the shell can be simply taken down from the pad, and it can have some assembly type including cubicle walls, tables and visors with the latch on the pad. A single bunk is constructed by 8 chairs in total, including 4 on the upper row and another 4 below. The cubicle walls can also be re-assembled and turn into simple tables, this makes the life in the shelter become more convenient and improves privacy for the refugees.

設計過程

In order to get deeper understanding of the emergency evacuation system, we have consulted with specialist in the government. We learned that the biggest problems are: space insufficiency, inadequate privacy, and trouble with setting up the shelter. That is when a thought came through our mind—what if we can come up with a solution to help speed up the process when opening a shelter, meanwhile make sure that each refugees can get enough living space, and improve QoL and privacy at the same time? After some field research, we found that the seating area actually accounts for much space in the stadium. The sheltering capacity will be highly increased if we bring the space to use. We then come up to an idea of redesigning the chairs in order to quickly turn them into living spaces for the refugees when opening a shelter. Also, the shape of the stairs maybe can be used as barriers to block visual cues. To ensure design feasibility, we not only made some prototypes but also did some research about the building act of stadiums. We found that there’s a specific regulation of the size of stairs and seats in stadiums, therefore, we adjusted the size of the chair to ensure that it can reach to the expected functions under restrictions and can be compatible to different kind of stadiums.

怎麼不一樣？

With SHAIR applicated in the stadium, it would be easier to set up for a shelter by simply transforming the auditorium seats into living spaces, instead of preparing great amount of material resources. After the emergency evacuation, the environment can be easily cleaned up by putting the seats back to their original position. The modularized living space created by SHAIR not only gives consideration to space, privacy and flexibility, but also protects refugees from moisture of concrete floor by the pads below since the weather in Taiwan is usually moist. It can create better QoL inside the shelter for the refugees. If the resting area of refugees is moved onto the bleacher from the ground, the space would become larger. Moreover, since the ground space is cleared, it can be used to store relief goods or be used as medical center, activity area, etc. In this situation, the staffs working on 1st floor would not disturb the refugees resting on 2nd floor.

未來計劃

We are now connecting with the government to push our design into the real world.

獎項

6th DesignSurfing Award