RELIEF IN ENSENADA, MEXICO

I am writing this blog as we are driving along the Ensenada-Tijuana coastal highway after having met with former Amor board member John Shattuck. Don't worry, Steve Horrex, Amor Director of International Relations, is driving. I am typing this email out on my laptop as he swerves along the cliffs above the Pacific Ocean listening to an out of frequency Mexican radio station. To add to the fun of the winding cliff road we also have coastal fog and rain. In San Diego we call this "June Gloom".

We just completed meeting with John Shattuck at his manufacturing plant in Ensenada to look at a prototype home made of OSB. For those of you who don't know or didn't know, like me, OSB stands for "Oriental Strand Board". Don't ask me why. This prototype house is made of pre-constructed panels consising of a Styrofoam core sandwiched between two pieces of "OSB" panels. Even the roof is made of from these panels. The insulating factor is excellent.

















This home is being design to be used as a quick build disaster/relief shelter. Ideally, this stype home could be loaded into cargo containers and shipped or flown anywhere in the world to provide permanent emergency shelter. It can be built easily in less than a day. We discussed numerous options and modifications to this design that should enable us to build the first model by the end of the year. The prototype we saw, as shown in the photograph above, was 11 feet wide, by 14 feel long. The model that Amor will be testing will look more like our convention al Amor single homes with a floor measurement of 11 feet by 22 feet. Just as the current Amor singles have, this model will also have a single sloping roof at the height of 8 feet high one side and 7 feet high on the other.