ARCHITECTURE AFTER DISASTER : A CHANCE FOR DEVELOPMENT REFORM

Abstract

From 2004-2010, natural disasters destroyed Southeast Asia, and rendered 26.6 million people homeless in just 5 years time. Rebuilding homelands and providing shelters for the affected and homeless were top priorities for relief organizations as the home is the first step to the rebuilding of the lives of the affected.

In this thesis, I questioned the current rebuilding process and its effectiveness in serving the needs of the affected. The rebuilding process involves providing of 3 different kind of shelters and housing, temporary, transitional and permanent, each distinct and separated by location. Even though it is necessary to serve the different and progressive needs of the affected at different time, it is not sustainable, time consuming and in most cases not progressive as the affected might not get the end state of a permanent house. Many shelters are also generic and not disaster-proof. This would only trap the affected into a vicious cycle of destruction and useless rebuilding which still lead to more destruction in the end.

As a solution, a progressive, transformable process for rebuilding is considered. Starting from being a single module, fast to put up temporary shelter, this shelter would transform with the help of the locals themselves with the addition of covering and spaces with local materials. Customizable to their own needs, the locals “build” their own permanent houses, from the starting seed of a living and service module each which is provided by relief organizations. Being primarily disaster-proof, this ensures that there will always be hope in the form of the primary shelter left even after disasters, for the rebuilding of the next cycle after future disasters. The thesis would mainly focus on the rebuilding of villages in Aceh, Indonesia after the Asian Tsunami 2004.