CLIENTS

We deal with international organizations that either sponsor help teams, perform design and guidance or otherwise are directly involved at producing shelters and reconstructive solutions after local disaters. Our first clients were from Bengladesh, Armenia, Mexico, Italy and Japan. We are now expanding our reach through a central office in Paris manned by Luc Piché, a high official of the Canadian Embassy there.
We also work with housing manufacturers to help them perfect their products aimed at the  reconstruction market.
Finally we are actively involved with a few refugee tent manufacturers as well as with their end users, be they Doctors Without Borders or the Red Cross.

STAFF AND CONSULTANTS (Click on name to eMail that person)

• Jim Poirier, B.Sc.-B.Arch- Industrial Designer- Architect and Director of the Institute-(English-French)
• Robert Bianchi, B.A., B.Arch. (English-French-Italian)
• Marcello DelRio, Arch. - Architect (English- Spanish-Portuguese)
• Nicole Beaudry, M.B.A. -Public Relations- (English-French-Spanish)
• Jimmy Gauthier, P.Ing. - Structural Engineer - (English-French)
• Luc Piché, M.B.A. - Scs.Pol, Financial Analyst (Paris FR)-(English-French-Japanese)
• Jacques Caouette, B.Sc. Industrial Designer -Technologist - (French-English)
• Ruben Mendez Paz, Construction Technologist - (Spanish-English)
• Eric Triesman, Attorney - (Recently passed away)
• Allen Huston,Construction Technologist - (English-Spanish)
• Javier Guerrero, Construction Technologist - (English-Spanish)

We are actively recruiting associate construction professionals. Please drop us a line here mentioning your related experience. Other skills in sociology, logistics, international Affairs, refugee affairs highly wished for. Weather scientists and experts to join soon.

ARCHITECTS

Because of their unique position between scientists/engineers and social workers/artists, architects are sometimes the best guarantors of the successful preventive construction as well as the secure rebuilding effort after a disaster. Because they take into account human behavior and local culture, they are well equipped to anticipate the use given to their building programs. Before the Indonesian tsunami, good architects had made upper floor balconies accessible from the street, thereby saving many lives when the high waves rolled in. In some cases, these resort stairs were accepted by the resort owners only after a fight, yet they saved many lives.
More and more architects working with our Director Jacques Poirier. Most have had direct experience with construction under extreme conditions. Architect Robert Bianchi (Montréal) was involved with arctic construction, Marcello DelRio (Mexico) did the same within the tropical hurricane context. Others including Poirier himself worked with Habitat for Humanity and have had African and Asiatic experience like him.

MATHEMATICS

Out of fear or malice, mathematicians have been banned from construction sites ever since one was decapitated by a Pharaoh to avoid the future duplication of a most successful pyramid. Masons and carpenters loathe mathematics, and it certainly shows: almost every building material measures either 2x4x8(studs), 8x8x16(cinder blocks), 4x8 feet(sheatings of all kinds).
One could conclude that the multiplication x2 is the only intellectuality tolerated on a building site. As a result, everything built ends up rectangular. The average house has 16,000 ninety degree angles collecting dust.
Now if any of these otherwise fine tradesmen knew by heart the square root of three , they could actually build hexagonal floor plans and stop creating wasteful corners ! More to the point, they could actually graduate to rhombic maths where super strong space saving shapes could replace fragile orthogonal structures. When not perfectly built, these can skew, warp, twist and also get buffeted by strong winds. There are no large cubic structures in nature. Having a third horizontal axis as with hexagonal grid does wonders for earthquake and wind resistance. And to think! the bees have had that figured out hundreds of millions years ago*.


Note: Sure, you can approximate an hexagon by first scribing a circle and cutting down its perimeter at six intervals. But nothing accurate can occur unless you use a little trigonometry, the Tangent of 60 degrees, or...at the very least remember 1.732051, the square root of 3, a number that represents the ratio of the side of the hexagon to its narrowest width. If you visited the rest of this site, it will become obvious to you that from now on every child should remember 1.732051, the same number of digits as your average phone number. We can do it!

FOUNDING CORPORATE SPONSORS

PrintSF is a first printing resource available on the 50,000 client base Salesforce.com

It's CEO and originator is a forty years old whiz who already made a fortune by reinventing how real estate is sold in California.  Mark Cira was he young executive behind the real estate software that allows for 'paperless transactions' was a hit in Southern California. Now active in another venture with similar 'paperless' goals for the corporate printing, he nevertheless took the time to become a pilot an owner, founding SkyDiego two years ago. A generous man whose altruistic streak knows no borders, Mark was instrumental in advising as well as coming up with a founding donation of $2000.

