Design After Disaster

DESIGN AFTER DISASTER Rhea A. Bundrant DESIGN AFTER DISASTER Rhea A. Bundrant Massachusetts College of Art and Design Department of Architectural Design Submitted in Partial Fulfillment for the requirements of Master of Architecture May, 2011 DESIGN AFTER DISASTER Master of Architecture 2011 Massachusetts College of Art and Design Department of Architectural Design Rhea Bundrant ABSTRACT “Natural disasters” have intensified in recent years highlighting the need to address the root causes of these events in order to mitigate future suffering. This thesis discusses the definition of “disaster”, links vulnerability to disaster, and proposes a framework for long-term, sustainable reconstruction. This framework draws from existing theory and established guidelines to create a community-based assessment process for building professionals responding to disasters. To test the validity of the framework, I suppose an event has taken place in Tornabe, Honduras. Using semi-structured interviews, mapping, photo-documentation, observation, statistical research and analysis, I developed a reconstruction strategy for the village that responds to community priorities, engages vernacular materials, forms and capacities and is designed to resist the physical hazards of the site. 2 DESIGN AFTER DISASTER ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Architecture school is not for the faint of heart. I would not have made it through without a legion of supporters. I must thank, firstly, my thesis advisor, Eugenia Magann. A friend and mentor for the past 4 years she has been my personal cheering squad. At the sight of a sketch she would rifle through her personal library to find me a precedent. A query about a detail would end in an email to a colleague who would have just the answer I needed. One mention of model building would bring offers of every tool imaginable. For your endless support and enthusiasm, thank you. I owe Jamie Drysdale something big for getting me into this mess. I owe him something bigger for making sure I made it out. Dr. Clare Batty deserves special commendation for answering her phone at all hours, for holding my hand through the first years and for forgiving me for never calling during the last. Thanks are also owed to Hadley Smith who forever offered to cook me food, attempted to understand what I was talking about, humoured me while I gawked at buildings and peered into windows and who read every draft of this thesis. Of course, I must also thank my mum who surely wonders why I haven’t called in almost five years. RHEA BUNDRANT, M. ARCH THESIS 3 4 DESIGN AFTER DISASTER DESIGN AFTER DISASTER TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page 1 Abstract 2 Acknowledgments 3 1.0 Introduction 7 1.1 Disaster and the Scope and Limits of this Thesis 11 1.2 What I Want to Do 12 1.3 Why I Want to do it. 12 2.0 Disaster, Vulnerability and Reconstruction: A conceptual Framework 14 3.0 Questions I ask Myself 15 4.0 Bananas and Disasters: Choosing Honduras 22 4.1 Tornabe or Bust 25 5.0 Framework as Method 29 6.0 Design After Disaster 31 7.0 Conclusions 48 8.0 Bibliography 50 RHEA BUNDRANT, M. ARCH THESIS 5 2004 - Asia Tsunami 1.69 million displaced 1999 - Kosovo War 1 million displaced 1995 - Kobe Earthquake 300,000 without homes 2005 - Hurricane Katrina 700,000 apply for housing relief 2009 - Australian Wildfires 7,562 people displaced 2008 - China Earthquake 5 million without homes 2006 - Lebanese War 1 million displaced 1998 - Hurricane Mitch 1.5 million without homes 2007 - Kansas Tornado 1,500 homes destroyed 1991-2002 - Sierra Leone War 2 million displaced 2010 - Chile Earthquake 379,00 homes destroyed 1994 - Rwandan War 2 million displaced 2010 - Torrential Rains 11,000 homes destroyed 2007 - Peru Earthquake 58,000 without homes Figure 1.0 The state of things. This map only begins to locate recent disasters. There is no part of the world not affected, in some way, by humanitarian emergencies. 6 DESIGN AFTER DISASTER 1.0 INTRODUCTION The seed of this thesis is a paper tube church. Built in the months following the 1995 Kobe, Japan earthquake, the church became a gathering place for the marginalized Vietnamese community it served. The architect, Shigeru Ban, has responded to disasters and humanitarian crises with an eye toward materials, vernacular forms and prefab- rication. Ban’s work, for me, was an early example of the role designers could play in humanitarian crises and of the social responsibility of architects. Eventually, this thesis evolved to ask different questions and to take a different ap- proach than Ban did; the paper tube church, however, always provided a touchstone. This thesis is also born out of my reaction to Hurricane Katrina and the emergency response of the city, state and federal authorities. In 1976, Ben Wisner, Ken Westgate and Phil O’Keefe published “Taking the Naturalness out of Natural Disasters.”1 Katrina blatantly confirmed the unnaturalness of disasters. Along the Gulf Coast, the unnatural disaster was caused by apathy toward the