Responding to emergency needs in the wake of recent disasters in Haiti and Chile, Carlos Levinton and his group at the CEP (Centro Experimental para la Producción) have been developing architectural + social models that address the ecological and economic disruptions which disproportionately affect society’s poorest members. His Tire House is an example of CEP research into Soft System or ‘liquid’ architecture, which in their lexicon is survival architecture, and is part of a larger scheme predicated on social self-management methods as a means to promote environmental and social justice. According to CEP calculations, 200,000 Geo homes can be built within 1 month using 80 million tires (250 million are thrown away in the US alone every year) and plastic waste as core building blocks.

Below is an interview with Carlos on public television in Argentina. Below that is a tire house schematic.