The following text description is slightly modified from Ken McCown’s blog (Ken was the second UNLV faculty member working on facilitating this project and was instrumental in setting up the working relationship with EDAR and providing support for the project):
My seminar in the Spring 2014 worked with the UNLV DDC and non-profit EDAR (Everyone Deserves a Roof) to explore a second iteration of their portable shelter. The first generation EDAR shelter provided a roomy, collapsible and portable living unit. EDAR is an important means of shelter that may provide people relatively healthy living conditions for a low price.
In the second iteration pilot study noted on this page, EDAR asked for a lighter, less costly unit, capable of being more portable than the first EDAR unit. EDAR also asked that the unit be potentially towable by bicycle.
The UNLV spring semester study led by UNLV faculty member Joshua Vermillion, is a pilot design and build project for EDAR 2.0. Below are images developed from the students’ works; including generated design guidelines and design evaluation. The best of these three options will be explored in further detail over the summer 2014. At the end of the summer, a finished prototype was provided to EDAR for mass production.
We are extremely grateful for the students’ focus and energy on the project under Josh Vermillion’s leadership. Divina Arellano-Nunez, Marshall Cowan, Andres Diaz, Eric Gross, Jixin Liu, Richard Olmedo, Luz Olsen, Jacob Rivard, Nasar Saghafi, Thomas Slaughter, Benjamin Snape, Milica Tajsic and Sean Zurko worked hard on developing and building the ideas. These students also reached out and worked with a slew of community participants that observed, advised and worked with them. We are grateful to:
Tri State Steel Inc – Michael Scully
Cisco’s Custom Upholstery Services, Inc – Cisco Servin
United Movement of Organized Kindness – Peter Politis, President
Downtown Rangers – Sarge
Stitch Factory – Winnie Shao, Jennifer Tal
USA SHADE & Fabric Structures – Tyler Stradling
Vegas Seven Greg Miller, Stacy Willis
And we wish to thank Phil Zawarus of the UNLV Downtown Design Center for project presentation legwork.
Selected graphics from the publication that was produced (thanks again Phil and Ken!) are displayed below:
