Sustainable Housing Reconstruction

Designing resilient housing after natural disasters

Esther Charlesworth, Iftekhar Ahmed

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317563891
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Arquitectura
• Subtopic: Arquitectura general

Through 12 case studies from Australia, Bangladesh, Haiti, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and the USA, this book focuses on the housing reconstruction process after an earthquake, tsunami, cyclone, flood or fire. Design of post-disaster housing is not simply replacing the destroyed house but, as these case studies highlight, a means to not only build a safer house but also a more resilient community; not to simply return to the same condition as before the disaster, but an opportunity for building back better.

The book explores two main themes:

• Housing reconstruction is most successful when involving the users in the design and construction process
• Housing reconstruction is most effective when it is integrated with community infrastructure, services and the means to create real livelihoods.

The case studies included in this book highlight work completed by different agencies and built environment professionals in diverse disaster-affected contexts. With a global acceleration of natural disasters, often linked to accelerating climate change, there is a critical demand for robust housing solutions for vulnerable communities.

This book provides professionals, policy makers and community stakeholders working in the international development and disaster risk management sectors, with an evidence-based exploration of how to add real value through the design process in housing reconstruction. Herein then, the knowledge we need to build, an approach to improve our processes, a window to understanding the complex domain of post-disaster housing reconstruction.

Part I
Overview

Achievements in housing reconstruction despite mounting odds

Humanitarian agencies and professionals are often presented with extremely challenging circumstances after a disaster. Their reconstruction tasks are complex – managing the range of stakeholders involved, and the severe displacement, suffering and trauma of the disaster victims. These challenges continue to mount as rapid and unplanned urbanisation, environmental degradation and climate change proceed unabated globally.¹ Examples of effective reconstruction practice are understandably hard to find in such a scenario. When rebuilding projects achieve sustainable outcomes, that is, where communities and not just buildings are rebuilt, where infrastructure needs are considered at the same time as housing needs, when owners can genuinely input into the design of their homes – these are the sort of projects that can offer valuable lessons for action following future disasters. The case studies presented in this book have been selected because, across the wide range of their achievements and stakeholders, they have demonstrated their grasp of the complexities of housing reconstruction and their effectiveness in approaching the problems in an innovative, cross-disciplinary way to build physical and social resilience. They are based on narratives of beneficiary communities, built environment professionals, and humanitarian and other agency staff, supplemented by the observations of the authors.

Asia experiences the greatest disaster impacts globally² and three of the six countries covered here are from Asia: Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. In the extreme poverty of Haiti, an earthquake dealt a severe blow to an already vulnerable nation. Economically stronger countries are not spared, and two such case study countries that have experienced severe disasters have been included: Australia and the USA.

The key features of the case studies include:

Australia: Supported by the State Government of Victoria, temporary and then permanent housing was successfully developed after the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in the devastated towns of Kinglake and Marysville.

Bangladesh: After Cyclone Aila in 2009, an owner-driven project was implemented by the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society in Khulna district and, second, a community-based project led by a team of architects was built in Satkhira District.

RANGE OF STAKEHOLDERS: Even children contribute to the reconstruction task in Bangladesh.

Haiti: In the dense, informal settlements of Port-au-Prince devastated by the 2010 earthquake, Cordaid and its partners implemented a community development program. The second case study presents the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ ‘integrated neighbourhood approach’ where community infrastructure was incorporated with housing reconstruction.

Sri Lanka: After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the Foundation of Goodness undertook a resettlement program in Seenigama on the southern coast, as part of a long-term community development initiative. The second case study focuses on an owner-driven project in Tissamaharama, led by UN-Habitat.

The USA: Hurricane Katrina in 2005 catalysed a participative reconstruction program led by the architects of the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio in Biloxi, Mississippi. In New Orleans, Louisiana, Habitat for Humanity built a Musicians’ Village to resettle the musicians of this city with a strong musical heritage.

