DISSERTATION 2013

Research Question:

What is the role of the architect in disaster response? What skills can he bring in the
long-term recovery of disaster-hit communities?

Name: Bharat Agarwal

Roll No: A/2146/2009

Guide: Jatinder Marwaha

Coordinator: Prabhjot Singh Sugga

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.1 INTRODUCTION 3
1.2 NEED IDENTIFICATION 4
1.3 SCOPE 5
1.4 LIMITATIONS 5
1.5 METHODOLOGY 6

2.1 AID: HEROIC OR NARCOTIC 7

2.2 DISASTER AS A LEVERAGE POINT 11

2.3 BUILDING CAPACITIES AND REDUCING VULNERABILITIES 13
2.4 GROWTH STABILITY AND DEVELOPMENTAL FLEXIBILITY 14
2.5 EMERGENCE AND ROOTEDNESS: SELF REPAIR 17
2.6 ARCHITECT: BUILDER OF JUST BUILDINGS? 19
2.7 CONCLUSION 20

3.1 BIBLIOGRAPHY 21

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1.1 INTRODUCTION

Hazard: A potentially damaging physical event or activity that may lead to the loss of
life or property; social and economic disruption or environmental degradation.

Vulnerability: A setting of place and processes resulting from physical, social,

economic, and environmental factors, which increase the susceptibility of a community
to the impact of hazards.

Disaster: Disaster is a serious disruption of the functioning of a society, causing

widespread losses in human, material, or environmental resources which exceed the
abilit of the affected society to cope using its own resources.

A hazard becomes a disaster only when communities and structures are too weak and
vulnerable to withstand its force. Hazards similar in nature or magnitude can have
varying impact on communities depending on their vulnerability. (Gupta 2009)

Because the needs of a disaster-hit area are so desperate, there is a severe time-crunch
in which a response has to be prepared. Such hurry leads to implementation of universal
solutions which are bound to clash with the complex needs of building shelter, where
sensitivity to existing context is crucial if the help is to be embraced by those to whom it
as been provided.

With constantly improving technology, the distance between what residents are used to
and what is optimum scientifically has grown. How do you support the growth of these
communities without crippling them?

A disaster is a scenario where there is extreme change in the built environment, and is a
harsh test of the capacity of a community to withstand it. Response to disaster is crucial
not only because of immediate need, but also to ensure that future hazards can be
survived without the losses associated with a disaster.

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Disasters also offer a leverage point, where the impact of decisions taken will last longer
than the involvement of external agencies. The scale of operations is also critical, since
smaller scale has flexibility to adapt itself to changing needs as they may emerge over
time.

In what manner should the rehabilitation effort be pursued? What level of intervention
is suitable? What role can the architect provide in the midst of these factors.

Research Question

What is the role of the architect in disaster response? What skills can he bring in the
long-term recovery of disaster-hit communities?

1.2 Need Identification:

The architect, as ‘master-builder’ sees the built environment as his domain of expertise.
Yet only 3% of it in the world is actually built by licensed professionals. (Acquilino, 2011)
In the case of a disaster, the landscape of built environment is changed completely.

Logic would say that the architect would be heavily involved in the evaluation and
solutions of the problems leading to a society not coping with hazard, however currently
there is no defined plan of action that is followed making accommodations for the
architect.

In disaster, the local residents are the only source of requirements, and thus the process
of building must be a collaborative one. Who but the architect is better qualified for such
interdisciplinary work. Yet it has been observed that the architects are not at the
forefront of recovery processes.

If the architects and planners are not in charge of the aid effort, who is? The answer is a
troublingly inconclusive. A cobbled-together group of non-government charities,
government agencies, and the residents themselves try their best to handle the situation,
in other words, no one is.

