High Threat/ Hostile Environments

The concept

By building not only single “green” structures but communities, camps in high-threat/hostile environments can realize more than just environmental and economic savings; Exup designs raise security by 80% or more.

 



An example

A 40 acre camp in Iraq, providing quarters for 500 people requires deliveries every day of energy in the form of fuel for generators and vehicles, food for feeding personnel, and water for drinking, bathing, and sanitary needs. A camp this size also needs sanitation and garbage trucks to carry away the waste produced. Traffic through the main gate averages 100 visitors a day, whether day workers, deliveries, or maintenance personnel.

 

Problems

The problems for any camp in a high-threat environment can be broken down into three main categories: building, maintenance, and health. Construction in high threat environments is beset by every kind of imaginable challenge. Once the camps are actually built, they must be maintained to function at the optimum level. To function at an optimum level, their inhabitants and operators must be healthy and able to work.


  • Building

    Building the camp is the first problem. Supply chains in Iraq are not smooth, nor are deliveries guaranteed. While all the materials for a building envelope arrive one day, it can be months before the wiring and plumbing has arrived, let alone installed. Skilled workers are needed to build each house, workers that command high wages and constant care.


  • Maintenance

    Maintaining the camp can create a large drain on any operating budget. Paying for any sizeable security force can run over US$5,000 a day. Deliveries of fuel, food, and water and servicing of sanitation can add thousands more per day.


  • Health

    Health and well-being are paramount to the operation of a camp. If half of the camp is sick from a waterborne disease, production and work drops by more than half. The entire mission of a camp can be affected by criteria ranging from ease of the spread of disease to sick building syndrome.

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    What if?

    What if the guard force could be cut in half? What if energy, water, and sanitation servicing could be reduced by 80%? What if health issues could be reduced by 40%, and worker productivity, alertness, and efficiency could be increased by 15%? What if these are possible?

     

    The solutions

    Starting with the packaging of building materials, Exup addresses each of these concerns. First, we put almost all the building materials into a 40’ shipping container. This includes everything from the building envelope (ICF)to the energy source (solar,wind), as well as water production (rainwater catchment), water filtration, and also covers efficient power use, to make the most of the onsite renewable power sources. These technologies also address sanitation and food production, allowing an Exup camp to be almost completely self-sufficient if necessary.

     

    Prep the site

    The containers are ordered and T-walls are dragged into place, providing a solid perimeter. Site selection is marked and staked out, and foundation trenches are prepared. Foundations can be poured and rebar delivered while the materials are in transit, allowing for a seamless transition to building as soon as the HIACs, for that is what they are, arrive.

     

    The containers arrive

    Once the shipping containers arrive on site they are easily guarded against theft, allowing for a tight budget to be as effective as possible (more construction workers, less security). As each HIAC arrives it is placed next to it’s foundation.

     

    Open ’em up

    Permanently mounted on the inside of one door of the shipping container are all the instructions necessary to build each HIAC. On the inside of the opposite door is a giant chalkboard, complete with chalk. This allows for quick and easy communication to work crews, as well as allow rapid and accurate communication across language barriers through sketches and explanatory drawings.


    Start your engines

    Generators powered by both regular and bio-diesel power all the tools necessary to build. The bio-diesel comes from the grease used in the kitchens of the camp, allowing for the dual use of a material. This also cuts down on deliveries to the camp.

     

    The building envelope

    First to come out are the blocks of ICF. These can be quickly stacked and built by unskilled labor. Supervised by one foreman, groups of 4 can go from foundation to top-plate in a day. As soon as the building envelope is up, concrete is poured in, and each structure is suddenly a defensible position.

     

    Interior, windows, and a roof

    Skilled workers can quickly install electrical, plumbing, and HVAC in the easy to work with ICF walls. Solid plastic light-tubes, resistant to forced entry, are installed in the roofs, along with the solar panels. With the introduction of the solar panels, each building is provided with it’s own power source, reducing the need for fuel deliveries to the camp. Low flush or composting toilets reduce or eliminate the need to sanitation trucks to constantly come on and off camp.


    Water catchment and landscaping

    Every building has it’s own water catchment system, designed to store a year's worth of water underneath the ground where it will be safe from human and environmental attack. In the rainy season, water is collected from the roof and delivered the underground storage tanks. Purifiers in the building are protected, and provide potable water to the inhabitants. Greywater is diverted outside, where it water trees planted to provide shade and a more temperate microclimate for the building.


    Up and running

    Once the buildings are up, each produces it’s own power and provides for it’s own water. Ultra efficient heating and cooling don’t require the use of outside energy sources. Air purifiers not only attack communicable diseases from occupants, they can be designed to withstand biological and chemical attacks.


    The materials used to build are healthy and don't offgas toxins, and the design incorporates daylighting to provide light during working hours. Occupants are more efficient and alert during the day, and are able to sleep better at night, protected by at least 6" inches of concrete.


    An attack

    A mortar hits the camp one day. By sheer bad luck, it hits the main comms room, landing on the 6" concrete ICF roof. It does little damage other than to destroy 80% of the solar panels and give the people inside a good scare.


    Within minutes, power is fed from surrounding buildings into this one, and it is fully operable within half an hour. Compared to a conventional camp, where a mortar could hit a generator and shut down AC and electricity for a day or more, the Exup camp escapes relatively unscathed.


    Day to day

    Because there is so little traffic at the main gate and almost all of it consists of security cleared personnel, not so many guards are needed and they are able to do a very thorough search on every person entering and exiting the camp. Fuel deliveries occur once a week instead of twice a day, and water deliveries have been cut to twice a week, down from 8 times a day.


    Mid term occupation

    As the camp goes about it’s daily business, it saves operating costs over a conventional camp, increasing the owner's profit. Because personnel are more efficient working in “green” buildings, more gets done, and faster.


    In the long run

    Hostilities cease, and with the t-walls pulled down and converted to rubble to fill foundations of surrounding homes, the former armed camp becomes a rallying point for the locals. The barrracks are converted into houses, and the med shed continues in it's same function, and the comms room becomes a local internet cafe.


    The real estate is sold for a healthy profit, and everybody benefits. As the landscaping grows and matures, the trees, bushes and shrubs offer more and more benefit, from shade in the summer to fruit crops in throughout the year.


    Because the buildings are ICF they should last hundreds of years. Solar panels should last at least thirty, and ground source heat pumps at least twenty. All the other components should hold up for ten years or more, providing high quality products to every tenant for decades to come.

     

    More in-depth information can be had by contacting us.

     

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