Vietnam: Development Workshop France promoted disaster-resilient housing in Hue through its reconstruction projects after Typhoons Xangsane (2006) and Ketsana (2009), and child-friendly reconstruction was led by Save the Children UK in Danang after Typhoon Xangsane, 2006.

COMPLEX TASKS: Rebuilding after a massive earthquake in Haiti.

Notes

1 Jha, A. et al., Safer Homes, Stronger Communities: A Handbook for Reconstructing after Natural Disasters (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013).

2 EM-DAT (2013) The International Disaster Database. Available at: http://imgur.com/a/KdyTV#0 (accessed 15 April 2014).

Part II
The case studies

Bushfire | Australia

AFTERMATH: Marysville soon after the bushfire. Source: Barry Thomas.

Twelve years of drought, compounded by a severe heatwave, led to the bushfires that struck the state of Victoria, Australia, on 7 February, 2009.¹, ² In the ‘Black Saturday bushfires’, the worst bushfires in the nation’s history, 173 people died, and more than 2,300 houses were destroyed, displacing more than 7,500 people.³

In its investigation of the bushfires, the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission reported:

‘The most serious consequence of the fires was the death of 173 people. Left behind are families, friends and communities still trying to come to terms with their loss. Accompanying this loss of life is the fires’ impact on property and the infrastructure that supports communities, as well as the substantial environmental impact, which will take years to fully reveal itself – let alone be ameliorated.’⁴

The towns of Kinglake and Marysville experienced the full impact of Black Saturday and required the most significant reconstruction efforts. In both towns, the transition from emergency to recovery – from short-term temporary accommodation to long-term permanent housing – demonstrates a model reconstruction process.

Black Saturday prompted the revision of, and mandatory compliance with, building standards and regulations to ensure better housing resistance to future bushfires.⁵ The Building Commission of Victoria produced a number of guidebooks to assist disaster-affected communities to retrofit or rebuild safer houses according to the new standards.⁶

The Australian Institute of Architects (Victoria) and the Office of the Victorian Government Architect initiated the ‘Bushfire Homes Service’: 19 architectural firms provided innovative house designs on a pro bono basis following the new revised building standards.⁷ Although these designs were considered generally too expensive by bushfire-affected communities and never really implemented, this initiative still demonstrates the potential of architects to contribute to post-disaster reconstruction.

The Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority (VBRRA), formed after Black Saturday, gathered together professionals with relevant skills from different government departments. A VBRRA-organised competition invited teams of builders and architects to submit tenders for the design and construction of demonstration houses that complied with the standards and regulations required to resist a high level of bushfire attack.⁸ Two winning designs were built, one in Kinglake and the other in Marysville. The Marysville house remained an isolated example, but the Kinglake house was replicated, resulting in 14 such houses.

The ‘Re-Growth Pod Competition’ organised by 1:1 Architects (now Edwards Moore) invited designs for houses in bushfire-prone areas that are built around an existing concrete module or ‘pod’. Though the winning designs remain unbuilt, the pod installed after Black Saturday houses a bushfire-affected household, and is discussed in the Kinglake case study that follows.

A key reconstruction project, though not housing, is the Narbethong Community Hall, built after Black Saturday in a fire-devastated area. Designed and built in collaboration between Emergency Architects Australia, BVN Architecture, Arup and a number of other consulting firms, this building plays a central role in the bushfire-affected community in Narbethong, particularly in its post-bushfire recovery process. Because it is built to withstand a high level of bushfire attack, the building also offers a safe refuge to the community.

Most housing design and construction in Australia is generally undertaken by builders or homeowners themselves, and architects have a lesser role in the housing sector. This is reflected in the limited uptake of the above architectural designs developed after Black Saturday. Nevertheless, the following case studies show the contribu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Figures
• Foreword: Learning from the Shelter Sector
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: More than a roof overhead: post-disaster housing reconstruction to enable resilient communities
• PART I Overview: Achievements in housing reconstruction despite mounting odds
• PART II The case studies
• Part III Conclusion: Lessons from the case studies
• Bibliography
• Index