November, 2018

Urban Risk Lab - in partnership with Lumanti support group for Shelter, Nepal - completed the pilot project - PREPhub Nepal - A a community-driven design innovation of the traditional building type known as Paati. In the Kathmandu Valley, paati - small, public pavilion - represents a living example of collective management of public infrastructure with centuries-old cultural legacy. In addition to improving their role as a day to day public anchors, this project aims to create a place for people to gather after a disaster, supporting communities in these extreme events. This pilot project in the village of Thecho tackles everyday water scarcity, through storage, treatment, and community-led distribution as well as acts as an emergency back up in the times of disaster with access to water, power and emergency supplies.

PrepHub Nepal has won MIT IDEAS Global Challenge 2016, Lafarge-Holcim Foundation Acknowledgment Prize 2017 and was a finalist for UN RISK Award, 2017.

PrepHub Nepal project is supported by MIT TATA center for Technology and Design , Lafarge-Holcim Foundation and locally implemented by Lumanti Support Group for Shelter.

October 23rd, 2018

*Larisa Ovalles, Research Associate, presenting PrepHubs at the MITArchA event*

Gilad Rosenzweig MCP ’13, Executive Director of DesignX, Larisa Ovalles SM 16’ Research Associate at the Urban Risk Lab, Stephanie Lee M.Arch ’19 from Spaceus and Arlene Ducao SM ’13 from Multimer.

Larisa Ovalles presented the PrepHub project as part of DesignX, a platform for accelerating innovation in design, urbanism, and the built environment at the MIT School of Architecture + Planning. It works to develop and launch new products, services, and technologies by combining MIT’s creative energy with the talents and experience of industry and the public sector.

Executive Director of DesignX, Gilad Rosenzweig, started the talk and was followed by presentations by other designX ventures, including Spaceus and Multimer.

PrepHubs are a new kind of public space infrastructure, designed to embed community scale preparedness into cities.

The event was hosted by ARUP and organized by the MITArchA and MIT Club of New York. For more information about the event, visit the MITArchA page.