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1.3 Scope of Study
2 This dissertation will focus on the long-term repurcussions of disaster rehabiliation.
3 The rehabilitative process will be looked at with the lens of the process of
'regenerative' design.
4 This dissertation will explore opportunities within India for its research.
5 This dissertation will try and look at disaster as a leverage point in restoring
damaged communities.
6 This dissertations will look at the role of the architect and organisations, and what
contribution he can make in times of disaster.
7 This research paper can be applied to all kinds of disasters, be it ecological such as
flood, earthquake, tsunami, landslide; or social such as the 2008 stock market crash.
This paper focuses on the Uttarakhand floods and landslides of 2013.
8 Profit motive can lead to twisting of scenario to suit the needs of the seller (eg. food
stock hoarding), which is irrelevant to the process of development. Thus only non-
profit organizations are considered.

1.4 Limitations of Study

1 Only secondary sources will be used for reference to disasters outside India.
2 Only natural, and man-made complemented natural disasters are being considered.

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1.5 Methodology: Qualitative Survey

1.5.1 Reason for choice:

Theoretical readings present a certain viewpoint on how to approach a disaster,
which can then be tested and grounded by a survey amongst people who have
actually contributed to relief efforts. The qualitative method investigates the why
and how of decision making, not just what, where, when. This is imperative as we
are looking at motive, and not reactions.
A small focus group of up to 5 is intended.

1.5.2 Data collection:

Semi-structured interview. This allows the interviewer to suggest ideas obtained
from readings, while allowing for empirical observations from the interviewee to
inform the research.

1.5.3 Structure:

The dissertation addresses two aspects of disaster response: Manner and

Skills.

Manner
The literature survey points to a certain kind of response, which has aspects of self-
initiated regeneration, slow growth, notions of wholeness. These are presented to the
interviewee and their opinion is sought as to how these ideas would cope in the
ground-reality.

Skills

The architect’s role is evaluated, and answers are sought as to what skills the
architect has that can contribute to the separate processes of recovery and
regeneration.

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2.1 AID: HEROIC OR NARCOTIC

When disaster strikes, images of struggle and strife are broadcast all over the world,
bringing donation and relief efforts with them. The indigenous community is hard hit,
and needs some help to get to a base point where civic needs are fulfilled. But the
manner of this can be such that it can introduce foreign technologies and methods to a
culture that is not prepared to manage it once the external agencies involved withdraw.
Then, the culture that received aid becomes dependent on aid, and loses its ability to
manage itself.

The heroic concept of ‘aid’:

There are three terms that need to be defined here:

Indigenous culture: is the culture that existed before the disaster struck, with all the
capabilities and vulnerabilities as they were leading to the inability to absorb the hazard.

Victim culture: is the indigenous culture after it has been hit by disaster, with
vulnerabilities at their highest, and capabilities at their weakest.

Relief culture: is the provider of aid, with more advanced technology and methods.

In large-scale disaster, even in those cases where aid is provided, the money is not used
optimally as the expertise is not there. Small groups decide how to act, and the
drawbacks of this are in unpreparedness, inexperience and the absence of a clear-cut
approach.

This lack of expertise can be a trespass that leaves communities more vulnerable than
before. The first casualty of rush is in quality. The ’emergency syndrome' leads to the
organizations in charge ignoring traditional values and lifestyles.

In Oct 1991, the north-western Himalayan region of Uttarakshi experienced an

earthquake, whose aftermath gives us clues as to how to approach this problem. The
problems caused by the quake were compounded due to presence of inclined terrain.
The relief agencies focused on easy-to-approach areas, which meant that the badly hit

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interior parts only started improving when the army and border roads organisation
stepped in and restored roads and telecommunications.

By the time relief arrived, the people had started to take action on their own. Even the
NGOs that were present had issues coming to an agreement with the villages on political
issues such as distribution of aid. (Autif 1995)

The choice of material was also illogical, with the CGI sheets and prefab components
being completely alien to the locals. This meant that locals were handicapped, with a
culture of rejection and psyche of alienation being established.

Here, it is important to make a distinction between the processes of recovery and

regeneration.

Recovery is the short-term process of providing relief for the hit areas, and enable
fundamental requirements of food, sanitation and shelter.

