Tiktaalik

Tiktaalik is an adaptive shelter designed to grow with its inhabitant.

With the primary aim of providing immediately actionable disaster relief, Tiktaalik goes further to help disaster victims recover through a series of transitional phases - through which the house will develop into a comfortable living environment. The initial structure provides basic physiological survival elements (shelter from elements, rainwater harvesting) and is designed to grow over time, adding components to cater for the inhabitant and provide higher levels of human need and comfort.

This comes as a response to a recognized gap between rapid response shelters (which end up becoming messy, uncomfortable shells), and heavier-duty 'semi-permanent' examples. The shelter is designed to be easy to assemble, taking inspiration from Wikihouse's open-source collection and optimized to be simpler and modular - with the capacity to join and grow.

The project was completed as part of a brief to design for disaster relief - focusing on shelter in a tsunami context. Our process took us through much persona and scenario development - trying to get into the shoes of a victim of such a natural disaster.

Project completed by: Barnaby Ward, Chaz Mcmanus, Chris Mason, Tim Arbuckle, Anika Stiawa, Sam Wells