Shelter plan chosen for Haiti

University of Colorado Denver assistant professor of architecture Matthew Jelacic in the College of Architecture and Planning and his team have been selected to participate in the Building Back Better Communities competition hosted by the government of Haiti. His proposal is one of 20 selected from more than 365 entries from more than 30 countries. Working with a team from the Mortenson Center in Engineering for Developing Countries in Boulder, OperationUSA and Fabio Matta of the University of South Carolina, Jelacic will design and build a prototype shelter on a site north of Port-au-Prince that will serve as a model for reconstruction.

The selection of this proposal by the Haitian Government will allow him to extend his current research on affordable transitional shelters for traumatically displaced people and the poor, and to continue constructive and collegial relationships with his multi-disciplinary team.

This competition announcement follows a second related award: Jelacic and Matta have been awarded a $50,000 National Science Foundation grant to document structural failures in confined concrete masonry structures caused by seismic activity in Haiti. Together, Jelacic and Matta will explore and test low-cost opportunities to repair and stabilize buildings damaged during the Jan. 12 earthquake.