Image : Dipendra Gautam / Smart Shelter Foundation
Because riding Our bikes a long way isn't aLL IT's about.
Camping out during a long ride is liberating, for me it's one of the best situations that cycle touring can offer. It can remind those of us lucky enough to be able to make these journeys how free and alive we can feel. Sometimes it's not all roses, it may rain all night or you might run out of food. Minor discomforts, temporary things, all part of the mix and adding to our perspective. Rarely anything serious. But anyone who sleeps under a tarp or shelters under the side of a derelict building in the rain may just begin to understand some of the hardships endured by people living in areas affected by natural disasters.
This is why we support Smart Shelter Foundation, an organisation that has spent over a decade working to help people in that situation. Smart Shelter Foundation is a non-profit organisation started by a Dutch architect who left full-time work to use his ideas for earthquake-resistant building methods 'on the ground' in reconstruction projects in Asia. Using locally-available resistant materials with local labour he developed lower-cost and safer building methods for homes, schools and hostels in Nepal, Indonesia and India.
His theories work. All of the resistant buildings that Smart Shelter built in Nepal survived the 2015 earthquakes without any significant damage. After ten years of direct experience in the field he now leads projects to research, develop and improve the techniques and then teach these methods and share the knowledge more widely.
Background
I met Martijn Schildkamp, Smart Shelter's founder, during a trip to Nepal in 2008. After reaching Annapurna base camp I wanted to go further up towards the glacier to bivouac alone for the night, to experience the area as directly as possible. As I made a wind-break from some rocks next to a larger boulder among the snow I noticed someone else up there taking photographs of my bivi spot. He came over to chat, we spoke about the area and he asked about my shelter. Martijn told me about why he was in Nepal and about the work he was doing there. It was something that I thought about later that night and the next morning while the sun rose and lit up Annapurna's magnificent south face. It was a stunning location but it was Martijn's story that made the real impact on me. His dedication to helping improve the lives of others sunk in and I looked up Smart Shelter when I got back to the UK.
When the Torino-Nice Rally gained enough interest to be more than just a few dozen of us on a group ride it became an opportunity to help raise funds for the work of Martijn and his team. The cloth rally patches sold around the time of the Torino-Nice Rally events have raised a useful amount for their projects and all donations have gone directly to SSF. The riders of the TNR are now a significant part of the funding SSF need and that's something we can all be proud of.
During a return trip to Nepal in April 2017 we saw some of the damage from the 2015 earthquake, the huge landslide scars and the ongoing rebuilding work and I understood the value of Smart Shelter's work more than ever.
This is why we support Smart Shelter Foundation, an organisation that has spent over a decade working to help people in that situation. Smart Shelter Foundation is a non-profit organisation started by a Dutch architect who left full-time work to use his ideas for earthquake-resistant building methods 'on the ground' in reconstruction projects in Asia. Using locally-available resistant materials with local labour he developed lower-cost and safer building methods for homes, schools and hostels in Nepal, Indonesia and India.
His theories work. All of the resistant buildings that Smart Shelter built in Nepal survived the 2015 earthquakes without any significant damage. After ten years of direct experience in the field he now leads projects to research, develop and improve the techniques and then teach these methods and share the knowledge more widely.
Background
I met Martijn Schildkamp, Smart Shelter's founder, during a trip to Nepal in 2008. After reaching Annapurna base camp I wanted to go further up towards the glacier to bivouac alone for the night, to experience the area as directly as possible. As I made a wind-break from some rocks next to a larger boulder among the snow I noticed someone else up there taking photographs of my bivi spot. He came over to chat, we spoke about the area and he asked about my shelter. Martijn told me about why he was in Nepal and about the work he was doing there. It was something that I thought about later that night and the next morning while the sun rose and lit up Annapurna's magnificent south face. It was a stunning location but it was Martijn's story that made the real impact on me. His dedication to helping improve the lives of others sunk in and I looked up Smart Shelter when I got back to the UK.
When the Torino-Nice Rally gained enough interest to be more than just a few dozen of us on a group ride it became an opportunity to help raise funds for the work of Martijn and his team. The cloth rally patches sold around the time of the Torino-Nice Rally events have raised a useful amount for their projects and all donations have gone directly to SSF. The riders of the TNR are now a significant part of the funding SSF need and that's something we can all be proud of.
During a return trip to Nepal in April 2017 we saw some of the damage from the 2015 earthquake, the huge landslide scars and the ongoing rebuilding work and I understood the value of Smart Shelter's work more than ever.
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Local builders working with Smart Shelter on a stone and rubble school in Nepal. The photos show how horizontal bands are used to tie the structure together in a way that resists collapse.
Images : Martijn Schildkamp / Smart Shelter Foundation |
Smart Shelter launched SMARTnet in 2017, a project that takes a decade of field experience and countless hours of research with universities and is working to bring it to a conclusion. Put simply, SMARTnet will communicate a research-validated set of best practice methods that guide resistant building techniques based on local materials, traditional practices and regional risk factors. Suprisingly this does not exist yet. Some of the methods are known but they are not fully researched and wider communication of the methods and variables is problematic.
