GerHub in partnership with EASST implemented a project to improve road safety at the Hugjil Complex School with community-led initiatives, concluded with a “street makeover” work around the school, including a new pedestrian crossing, new road signs, a dedicated ‘kiss and drop’ zone, and barriers to protect pedestrians from road traffic.
The project team along with a Working Group made up of school leadership personnel, local authorities, traffic police, parents, young people, and community representatives used the EASST School Zone Assessment Toolkit, to assess key routes and areas around the school and co-produce an Action Plan to address the key risk areas. The Action Plan focused on addressing some of the key infrastructure issues around the main school entrance as well as seeking to increase road safety awareness and build the capacity of the current ‘School Police’ patrols with the handbook in both Mongolian and English.
Despite having residents with diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, many ger area plots remain underdeveloped and maintained. Reasons for not investing in the improvement of their plots range from lack of know-how to perception of the financial costs related to the improvement. However, there is potential to create value in plots and ger areas benefitting the households and community as a whole.
Mobilizing communities and ger area residents through creative content, GerHub, published a video series on home improvement in partnership with the Asia Foundation among other partners to inspire ger area residents to improve their living spaces for a better quality of life. The pilot video captures an interesting journey of a young family making over their entire plot, followed by three more videos of three separate families improving different parts of their plots. Moreover, we developed a plot improvement guide to encourage ger area residents to take on simple, low-cost do-it-yourself projects to plan and maintain green plots across UB and beyond
The Dulaan Ger Project evolved from one of the earliest initiatives of GerHub as a contribution to reducing air pollution in UB and improving the environment for the ger area residents. Dulaan Ger or “Дулаан Гэр” in Mongolian means “A Warm Ger” and is based on the long-term research conducted by our partner – the Center for Environmental Building and Design (CEBD) at the University of Pennsylvania. GerHub, with CEBD, created and disseminated “Design Recommendations for Ger” for the public, including ger area residents, through social and local media outlets to decrease heat loss and maximize heat retention of a ger during the extremely cold winter. The ger insulation recommendations are based on extensive research by the CEBD focusing on ger thermal performance and demonstrating the impacts of insulations on heat loss.
The Dulaan Ger works with community members, including seamstresses and handymen, building their capacity to produce ger insulations and generate additional sources of income for themselves.
This innovative initiative was to address some of the most pressing issues faced by children in Mongolia – health risks resulting from exposure to high levels of indoor and outdoor air pollution.
While a number of programs focus on housing insulation and improving of stoves used by ger dwellers, only a few initiatives specifically seek solutions to improve the thermal performance of gers.
In realizing this gap, GerHub, UNICEF Office of Innovation, and UNICEF Mongolia Country Office teamed up with members from the University of Pennsylvania, KieranTimberlake, Arc’Teryx, and The North Face to develop innovative insulation designs for improving specific components of the ger while testing and collecting data on baseline and intervention gers. As a result, insulation prototypes were developed for the toono (the oculus), the door, and the floor of a ger.
GerHub continues to re-iterate these prototypes involving youth and community members and seek opportunities for scale-up under our Dulaan Ger Project.
In partnership with an award-winning architectural center – Rural Urban Framework at The University of Hong Kong, this energy-efficient housing concept – Ger Plug-In – with toilet, shower, and under-floor heating systems.
Ger Plug-in is in no way the only way to modify the Mongolian ger to fit the urban lifestyle and needs of modern people, however, we see the project as an effective start to a bigger conversation about how we should collectively strive to make constant positive adjustments and alterations to improve the quality of our own lives that suits the modern world or even better – the future. Read the Ger Plug-in prototype report here.
A research project in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Environmental Building and Design was one of our early initiatives. The project laid the groundwork for years ahead in collaboration with other partners including the UNICEF Office of Innovation. It was the first attempt to audit the comfort and energy use of ger to develop ways to enhance energy performance.
Mongolians have lived in a ger for centuries and improved its design over time. However, there is a lack of evidence on its energy consumption and thermal comfort to inform ger improvement efforts as part of improving air quality. The project was a milestone for GerHub to combine ger research with insulation prototypes.
A team of students from Stanford University’s d.school course Design for Extreme Affordability researched and developed the HubCap, an innovative and low-cost product to reduce heat loss in gers for ger toono (the oculus).
Upon its completion, it was a “ground-breaking” initiative for GerHub to improve ger thermal performance through insulations and design approaches in collaboration with a reputable partner like Stanford University.
Along with our partners, GerHub has participated in international exhibitions to take the Mongolian ger to international audiences and tell the story of urban issues of ger dwellers. The City of Nomads exhibit in partnership with Rural Urban Framework at The University of Hong Kong is one of the 11 installations within the opening exhibition Fear and Love: Reactions to a Complex World. The exhibit shows how the nomads are adapting to urban life in the ger areas of Ulaanbaatar and how the ger areas are an intersection between rural and urban settlements.
Settling the Nomads exhibit, which was created in partnership with Rural Urban Framework at The University of Hong Kong was displayed in the Arsenale. The exhibit contained three gers that were modified to become unique projection rooms that contained films showing life in the ger settlement areas of Ulaanbaatar