plight of impoverished communities in the United States, and neglect by the Army Corps of Engineers that resulted in the breaching of the levees. The scale of the disaster in the aftermath of the storm was compounded by the Federal Emergency Management Administration’s (FEMA) lack of preparedness and inability to adequately respond, and by insurance companies’ unwillingness to compromise profit margins by paying out hundreds of thousands of claims. Had any one of these pieces not been true, the disaster could have been less- ened. A reconstruction process that directly addresses the issues that render a community vulnerable can mitigate future disaster. This thesis is a reaction to some marvelous moments and devastating observations. In the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, where the levees failed, swathes of the neighborhood remain leveled. A few Make It Right houses are built and are literal designs in a field.2 Across town, architects have taken the opportunity to experiment with the shotgun form that is so iconically New Orleans (Figure 1.1). I could not help but appreciate the experiment and be chilled by the implications. Is architectural exploration appropriate in a post-disaster context? Who is this formal exploration 1 “Taking the Naturalness Out of Natural Disasters” was published in Nature magazine (Volume 260, Issue 5552, pp. 566-567 (1976).). The article took the lead in suggesting that disasters are caused by factors more complex than natural events. 2 The Make It Right Foundation was established in reaction to the lack of response and rebuilding in the Lower 9th Ward in New Or- leans. Architects donated designs for hurricane resistant, energy efficient homes. In parts of the Lower 9th, the Make It Right houses were the only ones rebuilt. A rich neighbourhood of traditional houses before the storm, the area is now dotted with architects’ renditions of New Orleans typology. RHEA BUNDRANT, M. ARCH THESIS 7 serving? Everett Ressler suggests that often response intervention is based on criteria other than victim needs.3 In New Orleans, I could not help but think designers with the best of intentions were serving their own needs rather than addressing those of the community they were intending to aid. Disaster theory posits an intrinsic connection between vulnerability and disaster. Ben Wisner, Piers Blaikie, Ian Davis et al developed a “pressure and release model” explaining dynamic pressures (caused by social, economic, environmental, political factors) faced by communities impact their ability to withstand and recover from hazards.4 Disaster management theorists and practitioners accept the positioning of disaster and vulnerability as bedfellows, as will be discussed. However, despite this accepted link between vulnerability Figure 1.1 An experimental single shotgun. Formally and disaster, few guidelines directed at architects exist demonstrating exciting, the design does not engage the context. how vulnerability can be incorporated into disaster response planning Photo: Rhea Bundrant and the relief, recovery and reconstruction effort. The design profession has, in recent years, become reengaged with social responsibility.5 Perhaps designers were inspired by the work of Samuel Mockbee and the Rural Studio or by Shigeru Ban and his paper tubes. Perhaps the combination of gut wrenching images of disaster and formal training in problem solving proved too irresistible for designers to let go. Whichever is the case, designers have taken up the challenge of solving humanitarian issues with, most often, clever, ingenious designs. Existing post-disaster reconstruction projects appear to have either been approached as issues of economy of scale or the destroyed area is viewed as a blank slate upon which designers can flex their ingenuity muscles. Rebuilt communities are either Levittown-esque (Figure 1.2) rows upon rows of cinder block houses or designs are novelties 3 Everett M. Ressler, “Accountability as a Programme Philosophy.” Disasters and the Small Dwelling (Oxford; Pergammon Press, 1981) 147. 4 Gonzalo Lizzaralde, Rebuilding After Disasters: From Emergency to Sustainability (New York; Spon Press, 2010) 3. 5 During the last decade, there has been considerable public attention paid to the social responsibility of designers. Several books (De- sign Like you Give a Dam; Expanding Architecture; Good Deeds, Good Design), and exhibits at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum (Design for the other 90%) and MOMA (Small Scale Big Change), and an annual conference now in its twelfth year (Structures for Inclusion) are all evidence of the more public focus of design and social responsibility. 8 DESIGN AFTER DISASTER that can be dropped from planes, worn as a back pack or assem- bled with nothing but a screwdriver (Figure 1.3). These approaches do not address the long-term needs of the victims of disaster. They ignore existing theory regarding reconstruction ad fail to foster re- siliency within the community.

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