德州大学生建造廉价棚屋

A refugee camp built by students and volunteers spreads over Southern Methodist University\'s expanse of green lawns and live oaks. The affordable shelters are designed to be used by the poor as well as survivors of war and natural disasters.

从4月17号到23号，德州城市达拉斯的南部卫理公会大学20多名学生和一小组志愿者一直住在他们在校园里搭建的一个临时难民营中。他们建造了一些价格低廉的庇护所，可供穷人以及战争和自然灾害的幸存者居住。

The diverse structures are clustered around a white United Nations tent. A six-sided poly-propylene and aluminum house is adjacent to a dome-shaped igloo made of sandbags. Next door is a recycled plastic-brick-and-mud hut. SMU senior engineering major Carson Linstead, who helped erect the dozen different buildings, spent a week living in them.

南部卫理公会大学的绿色草坪和橡树之间，分布着一些各式各样的建筑，它们环绕在一个白色的联合国帐篷周围。一个由聚丙烯和铝材料建造的六边形房屋和一个由沙包建造的圆顶小屋靠在一起。旁边是一个由回收塑料袋制作的棚屋。包括土木工程学专业四年纪学生卡尔森·林斯特德在内的南部卫理公会大学的学生帮助建造了十几个不同的建筑。他们在里面住了一个星期。

"The biggest thing is I\'m getting a perspective about what\'s going on in different parts of the world," he says. "Whenever you\'re an SMU student, it\'s easy to get caught up in the city and kind of your own little bubble, your own little world. Whenever you\'re an engineer, there are so many problems you\'re capable of solving."

林斯特德说：“最大的收获是，我对世界不同地方发生的事情有了了解。你如果是南部卫理公会大学的学生，你很容易陷在城市生活和自己的小世界里。但是，你如果是工程师，你就有能力解决很多问题。”

Problems such as lack of shelter or power in post-Katrina New Orleans, Haiti\'s Port-au-Prince after the earthquake, or impoverished villages in the developing world.

例如，卡特里娜飓风后的新奥尔良市、地震后的海地的太子港，以及发展中世界的贫困乡村缺少庇护所和电力。

"By the time we reach 2020, there\'s going to be about 1.7 billion people living in slums and so we would like to effect change," says Stephanie Hunt, co-founder of the Hunt Institute for Engineering and Humanities at SMU. The institute was established to solve problems of the poor in the United States and around the world through engineering, collaboration and the free market. It helped fund the village on SMU\'s campus.

斯塔芬妮·亨特是南部卫理公会大学工程学和人文学亨特研究所的联合创办人。她说：“到2020年，将会有大约17亿人居住在贫民窟里。因此，我们希望能带来一些改变。”亨特说，开设这个研究所的目的是通过工程学、相互合作和自由市场等办法，解决美国和全世界穷人面临的一些问题。亨特的研究所资助建造这个难民村，为的是向人们展示一些解决办法。

"We would like to inspire the next generation of engineer, entrepreneur, anthropologist, lawyer, anyone who can help," she says. That extends to helping find solutions to every day problems facing some of the world\'s poorest people, such as access to clean water.

她说：“我们希望鼓励下一代工程师、企业家、人类学家、律师，以及任何有能力帮助消灭贫困的人，也许不是消灭贫困，而是消灭极端贫困，因为贫困总会存在，不太可能根除。我们愿意通过合作，帮助解决穷人日常生活中面临的一些问题，比如说纯净水的问题。”

The little campus village has a low-pressure, low-cost water purifier capable of creating enough drinking water for 3,000 people a day. Student Linstead points to solar panels on the roof of a pre-packaged shelter, and explains they can be used to re-charge cell phones.

在这个小小的难民村里，有一个低压、低成本的水净化器，能够净化供3千人每天使用的饮用水。林斯特德指着一个庇护所屋顶上的太阳能板解释说，这些太阳能板可以用来给手机充电。

"So what most people don\'t know is, whenever you go over to these countries like Kenya and places like that, that cell phones are actually a huge, huge commodity," he says. "While these people almost have no money, they all have cell phones but they don\'t have any electricity to charge them."

他说：“大多数人不知道，在肯尼亚这样的国家，手机是一种非常昂贵的商品。人们虽然没有钱，但是有手机，问题是，他们没有电给手机充电。”

有了太阳能板，他们就可以给手机充电了。

The goal is not just to save lives, but to change them. The Institute hopes some entrepreneurs might earn some money with these ideas. One of the structures in the SMU village was built with bricks made mostly from recycled plastic bags.

研究所的目标不仅仅是拯救生命，它还希望一些企业家能够通过这些构想挣到钱。难民村里一个建筑是用主要由回收塑料袋制作的砖头建造的。

They\'re held together with heavy wire. Harvey Lacey, father of two college-aged sons, including one here at SMU, heard about this project and contributed his invention. It’s a heavy-duty, hand-crank compactor that anybody can use to form the big bricks he calls Ubuntu Blox.

它们被很粗的铁丝连接在一起。哈维·莱西有两个上大学的儿子，其中一个就读南部卫理公会大学。他听说这个计划后，贡献了他的发明。这是一个手动压缩机，任何人都可以用它来制作那种大砖头。

"The beautiful things about this here, these blocks right here weigh less than two pounds. They\'re very, very stiff, alright? These things can go for many generations of housing," says Lacey, who is giving the design of his product away. Anybody can follow his online plans to build the compactor that turns plastic bags into bricks.

莱西说：“这个发明妙就妙在，这种砖头重量不超过两磅，但是却非常结实。”莱西信任自己的产品，而且免费赠送他的设计。任何人都可以按照他在网上提供的方法制造压缩机，把塑料袋变成砖头。

On this warm day, it’s cool inside the mud-plastered Ubuntu Blox hut, thanks in part to the thick plastic insulation. Lacey says it will soon be tested by scientists for its durability and insulating properties. Kenyan architect Ronald Omyonga, visiting the global village before returning to his native Africa, says his country is full of these recyclable bags that now are trash. But with Lacey’s design, he says that litter could be transformed into safe, affordable housing. He dreams of other benefits too.

棚屋里很凉爽，这部分要归功于厚厚的塑料绝缘层。莱西说，它的耐用度和绝缘性将很快得到一些科学家的测试。肯尼亚建筑家罗纳德·奥姆永加在回国前参观了这个难民村。他说，肯尼亚到处都是被当作垃圾丢弃的的塑料袋，通过莱西的发明，可以把这些垃圾转变成安全的、廉价的住房。他还梦想能得到其它的好处。

"I look at the Harvey Lacey hut, as a means of creating jobs," says Omyonga. "And cleaning the environment, but turning waste into something that can form houses, not just for the poor."

奥姆永加说：“我把用莱西的发明建造的棚屋看作是创造就业的一个途径。清洁环境，使废物变成建造房屋的材料，这些好处不仅仅是给穷人的。”