WoodBox modules: a flexible and re-usable emergency solution for temporary retail activities

Ongoing climate change effects can bring to extremely negative consequences in the coming decades. In this context, the development of housing prototypes suitable to provisionally host people affected by emergency situations (to which the emergency related to war events has recently been added) is nowadays an issue of primary importance. However, recent seismic events in Italy have highlighted how the problems of post-emergency and reconstruction are not only related to the rapid housing construction, but also derive from other serious and prolonged inconvenience for the people involved. In fact, the priority of emergency procedures mainly concerns the realization of temporary residential housing, without considering the people need to continue their activities, that means aggregation and social life. The need to create a place where people can start again their work and social activities, has guided the research here presented. In this regard, the paper describes the development of an innovative construction system based on prefabricated modules that can be used in the early post-emergency phase, but also during the reconstruction of the damaged buildings or during neighbourhood redevelopment interventions. The paper analyses different layout configurations, with an in-depth study of the methods of installation and connection, considering building services integration as well.