In order to familiarize with the problem statement, we did three field visits. What struck us the most was the smoke accumulation inside the house during cooking, the overall bad air quality and the heat in the completely shut houses.
India Switzerland Social Innovation Camp
Double layer roof housing
Solving air quality
and room temperature issues all at once
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Marijan MicakovicSocial Sciences, UNIL
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Louis BetinProduct Design, ecal
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Jelena DolecekMaterial Science, EPFL
How might we improve migrants house conditions?
We learned to decompose the initially overwhelming situation into tangible subproblems
At last we decided to create a compound solution that was tackling the issues of smoke evacuation, heat and natural light inside the house, all at once.
Inspired by camping tents and SELCO’s experience, we developed a double-layered roof keeping the materials used in their previously developed skins. The outer layer protects from weather, while the inner one is permeable to air such that the heat can be better managed..

Our prototype efficiently evacuates smoke through a mesh in the inner layer
The demonstration to the community resulted in positive feedback; they are willing to try it with SELCO’s help after the rain season.