After more than ten years in the custom stair building business Stairframe Systems Inc. started steel framing staircases in 1999 with custom designed 16 gauge welded steel stringers for builders across North America. Today, under the new management and ownership of Von Arx Tool & Die Inc, Stairframe (91245365 Québec) Inc. manufactures and distributes a small yet highly versatile inventory of modular welded steel stair stringers of predetermined riser heights, the combinations of which when mix and matching the stringers leading to and from a landing (framed by the builder) create different combinations for any floor-to floor height. 21 SKUs in all, designed to make the distributors’ and the stair builders’ job simpler and better. The generous CEO Claude Ranger has revolutionized the modular staircase concept. His products have a definite future in some of our two-story concepts; their labor-saving and price advantage, plus the security they provide when we work with untrained crews. Since we are dedicated at providing safe earthquake resisitive 2-story houses, his concepts will fit perfectly. This major quality tent manufacturers already serves the refugee tent market very well. As a donor for our institute he will be first to profit from our new geometrical designs, more easily clusterable tents with no guy wires to trip little kids. We intend to develop the prototypes with their research branch.

INDUSTRIALISTS

• Pat Faley's company designs and builds drones for the US armed forces. These pilotless aircrafts are used with deadly purpose in Afghanistan, but also for surveillance over the US southern border with Mexico. This ex-fighter pilot is a brillant adviser on automation and other assembly line technologies.
• Pierre Caouette, Regen Nautic founder and CEO is also an ex commercial pilot who recently developed digital technology to manage the electrical systems of 'green'  yatchs and cruisers. More than a consulted friend and industrialist, Pierre is also a generous donor to the Institute. He also represents us occasionally in Florida where Regen Nautic is located.

TECHNOLOGISTS

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CONSULTANTS and PARTNERS

• We are very much involved with Mission Africa Smiles, a team of Quebec doctors and medical specialists who perform facial reconstruction in West Africa. Their advice is precious forthe design of our field hospitals, our heliported operating rooms and other medically oriented buildings.
• We are involved with ABC network and Dan Harris, the weekend news anchor and star reporter whose work in Haiti got much noticed. We are counting on their help to raise awareness of our services worldwide.

WHO COMES HERE - OUR TRAINING SEMINARS

We have a one-on-one training program for civil employees wanting to upgrade their palette of choices in the rebuilding arena. These two week seminars are held in Cantamar MX, and cost includes lodging in a beach condo as well as transit to and from the San Diego Airport. The cost of a complete session in $1000., including the documentation that is transferred from computer to computer. Trainees are invited to bring portable drives with at least 300 gigs of free space. Diplomas are given and most governments recognize our institution for tax purposes applied to professional training and career upgrading.

PLACIDE POULIN, CO-FOUNDER OF ARCHIMEDE SYSTEMS

Placide was a fiberglass part supplier for the housing industry and the snowmobile manufacturers where Poirier was active in the early seventies. This is how they met and learned to trust each other. In 1980, they formed Archimede Systems to develop a patent that Poirier had concocted after a stint in the RV and modular housing industry. A brilliant strategist and marketer, Placide was responsible for the explosive growth of the Archimede sales. After five year and the need to develop the American market, Poirier and Poulin went their separate ways with the former creating the MAAX group of companies integrating Archimede with Acrylica and Modern Fiberglass and Metal, the original company that made bathtubs and snowmobile parts (These are the first three letters of the MAAX acronym) . He headed MAAX for fifteen years, growing it from a revenue of $10M to a $1B company recently sold at his retirement. Now a prosperous and solid golfer, Placide nevertheless sits on the board of directors of CAMADA, one of our corporate sponsors, a Venture Capital group company handled with flair by his eldest daughter Marie-France. The latter was also a very effective Archimede employee during her university holidays.

SOME OF THE ARCHIMEDE PIONNEERS

Shown in this 1985 Quebec sugarhouse party, are seen in the photo from left to right:

• Eric Triesman, Stanford Graduate from Santa Fe NM, assisted in getting the US operations off the ground. Now a consultant member of the Institute.
  
• Placide Poulin, original partner from Beauce, Québec, now the retired and very successful industrialist that headed of the MAAX group of companies. a member of the board of Camada Group.
• Jacques Bernard Poirier, architect and founding president of Archimede Systems in 1981. Poirier is the actual director of the Institute.
• Don Arrowsmith, of South Florida, is the ex-Navy pilot who built a marketing program for Archimede International. He is now retired and a member of our advisory board.