The Survivor Center

Wildfires devastate more than just homes, they leave children with injuries, emotional trauma, fear and uncertainty about their future. Families can be torn apart, communities shattered, and children may struggle to feel safe or connected.

Our project, Survival Center, is a community center designed to support children and families recovering from the impact of wildfires.

This design focuses on creating a safe environment for children to heal physically and emotionally, while fostering a sense of belonging. The structure aims to be welcoming and comforting, rather than resembling an emergency shelter.

For supplies we used a paper and pencil to plan, and Tinkercad to model

First in order to plan out the building, we drew up a floor plan on paper detailing which rooms were where.

We used Tinkercad to design the building, as well as furniture, appliances, and utilities inside.

We made sure to make the walls of a cheerful color and to have other bright color palates throughout the building.

This picture Shows the Soup Kitchen, where people who were left without jobs can work serving food to the children who visit the community center.

In our school where we live, there are some doors with green dots outside of them. These are places where you can go into to talk anytime you need. Spaces like this would be very important for Disaster survivors, especially young children to have in order to talk about their hardships and build community.

It may look a little barren, but it’s supposed to be. A big open community event area like this is extremely important for the young people that are going to be at this community center. Events held here will help foster fellowships among them.

It’s not unlikely that too many kids will be displaced for local services to handle. There are four large designated rooms with bunk beds for those kids who have lost their homes to stay in. Busses will be provided to transport them to other school districts.

A huge influx of burn victims and people with other injuries is expected after the disaster. For this reason, the right section of the community center is a hospital and recovery area. To the right is an example of what one of the rooms would look like. Each room has its own bathroom.

We mapped out the utilities of the building using Tinkercad

Yellow Pipe - Electrical Conduit

Blue Pipe - Water

Red Pipe - Hot water (Heating)

The Utility Rooms are located in the back left of the building near the loading dock and storage.

-Switchgear 1 and 2 are both fed from the Pad mounted transformer located behind the electrical room.

-Switchgear 1 feeds the left (Community) part of the building

-Switchgear 2 feeds the right (hospital) part of the building, and the outdoor lights

The building is heated with one main electric hot water heater connected to two tanks (storage room) and is fed by the water main located next to the loading dock.