Regeneration is the long-term process of enabling the society to function better or at

par with how it was before the disaster struck.

It is important to recognize that the houses that were destroyed were built by the
villagers themselves; the materials they chose were not the problem. They fell due to the
method of construction, which could be remedied with a little bit of knowhow spread to
the villagers themselves.

On the other hand, the Divine Life Society of Sivanand Ashram succeeded because they
included the locals in the process, and thus a favorable reputation. This led to the people
of Hina having faith in the organization, and cooperating smoothly in the rehabilitation.

It is the conditions of extreme poverty that are hit the hardest, and in such situations
relief cultures will bring in medical aid, road and airborne transportation, using field
communications and employing advanced tech whenever they can.

Transference of allegiance and submission to greater authority leads to loosening of ties

to indigenous culture. By virtue of urgency of the situation, relief bodies seldom have
time or opportunity for more than superficial perceptions of indigenous culture,
reducing it to statistical terms.

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Traditional local systems of organization are likely to be rejected in favour of systems
familiar to and exercised by relief culture.

The relief culture provides supplies of food and water, takes precautions against
contamination, exerts control to fight disease and epidemics, and establishes supply
routes for medicine, consumables, clothing and blankets.

Agents of relief culture salvage, or direct salvaging of materials, erect temporary

shelters, find alternative accommodation, rebuild repairable dwellings, and erect
temporary shelters.

Like a doctor who only sees his patient when he is ill, and never in full bloom of health,
the relief culture witnesses the victim cultures in an unrepresentative state - at its
weakest, most helpless, least effective.

At time of impact, indigenous culture suffers stresses that change it to a state of a victim
cutler. Immediately afterwards it is in a transformed state, but also subject to additional
strains of accepting alien but in itself atypical of relief-culture solutions to its problems.

Indigenous culture is prone to double trauma: traumatic experience of disaster, and

having an external body assume responsibility for its welfare and shelter - humiliating
experience which can do irreparable damage to cohesion of social system.

One of the biggest challenges towards this long-term rehabilitation is the provision of
homes, and not houses. 'House is denotative, whereas 'home' is connotative. A house or
small dwelling describes the structure whereas the home is symbolic of the lives spent
within it. Home is connotative of the deep structures of a social system, and how these
are reflected in the family's relationship to the domestic space it occupies. (Oliver 2011)

In indigenous culture, the bond between deep structures of society and their expression
in house form is very close.

Thus vernacular architecture has a bearing, as shelter provision is alien to large

population of the world's social systems. Dwelling are not provided for, they are built by.
The indigenous culture resolves their own over a long period of time. One of the

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advantages of temporary structure is that it matches the temporary nature of the post-
disaster period.

The prevalence of rectangular plans like western forms can be seen as a manifestation of
the tendency of victim cultures to imitate the facts of the relief culture on whom they
depend or an expression of victim culture’s disillusion with indigenous capacity to cope
with a major disaster.

Any proposal as for permanent shelter provision in disaster areas should be advanced
with extreme caution. One can hope that with informed research and sensitive design,
the gap between relief culture, victim culture and indigenous culture can be effectively
narrowed.

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2.8 DISASTER AS A LEVERAGE POINT

In disaster situations, all assumptions are challenged. When extreme weather

turns into disaster, there are some vulnerabilities in the way the community is
run that led to them being incapable of surviving it. Disasters present a unique
opportunity to analyses the direction of the community, and build resilience to
future events of a similar nature.

Leverage points

Leverage points are places in a system where a small change can lead to a large
shift. It allows changes in structure that can have maximum impact with
relatively less input as compared to other points in the future.

A disaster situation is one such leverage point, as it allows re-evaluation of

priorities. Any good analysis of disaster will try to find out what caused the
system to reach such that state in the first place.

One way of ensuring that a time-crunch isn't a hindrance in the search for the
right solutions, is to establish a framework that allows for longer-term analysis
which can be readily implemented at short notice. For that, we try to look at
systems analysis.

