The Students’ Creative Solutions
Eggink’s class used these engineering positives to their advantage, creating a portfolio of disaster-specific design solutions: moving hospitals for faster earthquake aid, floating homes that can withstand floods, vehicles that can be used as fireproof safety chambers for hotshot teams and more.
Others examined response and relief efforts. Potash designed a search-and-rescue module that can bypass destroyed roads and be deployed by air. Each module, made from a lightweight section of composite fuselage, reuses the existing lavatories and galleys, while reclining seats are turned into beds.
So what did the pros — Eggink’s brother and the other Boeing engineers — think of the students’ aero-architecture concepts?
“The concepts are really, really cool,” says Roy Eggink, who thinks it’s possible to see mainstream applications of aero-architecture in as soon as 10 years. “We were impressed with their creativity in reusing these parts. Younger generations are more environmentally focused, and maybe in the future there will be a requirement to design an airplane so it can be easily dismantled and recycled.”