Guidelines to improve sustainability and cultural integration of temporary housing units

Abstract

Unfortunately, natural disasters have drastically increased over the last decades causing extensive material and non-­material damages. The destruction of houses and the number of homeless people are some of the most visible effects of post-­disaster scenarios. Housing is one of the people’s most important needs and it is also essential for their well-­being. After a disaster it is crucial to supply temporary accommodation in order to provide victims with comfort, protection, and privacy until they have a permanent house. Temporary housing is an extremely important solution of temporary accommodation allowing victims to gradually return to their normal life activities during the reconstruction process. Although it has been widely used after the most large-scale disasters, the urgent need of fast solutions has not led to effective options. Therefore, temporary housing solutions have been greatly criticized mainly for being unsustainable, and also culturally and locally inadequate. Through literature review and case-­studies’ analysis the research points out the main factors and reasons that cause the problems of temporary housing units. It also refers to possible solutions to overcome or minimize those problems, offering guidelines based on concepts that have been proved effective in previous studies. The guidelines focus on useful concepts in the development of more sustainable, locally sensitive and culturally integrated solutions. It was found that an essential change is needed in the development of temporary housing solutions. These solutions should be developed through a people-­oriented strategy rather than focusing on the technical aspects of the units. The suggested guidelines have that objective.