Architects Help In Post-Disaster Reconstruction

"[Architecture for Humanity has organized] architectural competitions, like one for a mobile health clinic for AIDS patients in Africa that drew 1,400 submissions. After the Asian tsunami in 2004, the group had 4,665 volunteer designers in 104 countries, and was one of the few architectural nonprofits with people on the ground in India and Sri Lanka."

"In the spring of 2006, Architecture for Humanity invited 26 architects, chosen on the basis of geographical proximity and reputation, to design houses that were affordable and could conform to a labyrinthine set of structural requirements [for those displaced by Hurricane Katrina]."

"Unlike many post-Katrina rebuilding proposals that have focused on reproducing historical styles, Mr. Zamore's design, which came out of a kit-house concept he had been working on for several years, evoked the past without resorting to nostalgia.

Its updated vernacular style recalls two Southern typologies - the shotgun, a narrow one-story dwelling with rooms lined up single file, and the dogtrot, two rooms linked by a covered breezeway - both of which allow ventilation and help the house adapt to the Gulf Coast climate, Mr. Zamore said."