A Resilient Community

Housing for Sint Maarten

Master thesis (2020)

Authors

M.M. Houterman Architecture and the Built Environment

Contributors

M. Bilow Building Product Innovation - Architecture and the Built Environment (mentor)
R. Schroën Architectural Engineering - Architecture and the Built Environment (mentor)
Faculty
Architecture and the Built Environment, Architecture and the Built Environment
Copyright: © 2020 Maud Houterman
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Published Date

23-06-2020

Language

English

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Faculty

Architecture and the Built Environment

Abstract

Sint Maarten is a Caribbean island that is located in one of the six tropical zones were hurricanes may develop each year. The island deals with a limited resilient housing stock due to the lack of building regulations and affordable materials and contractors. This results in a community that needs to rebuild the housing stock every time a hurricane hits. In addition, most people lose their jobs after a hurricane because the numbers of tourists drop. This project attacks this problem by making resilient housing with plastic roofs. Plastic waste can be harvested locally and be used as a building element. This way a newindustry is developed and creates more local job opportunities. By designing understandable units, that are close to the traditional way ofbuilding and are prefabricated and supervised, the resiliency is guaranteed. This project let to promising results in reusing plastic as a building material for resilient housing. Additional research could be performed on the more technical effect of wind forces on recycled plastic roofs.