Mobile home against storms for people in Central Vietnam

This unique house will help people in the Central region reduce their worries about the rainy season.

"The kitchen part is like a mobile block right inside the house. When the flood water rises the plastic drums are located below the floor to act as a float system to lift the kitchen. When the flood water withdraws the buoy system. slowly descending according to the water flow " - that is the description of activities against flood and storm for people in the Central region by the group of construction students, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology: Duong Hoang Dat, Nguyen Luc Hoang Hiep, Nguyen Ngoc San, Huynh Nhat Minh and Truong Hoai Truc have a lot of research efforts.

This topic has won the Sustainable Construction award in the Hocim Prize competition organized by cement company Holcim Vietnam in 2015.

'People in Central Vietnam often face storms and floods every year. Especially with the current climate change, the nature and extent of destruction of storms and floods is increasing. When each storm, the flood comes, the house is always damaged or completely destroyed. People fall into the sky, lose their property and place of living, life is extremely difficult ' - Duong Hoang Dat, the leader of the research team said.

The kitchen part will float on the water when there is flood water.

Households living in areas prone to floods and storms in the Central region are often low and middle income families. They do not have a technical solution to build (renovate) a house with low cost but highly effective safety and adaptation to floods and storms.

After 6 months of research and design, the group has created a model for designing houses against storms and floods with many detailed specifications. The house is designed with a solid structure, able to withstand windstorms of level 11. Use sustainable materials such as concrete with aggregate from construction waste, using local materials such as bamboo, eucalyptus, plastic containers, waste bottles and jars .

When the flood water recedes the floating part will return to the original position.

Buildings that adapt to flooding for the Central people still keep the traditional house structure of the people. The house is built with a floating part in the kitchen.

'The reason the floating design team is in the kitchen because the kitchen area in the house is often used to store food. When the flood water rises in the period of 1 week to 10 days, the kitchen combined with the warehouse designed by the group will have enough rice and food for people to live in the days of waiting for the sprint ' - Huynh Nhat Minh, city group member said.

What is special compared to previous floating house projects is that the floating part will be right in the house. Brick walls outside the house will play a role against storms. After the storm passed, the flood came, the floating part would float up to 2.8 meters because the floor below was arranged with 9 plastic drums as a buoy system. The lifting capacity of the float system is designed below the portable kitchen section equivalent to 2.5 tons. Therefore, the floating part of the house can accommodate up to 6 people. Around the floating part, a steel frame is built like a box with the size of 50x50x1,2mm - weighing 9.2kg / 6m and 30x30x1mm - weighing 4.6kg / 6m. Around the steel frame is surrounded by SSSC galvanized steel with the size of 0.28x12000mm. Galvanized steel is fixed to the steel frame by a 3.5cm long screw.

In order to complete a house against flood and storm in accordance with the technique, the team recommended that when building houses, the slope of the roof must be Because the wind force acts on the roof depending on the slope of the roof, the greater the slope, the greater the wind force.

Team leader Duong Hoang Dat (4th from right) and members and instructors receive the award.

During the study process, the group had difficulties in floating mechanism. Closed plastic containers help the kitchen to float when flooding occurs, but when the flash floods through the floating kitchen, then descending may encounter obstacles in the contiguous part of the buoy with the soil.

Therefore, the group made floating stations, lying on the ground with concrete blocks parallel to each other and perpendicular to the house. Each station is about 40cm high, about 50cm apart and runs to the width of the toilet floor. When floods sweep through obstacles such as branches, objects, garbage, mud, sand, . will fall into the space between the grooves, the buoy system will respond completely on the above concrete blocks without being blocked entangled. The remaining work only needs to use the hand or the shovel to clean up the obstacles that fit in the grooves. In case the large obstacles do not fall into the hole but are located between the float and concrete blocks, the device can temporarily support the kitchen floor and remove the obstruction. After taking out the obstacle then withdraw the device and lower the floor slowly.

'In the next time, the team will continue to research and find cheaper materials to make floating panels, reducing construction costs' - Nguyen Ngoc San, group member said.