Rapid-Deploy Folding Shelter

In the aftermath of natural disasters, one of the biggest challenges is providing fast, functional shelter––especially in places that are remote or difficult to access. After the devastating 2023 wildfires in Lahaina, Maui, it became clear how slow and limited emergency response can be when infrastructure is overwhelmed and access is restricted. Many survivors were left without reliable shelter for weeks, relying on overcrowded evacuation centers, hotels, or off-island relocation.

This project aims to create a response to that problem: a compact, easily deployable emergency shelter that can fold down to a flat board, stack efficiently, and expand into a livable space using minimal tools. It uses rotating and sliding parts to shift from a flat-packed unit to a standing shelter, without inflatables and wiring, and without the need for a permanent shelter.

While this structure could be adapted to other disaster zones, it was designed specifically with Lahaina in mind. The goal is to create a shelter to directly address the real-world challenges of island delivery, rapid deployment, and temporary housing in extreme conditions.

Fusion360 (CAD Modeling)

Although this shelter is aimed to be adaptable to multiple environments, it is designed specifically for Lahaina, a town on the island of Maui in Hawaii. Lahaina is a primary location due to the devastating 2023 wildfires, which displaced thousands and killed 102 people–– the deadliest US wildfire in more than a century. Furthermore, Lahaina has a frequent history of natural disasters due to its location within the Pacific Ring of Fire and as a coastal community, and is thus prone to earthquakes, volcanic activity, and hurricanes.

Not only does Lahaina frequently experience natural disasters, but it also represents a worst-case scenario for emergency shelter delivery:

1. Remote Island Location: Maui is over 2,400 miles from the US mainland, and Lahaina is far from the island's primary airport and shipping ports. Relief efforts are often delayed due to limited transportation infrastructure and dependency on air or sea shipping
2. Overwhelmed Resource Capacity: During the 2023 fires, evacuation centers filled rapidly, and emergency housing was restricted to gyms, hotels, or off-island relocation. Recovery was slowed due to shortage of material, storage space, and local labor
3. Overlapping Hazards: Lahaina is at risk of multiple natural disasters including brush and wildfires, tropical storms, tsunamis, flooding, and earthquakes, making it a uniquely demanding location and difficult to design a single effective shelter

Given the urgent needs of Lahaina and the logistic bottlenecks tied to island disaster relief, a successful emergency shelter needs to meet the following real-world criteria:

1. Compact Shipping
2. Must fit within standard shipping containers (8 ft x 4 ft)
3. Should not contain oversized loads that require special permits or carriers
4. Ideally allows for truck or van delivery on the island
5. Ease of Setup
6. Assembly should be possible without heavy reliance on power tools or large professional teams
7. Should use intuitive joints or fasteners compatible with limited resources
8. No Permanent Foundations
9. Shelters should be temporary and easily removable by zoning and environmental laws
10. Should not require excavation, concrete, or major ground disturbance
11. Climate Adaptability
12. Should accommodate for Lahaina's tropical savanna climate, including high temperatures (around 90 degrees F) and humidity in the summer
13. Ease of Maintenance
14. Parts should be easily repairable or replaceable
15. Must resist rotting from high humidity, and be easy to clean or reuse

This criteria sets a high bar for a disaster zone like Lahaina, and shaped the foundation for my shelter to create a simple design that addresses these design criteria.

This shelter was primarily inspired by modular emergency housing and foldable utility furniture, such as the UNHCR and IKEA "Better Shelter", an existing flat-pack temporary housing solution, and folding structures such as Tina Hovespian's Cardboardigami homeless shelters.

However, unlike these models, I wanted a design that:

1. Did not rely on inflatables, electrical systems, or pre-installed insulation
2. Could fold into a flat, compact form
3. Used rotating or sliding parts
4. Was constructed using basic and repeatable geometry

I decided to make the shelter out of two primary rigid components, a roof and base platform, and allow for easy wall installation.

1. The roof fully expanded is 8 ft x 8 ft to create a comfortable living space, and contains four rotating legs that can be folded inwards like a folding table. When the roof is then folded in half again, it creates a 4 ft x 8 ft x 4 in board that can be easily stacked and transported.
2. The floor is similarly 8' x 8' 2" when fully expanded, carved with grooves to anchor the legs and create slots for the walls; it can also be folded in half to create a 4 ft x 8 ft board.
3. Two side walls (7' 10" x 6'4") are able to slide into the the carved grooves in the wood, weaving between the table legs, and then be secured using drills or staples. The other two side walls (7', 7'2") are able to slot into place, and then be secured using drills or staples.

These elements are designed so immediate assembly is possible without tools, and allows for interchangeable wall types such as cardboard, canvas, tarp, or insulated panels, depending on the local climate or material availability. This design prioritizes ease of deployment, durability, and intuitive use with gravity-locked joints, hinges, and channels so it can be easily set-up by volunteers and locals, then further secured with power tools.

To meet the shelter's goals, a real-life creation of this model would use the following materials:

1. Roof and Floor Panels: birch plywood or marine-grade plywood
2. Rigid, structurally stable
3. Easy to cut precisely
4. Can be pre-drilled or slotted for fasteners and hinges
5. Withstands moderate exposure to weather, resists warping and is moderately lightweight
6. Rotating Legs and Hinges: aluminum tubing and steel brackets
7. High strength-to-weight ratio
8. Corrosion-resistant
9. Wall Panels: interchangeable for double-walled cardboard, canvas or tarp, or insulated panels
10. cardboard is cheap and reusable, suitable for Lahaina's moderate climate in the fall or spring
11. canvas and tarp is lightweight and water-resistant, best after floods or during humid summer months
12. PIR panels are highly insulating and durable, best for Lahaina's humid and very hot summer months

This model and render were completed in Fusion360, with the walls and roofs shown as different wood variants for clarity. All dimensions were translated directly from feet to centimeters to allow for easy 3D printing, with the steel rods and walls a standard 2 inches and the supporting base 6 inches.

TIP: To easily create the walls, start with the base and grooves. Then, extrude the grooves and set as a new body, so the walls are guaranteed to be the correct size!

To test the shelter's deployment, I experimented with Fusion's Joints to show the rotating and sliding parts, simulating how the shelter would assemble and disassemble in real-world conditions. The joints modeled include:

1. Revolute Joints for the four support legs, rotating downward
2. Slider joints for the side walls, so they can move horizontally into the platform

To create joints, use the ASSEMBLE menu and NEW COMPONENT option to select the desired objects. Then, using the Joint menu (or shortcut J), select the joint type (rotation or slider) of the two objects.

For the rotation: Select the edge by which the leg will rotate, then the axis on which it will rotate.

TIP: For the legs, it may be easiest to add a sketch onto the roof for the rotational "axis"

For the slider: Select the bottom of the sliding wall, then the surface it will slide on, so it will freely move only on that axis.

The rotational and sliding joints are also limited in dimension (degrees or centimeters) so they do not intersect with other components.

This project was a great opportunity to develop practical CAD skills––it was my first time experimenting with joints in Fusion, and moving forward I'd love to create a complete motion study video and design effective interiors that make the most of the compact space.

Designing for Lahaina was a fun challenge that pushed me to focus on realistic solutions for rapid deployment, and prioritize function and practicality, even if it meant designing a simpler solution over a more complex or visually exciting one. More than anything, this challenge taught me how important real-world effectiveness is when designing emergency shelters. It helped me to connect technical design with real human needs––something I'll carry with me in all future engineering projects.