If a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing,
then that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution
destroys a government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced
that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves. . . .

Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

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Intervenor-Burden Shift Addiction Trap

This problem can arise when a system has been hit by an unexpected attack and
the natural process of correction is unable to repair itself. In such a situation, an
intervener can potentially step in and alleviate the system. However, the root
cause is not attacked, and the original problem comes back after some time.
(Meadows 2008)

This intervention by the intervener undermines the ability of the system to

maintain itself, and that capacity may totally lose itself due to atrophication.
When that happens, more of the same is required, and the system becomes
addicted to these bailouts.

Unfortunately, the intervener cannot predict this dependence and addiction.

Breaking any addiction requires suffering for the system, where it finally takes on
the actual state, which is usually deteriorated than before; the system needs to
take actions that the addictions allowed it to avoid.

The best way to avoid this trap is to not get into it. The intervener should attempt
to enhance the system's own ability to fix it, and then remove himself from the
equation as quickly as possible.

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2.3 BUILDING CAPACITIES AND REDUCING VULNERABILITIES

Growth is the process of building capacities and reducing vulnerabilities. This is

looked at in a framework of Physical/Material, Social/Organisational, and
Motivational/Attitudinal. A society’s belief in its own ability to handle problems
is as important in regeneration as the availability of material or finance.

Any community develops some characteristics over time that aid its ability to
maintain itself` and some characteristics that throw roadblocks in the process of
development. F or the purposes of this analysis, we shall refer to them as
capabilities and vulnerabilities.

Development is the process by which vulnerabilities are reduced and capacities

are increased.

Vulnerabilities become most obvious in times of disaster, and are what are
addressed by short-term thinking. But one must also look at the capabilities, and
support it in order that the capabilities supersede the vulnerabilities.

A crisis can turn into full-blown disaster when the problems created outstrip the
capacity to cope.

Factors involved:

a. Physical/Material: These are the most apparent in the aftermath of a

disaster. Capabilities here would be productive resources and skills. If a
community has sufficient capability, they will try to find out what faults led to the
disaster, while vulnerabilities would make them pose as helpless victims.

b. Socio-organisational: These refer to the relationships people in the

community have with each other. In capabilities, these form coping systems
where they help each other out and try and solve the problem. Vulnerabilities
arise when there is conflict or prejudice in a society.

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c. Motivational/Attitudinal: These refer to the belief that a community has in
itself to affect change. A vulnerable community would become fatalistic or
dependent.

This analysis provides an opportunity to find out vulnerabilities that were o

deliver l previously not apparent. In the specific case of disaster, one can see
manifestations of this in food and medical care.

Scenarios of descending dependence:

Food Medical care

Feed locals through aid boxes Treat using western MDs

Use village distribution system Local medics treat severe cases

Use village distribution system Local health educators train mothers

The foundation of this can be achieved by setting in place a framework of

Community Based Disaster Management, or CBDM in short. The evolution of
community based processes can be traced back to the Great Hanshin Awaji
Earthquake of 1995. In the wake of this tragedy, the Hyogo Framework for Action
was adopted in 2005 by the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. It
promotes CBDM as one of the key lessons learnt from past disasters.

A community is the best informant of their surroundings, opportunities and

constraints. These may include knowledge on disaster warning signs, locally safe
and vulnerable areas, experience of past disasters as well as traditional wisdom
which plays an important role during, after, and before disasters.

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Hence, the role of community is seen as vital in risk reduction process:

1. A high level of disaster preparedness amongst community reduces disaster

impacts.
2. An active community helps to save, evacuate and mobilize people to safe
shelters or locations, before external aid arrives.
3. An active and organized community proves to be instrumental in organizing
resources required for basic survival like food, clothing and shelter after a
disaster.

In case of disasters, communities have more to lose because they are the ones
who are directly hit by disasters. They are the first ones to become vulnerable to
the effects of such hazardous events. At the same time, the communities stand to
gain when they can reduce the impact of disaster themselves. CBDM empowers
the community to address the root causes of vulnerabilities by transforming
social, economic and political structures.

