Thermophysical characterization of a cardboard emergency kit-house

Recent natural disaster highlighted the need of a form of the emergency-kit house, quickly available to provide shelters for victims of disaster, war refugee or homeless. Usually these requirements are satisfied through tents or containers, which are thermally uncomfortable and induce a sensation of precariousness to people that, were victims of a disaster. An alternative to simple and extemporized solutions is the design of light, evolved and thermally comfortable solutions available before the emergencies and/or in prevision of their occurrence. They are described by victims of a disaster as being thermally uncomfortable and to induce a precariousness felling. This research presents the Archicart Prototype, a Cardboard Architectural system. It is an emergency houses, temporary prefabricated construction and a repeatable system. The prototype provides a quick answers, being easily accessible, mountable, reversible, repeatable and thermally comfortable as described in the paper. Archicart is a precast building composed of a lightweight and easy to assemble system named PACO (Panels made up of Alveolar Corrugated Cardboard). The system is suitable for the construction of complete housing modules or a portion of buildings, (e.g. walls, partitions, ceiling, roof,). The study verifies thermal performances that are key for the product once installed. The first part concerns the base material’s transmittance characterization and the correlation between time, durability and thermal performances decay. Finally the whole system performance are simulated.