Temporary events justify dismountable and nomadic constructions. This is the case of emergencies such as floods, fires, landslides – we recently saw the city of São Luís do Paraitinga submerged in the waters of a river that overflowed. Countless people were made homeless from one hour to the next. The large infrastructure works move a huge contingent of workers to uninhabited regions, where precarious houses are built and after a few years all this material is lost, without being reused, in a predatory action of the place. Just remember the construction work for highways and hydroelectric plants. Festivals are temporary events that may also need lodging infrastructure, like big music festivals, or even the camps for social movements linked to agrarian reform.

Building these temporary shelters requires a strategy of using industrialized systems that allow dry assemblies with low impact deployment. The industrial scale allows them to be cheap and reusable. Construction must be fast, simple, and executed without major machinery. For this, it has to be light, whose construction does not require skilled labor. The logistics of transporting the material are crucial to the choice of system. The components need to be stackable for compact storage and transport in small vehicles, because the terrains can be varied, distant, and with complicated accesses.

One of the most widespread systems that meet these requirements is scaffolding. We have extensive experience in their use and several manufacturers of these tubular steel structures articulated by us. In the landscape of any Brazilian city it is possible to notice their presence. They are supported directly on the building or on the ground itself, because the minimum loads are distributed by the number of supports. This solution results in a construction that is 60% lighter than a conventional construction site.

They present several industrialized components such as stairs, beams, guardrails, horizontal metallic planes for the floor, and ceiling.  They allow horizontal, vertical, isolated or grouped constructions. Workers are used to assembling these platforms; two people can build a tall structure without special tools. The principle is that the system is the very machine of its construction. The peripheral structure has one great virtue: the possibility of interior spaces free of structure, capable of absorbing different uses of space: houses, schools, eateries, collective meeting rooms.

The horizontal structure presents itself as the simplest solution, the reduced support loads do not require foundations, which are solved with 60x60cm metal plate footings. The vertical structure, used as an exception, works through conjugated components, joining four standard posts with high capacity bracing. The bracing systems appear in the floors as well as in some vertical elements, but in case of little available area for implantation, it could be an option.

The construction is completed with other light industrialized components. Recycled wood panels, common in construction siding, for the vertical seals; polycarbonate sheets that run and allow the passage of air and light for doors and windows; metallic tiles for roofing and tensioned agricultural screen for external protection from sun and rain.

Energy autonomy and environmental responsibility are key to complete this equation. The hydraulic installations must foresee the reuse of rainwater and sewage treatment through mini stations, individual per unit or for the building. The capture of solar energy to provide electricity and water heating.  The solar protection on the facades, the roof away from the ceiling, and the cross ventilation in the units guarantee the thermal quality of the complex.