There's no reason for new buildings to be unsafe yet it's a huge task to get the information out in counties with few building regulations and controls. When building costs are factored in it becomes a bigger challenge - cheaper and more familiar methods usually win. Using local materials for access and lower costs makes analysis of building methods with computer modelling a huge task, but not one that Smart Shelter are hiding from.
In Nepal around one third of buildings built since the 2015 earthquake may not be safe next time round (p13 Oxfam report, also recent Himalayan Times article). Can you imagine living in a home that is very likely to collapse next time there is an earthquake, perhaps only a minor one? That's the reality for many people there now. Communicating building techniques, analysis of materials and assessment of risk is difficult in countries where basic infrastructure is a long way behind Europe. Add in the pressure to rebuild fast and it's easy to understand how taking the time and resources to look into how things could be improved may not be a priority.
SMARTnet's aim is to put their knowledge of how to build more safely in front of any local builder with access to a mobile phone, perhaps via an app that covers the basics supported by a website in their own language.
There's no reason for new buildings to be unsafe yet it's a huge task to get the information out in counties with few building regulations and controls. When building costs are factored in it becomes a bigger challenge - cheaper and more familiar methods usually win. Using local materials for access and lower costs makes analysis of building methods with computer modelling a huge task, but not one that Smart Shelter are hiding from.
In Nepal around one third of buildings built since the 2015 earthquake may not be safe next time round (p13 Oxfam report, also recent Himalayan Times article). Can you imagine living in a home that is very likely to collapse next time there is an earthquake, perhaps only a minor one? That's the reality for many people there now. Communicating building techniques, analysis of materials and assessment of risk is difficult in countries where basic infrastructure is a long way behind Europe. Add in the pressure to rebuild fast and it's easy to understand how taking the time and resources to look into how things could be improved may not be a priority.
SMARTnet's aim is to put their knowledge of how to build more safely in front of any local builder with access to a mobile phone, perhaps via an app that covers the basics supported by a website in their own language.
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Horizontal bands with vertical steel structure to resist earthquake damage illustrated above, then being painted onto the outside of a finished building. Communication of the methods is a key aim of Smart Shelter's SMARTnet project - how better to show what's gone into the building than this? "Think Smart, Build Safe". Next - how to pass that message on more widely?
Images : Martijn Schildkamp / Smart Shelter Foundation
Smart Shelter Foundation is not a large organisation. Quite the opposite, and to me it seems hard to believe that a long-term aim of enabling people in third and developing-world countries to build homes and schools in a consistently safer way is being driven by a group as small as this. Yet the results are there and the progress is being made. We'd like to help raise a share of 15,000 Euros needed for the SMARTnet project each year. It's not really that much money (4 or 5 high-end bicycles?) and the impact, the value of the return, is potentially huge.
More about SMARTnet here and in this pdf -
More about SMARTnet here and in this pdf -
| smartnet_1page_tnr.pdf |
So with apologies for the break away from day-dreaming about high altitude stradas and mountain views - this is partly what it's about. Come along and ride the Torino-Nice Rally for what it is, a social ride on an amazing route between two beautiful places.
If this page has raised any interest in the work of Martijn and his team, if you can, please donate to Smart Shelter and they'll be in contact to send you a TNR rally patch and free komoot premium access voucher code in return. Every penny from the patches goes to them (the cost of the patches is covered by the rally). Likewise, perhaps consider making a donation to the cause if you're planning a trip along the rally route - and feel free to ask about tips or any other advice. Thank you so much to all who have supported the TNR and SSF so far.
It really is a good cause. If you need convincing, just remember this next time you pitch a tent in the rain.
Thank you.
From
James Olsen of the Torino-Nice Rally and Martijn Schildkamp, founder of Smart Shelter Foundation.
#thinksmartbuildsafe
If this page has raised any interest in the work of Martijn and his team, if you can, please donate to Smart Shelter and they'll be in contact to send you a TNR rally patch and free komoot premium access voucher code in return. Every penny from the patches goes to them (the cost of the patches is covered by the rally). Likewise, perhaps consider making a donation to the cause if you're planning a trip along the rally route - and feel free to ask about tips or any other advice. Thank you so much to all who have supported the TNR and SSF so far.
It really is a good cause. If you need convincing, just remember this next time you pitch a tent in the rain.
Thank you.
From
James Olsen of the Torino-Nice Rally and Martijn Schildkamp, founder of Smart Shelter Foundation.
#thinksmartbuildsafe
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After the earthquake in 2015. In 2017, many people were still living under a roof no better or only marginally more permanent than this. Rebuilding takes time.
Images : Dipendra Gautam / Smart Shelter Foundation
Images : Dipendra Gautam / Smart Shelter Foundation