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2.4 GROWTH STABILITY AND DEVELOPMENTAL FLEXIBILITY

One of the reasons cited for the effects of the Uttarakhand floods of 2013 being so
severe was the unchecked growth due to tourism and pilgrimage. Here, we will
look at the potential of conflict between the processes of growth and
development, where one is self-propelled, while the other is controlled.

Man-made snowballing of extreme weather events

The event of flash-flooding in Uttarakhand in Jul 2013, was an extreme weather

event in that a glacier rupturing under pressure from the river, leading to
cloudburst on Kedarnath.

However, the extreme pressure on Kedarnath in the summer months due to its
presence as a pilgrimage site led to much more landslide-prone landscape than it
would have been otherwise.

Change brought about by slow introduction of alternative methods – corrugated

iron instead of thatch, may affect aesthetic qualities and may make it micro-
climactically less agreeable.

Dramatic changes may be motivated by many reasons – more efficient use of

lands resources, appropriation of lands to open up, political desire to stabilize a
population, and so on.

Notion of development being a process of transition from peasant to

industrialized economy is a relatively recent one.

Post WW II, developing countries bolstered with the support of of countries with
advanced tech in power blocs in both east and west, but became dependent on
IMF and aid of major powers.

By the 70s, definition of development shifted from emphasis on income per head
to elimination of poverty and unemployment. In struggle to reduce poverty and

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inequality, loans from International Bank for Reconstruction and Development –
the World Bank – were used to improve water supply for sanitization, and to
upgrade housing. World Bank imposes conditions on projects it finances, and
intervenes to ensure that they are met.

External intervention has become commonplace of development, meaning

involvement of planners and architects from ‘advanced nation ions’ in housing,
resettlement projects and disaster relief. ‘Intervention’ means to come between –
it has somehow acquired a benign association, but dictionary meaning is a
reminder of intrusive nature of architectural design intervention in development
context.

Among diverse situations of architectural intervention, the most dramatic, most

immediate and widely sanctioned is that of post-disaster housing. It has become
a standard exercise in schools of architecture to design an ‘emergency shelter’,
where temporary prefabricated/rapidly assembled units that can be flown in
immediately as a disaster occurs. To architects, these are a desirable
demonstration of their potential to contribute to solutions of world problems.

Temporary shelters always become permanent ones; but as they are designed for
short-term use they rapidly deteriorate, exacerbating housing difficulties. In
cases where they have been designed for long-term use, the very nature of mass
solutions capable of being delivered rapidly to any place in earth where disaster
occurs militates against their appropriateness to any specific geographic or
cultural context.

First world housing is largely based on the concept of dwelling as a consumer

product and marketable commodity; the separation of owner and builder is
assumed. Designers believe that that the housing can be designed by pragmatic
synthesis of available site, practical structural considerations, provision of basic
utilities, and meeting of legal requirements. From such a position the cultural
dimension is of no significance, and the intended owners of the building play no
part in its design or construction.

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So extensive has this notion of intervention become that little attention is paid to
capacity of stricken communities to cope with their own recovery, or to rebuild
after a disaster. In particular, the motivation to invest in new building the values
of pre-disaster tradition has been ignored

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2.5 EMERGENCE AND ROOTEDNESS: SELF REPAIR

Here we question the amount of intervention that is healthy to a system, and how
beyond a critical point enforcement of external ideologies might cause the system
to lose the ability to generate order from within, a kind of order that is more
organic and therefore resilient.

Regenerative Design:

We can look at design in gradually increasing levels of wholeness. The root of the
current design practices lies in the industrial revolution, which assumed
unlimited material resource, and an emphasis on maximum efficiency of human
resources.

Design decisions were severed from ecological consequences. This is in stark

contrast to the pattern of biological evolution, where increasingly complex
networks lead to unique ecosystems, each adapted to local conditions.

Evolution in design thinking happen whenever we encounter the limits of

wholeness to deliver sustainability.

