Tonga Tsunami Relief Coordinated from Bungendore, NSW

At the the Pacific Security Cooperation Workshop hosted at ANU in Canberra, Air Commodore David Hombsch, HQ JOC ADF, is describing how the headquarters in Bungendore NSDW was able to take workload off personnel on the ground in Tonga during relief operations after the January 2022 tsunami. The personnel in Australia were able to coordinate with their counterparts around the Pacific, using high quality communications available. They could also take advice from experts in Canberra. This in a way goes against the usual model of military and relief operations which see a tent city built, usually at an airfield, full of staff, or on a ship offshore.

One point Mr Sione Taumoefolau, of the Tonga Red Cross made was the need for somewhere to store the materials provided by international donors. One way I suggest might be for lightweight structures built on shipping containers to be used. There is likely to be a surplus of shipping containers, and these can be used to build warehouses, by the addition of a fabric roof between two rows of containers. 

Makerspace in a Shipping Container

Australia needs more "Makerspace" for its budding maker culture and recently I was asked to look over an old classroom to see if it would be suitable. One problem is that any renovations on a campus have to be done to the institution's standards, which are high. It might be more cost effective to buy a new modular building than refurbish an old one. University of Washington have some useful "Makerspace: Guidelines for Accessibility and Universal Design".

A makerspace would suit an industrial aesthetic and perhaps a shipping container would do (ANU had Australia's first shipping container apartment building in 2009 ).

A web search found I was far from the first to have this idea and "Makerspace Shipping Container" is a thing, particularly in China. More notable examples are "MakerCamp Shenzhen" and "Xinchejian builds a Makerspace in a shipping container", the "Marymount University  Accessible Makerspace Concept for People with Disabilities".

Also there are academic papers which touch on the topic, such as  Osayimwese Rifkind (2014) and Artiles and Wallace (2010).

References

Artiles, J. A., & Wallace, D. R. (2010). Methods for Innovation: Observations from the Education DesignShop. Retrieved from http://fablearn.stanford.edu/2014/wp-content/uploads/fl2014_submission_69.pdf

Osayimwese, I., & Rifkind, D. (2014). Building Modern Africa: Theme Editors' Introduction. Journal of Architectural Education, 68(2), 156-158. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10464883.2014.943631