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It worked. Homes raised to a height of one meter were seen to attract 40 per cent less mosquitoes. 2 feet, 68 percent less, and 3 feet, 84 percent less.
“I was amazed at what kind of impact they had,” says Kelly Searle, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the study. How Searl studied building materials, such as brick, mud and metal, which affects the transmission of malaria itself, says this level of restriction is convincing. “We see strong evidence that housing construction can be a protection against malaria infection,” he says.
“It’s really important,” he continues, because bed nets and insecticide spraying aren’t enough. “If we had additional tools that we could use to prevent malaria, it’s wonderful.”
However, accepting this design for new homes or renovations in real communities will be a challenge. “The number of people who will be affected [the academic studies] it’s really going to be quite a small change of house, ”says Patrick Kelley, vice president of the Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter in the Habitat for Humanity International shelter.
One way to bring about a broad change in the growing population would be through building codes that could be enforced by local governments. But another would be changes in consumer behavior: people tastes in homes that are updated while learning how design makes sense — counterintuitively large windows, for example, but with screens. “I’m more optimistic about the trajectory of consumer behavior, putting knowledge into people’s hands,” Kelley says. “There are messages to bring some of them to home improvement markets, where people go to buy wood, to buy the show.”
Lindsay agrees. “The way architects think about making a change,” he says, “is to build something new, then have people look at it and say, ‘Hey, that’s it!’ and copy “. If local people see the appeal of these science-based designs, they will also have a greater chance of building them that way.
Okumu believes that design is a more sustainable way to control malaria than using commercial products such as bed nets, insecticides and drugs. The goal is simple: to prevent mosquitoes from finding humans. “I’ve learned over the years that we need to get back to the basic biology of the disease,” Okumu says. “And malaria is mostly a problem with poor housing and shallow water.”
Lindsay has a major clinical trial in Tanzania Izarren Etxeak project, Jakob Knudsen, a Danish architect, tests the elasticity of two-story homes designed with walls made of breathable shade fabric, inspired by Southeast Asian designs. The study will run for three years and will continue to transmit malaria among children living in 110-star homes with 60 stars, compared to the rates of others living in 440 traditional homes.
“They’re very pretty,” Lindsay says.
Each house has a bed from the spacious living room projected on the top floor. The wind blows in, and the mosquitoes are supposed to stay away. In the evening, the lights dim on the translucent walls, but the house is hidden.
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