Green design seeks to harmonise the services within a building, while integrative
design seeks to see the building and site as a whole. Ecological design minimized
environmentally destructive impact by integrating with living processes. It grows
from and reflects the natural systems of a particular place. The limitation of this
approach is that it implicitly accepts a slow but eventual rate of destruction.

Regenerative design seeks not only to do no harm, but to initiate process that
replaces degeneration from past practises.

Three key ideas of this movement are –

1. Radical change for the better

2. Creation of new spirit

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3. Returning energy to source

It means it's not just about harvesting wood sustainably, but also to live with
forests in such a manner that they co-evolve.

Preservation of complexity

There seems to be a warning against making judgments on visual evidence alone.

There is not a relationship to be made between architectural quality and cultural
presence - our aesthetic preferences or prejudices are not a reliable measure of
what is important within the vernacular context. Ultimately, the principal
qualities that should be the guiding principles in design of post-disaster
communities must be those of the affected communities.

Training in ascertaining of these in post-disaster period is necessary for members

of relief cultures.

Constructive dialogue between designers and communities are essential for

acceptability of post-disaster housing; community participation may contribute
to the alleviation of the double trauma for disaster victims.

In the face of onslaught of social, technological, educational and economic

changes that they had to meet their needs, in addition to those of habitation and
settlement, there had been a resolute dependence of cultural constants, which
helped them to cope. This persistence of vernacular context in process of change
found expression in adaption of the provided houses to their needs.

One of the problems with development today is that nature is counted as income,
and not capital. (Schumacher 1973) If we do in fact consider it to be capital, our
rates of growth will reduce significantly.

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 2.6 ARCHITECT: BUILDER OF JUST BUILDINGS?

The architect is not just a draftsman of drawings, but also a builder of

communities. He brings unique qualities of vision, social representation and
management that are critical when handling a disaster.

1. Capacity: In addition to erecting structures, the architect is also a chief of-

construction (as can be seen from the word itself which roughly translates to
'master builder'). He is used to maximising available resources, saving them for
helping the community overall.

2. Representation: In his analysis, the architect is used to talking to locals and

taking surveys, and therefore can act as a negotiator and advocate for the
community he is working with. He can enable them to act for themselves by
presenting their side of the story.

3. Vision: With the tools of representation at his disposal, the architect can provide
the desperate with a realistic yet uplifting version of the future, providing hope
when it is in short supply.

“The question is that architecture needs to be rethought, and what are the elements of
architecture that could be useful ... but architecture for whom, with whom, doing what?
If you conceive shelter or housing as just a delivery then you may not need an architect”

(Cage, Hingorani, Jopling and Parker, 2011)

Architecture combines technical, practical and management skills that are all required
in the field. It is a core discipline that can be built on with experience and further
training for effective practice within the sector. Among the skills that an architect
develops are those of being a creative thinker, working as part of a multidisciplinary
team and executing construction projects. These skills are relevant in the shelter sector

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3.1 CONCLUSION:

There is no such thing as instant, immediate rehabilitation. Regeneration is a

long term process of asset creation that cannot ride roughshod over decades or
even centuries of prior planning. We must recognise that the truly sustainable
forces of communities are human will and aspiration. A democratic and
community based form of supported self-regeneration is the way forward.
Incremental upgrades that repair and retrofit are thus more desirable, as they
help people maintain a link with what they had.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Articles:

http://www.di.net/articles/regenerative-design-sustainable-designs-coming-
revolution/

http://www.regenerativedesign.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_design

http://forbesindia.com/article/close-range/uttarakhand-disaster-is-a-wakeup-call-rk-
pachauri/35719/1

http://www.tehelka.com/uttarakhand-a-model-of-disaster/

Publications:

Cage, Hingorani, Jopling and Parker; Building relevance: post-disaster shelter and the
role of the building professional by Oxford Brookes University

Gupta, Manu; Building Resilience Through Community Lifelines by SEEDS Delhi, 2009

Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-15; by International Strategy for Disaster Reduction,
2005

Gupta, Manu; Community as First Responder by SEEDS Delhi, 2009

Books:

Meadows, Donella H - Thinking in Systems, A Primer by Sustainability Institute, 2008

Aquilino, Marie J - Beyond Shelter: Architecture and Human Dignity; Metropolis Books,
2011

Sinclair, Cameron - Design Like You Give A Damn. Architecture for Humanity. 2006

Woodrow and Anderson - Rising from the Ashes: Development Strategies in Times of
Disaster. IT Publications, 1998

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Oliver, Paul - Built to Meet Needs: Cultural Issues in Vernacular Architecture by
Architectural Press, 2006

Schumacher, EF – Small is Beautiful by HarperCollins, 1973

Wheatley & Kellner-Rogers – A Simpler Way by Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1996

Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Humanitarian Response by Sphere

Project, 2011

Global Risks 2013: Eight Edition by World Economic Forum, 2013

Dissertations:

Autif, SM (1995). Rehabilitative Processes in Earthquake Affected Areas of Marathwada.

SA1026, SPAL.

Thesis:

Neis, Hajo PhD; REGENERATIVE DESIGN Redesigning and Rebuilding Cities, Towns,
Neighborhoods Streets, Buildings and Gardens, Destroyed by War, Terrorism, Natural
Disaster, and Human Failure by - University of Oregon Portland, 2013

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 INTERVIEW #1: KIRAN CHATURVEDI, FOUNDER, BIRDS & BEYOND

Kiran Chaturvedi is a trained sociologist who runs an eco-tourism lodge in the

Garhwal hills of Uttarakhand. She lived just a few kilometers close to the recent
Uttarakhand floods. She established Birds & Beyond six years ago, and is intimately
familiar with the nature of community and built form of the area, having herself built
a house there.

1. What do you think could have been done to prevent the Uttarakhand
flash floods from causing such devastating damage?

First thing to note is that for four consecutive days there was unrelenting rainfall,
with almost zero visibility outside. At that moment, all of the locals refused to go
out of the town, as they knew this was dangerous weather.

Tourists however, were ushered further onward because of greed on the part of
proprietors in the tourism industry. Every place has a population capacity that it
can support, and in times of pilgrimage this capacity is exceeded.

The locals build with brick and RCC, with flat roofs that make no sense when it
snows. This is not because they actively shun local materials, but actually due to
the fact that there is hardly any stone to build from. Almost all of the stone gets
used up in retaining walls.

The locals don’t have any knowhow of construction and the risks involved, which
leads them to locations that may be vulnerable. One can only hope that they learn
from crises like this and start becoming more discerning as to where they build.

2. What is your opinion of immediate-recovery measures taken in in the

aftermath of the Uttarakhand earthquake?

The first response was from concerned locals, who got together informally-
organised teams and tried to use rubble from destruction to create shelters.

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 Government response was very slow, most of the work had been finished by the
time they came. When I asked around about the conditions of the locals whose
houses had been hit, they told me that they had written off the next 10 years to
recovery.

3. How did the local culture react to external agencies coming in to

provide aid?

Many locals were just waiting for aid to come in and help them out. Immediately
after the disaster, there was some help. But no one is around to look after their
long-term rehabilitation.

The locals of the village I was staying close to, seemed to cope fine. This village is
slightly remote from the main commercial centres, and something I noticed was
that they lived with a close connection to nature, which seems to be lost on
external agencies who come in with their modern solutions.

Before the water from the dam overflowed spectacularly, there were signs of
debris coming into the river that the locals heeded to. They actively encouraged
the tourists near the river to evacuate and stay with them in my village. The
animals that they owned had also moved upstream. However, the tourists refused
to budge, and that is where a lot of lives were lost.

4. Many have blamed unchecked growth in the region in response to

pilgrimage to Kedarnath as a major factor in the disaster. What is
your opinion on this?

The means of sustenance for the locals is primarily agriculture. They work very
hard, and all they have to show for it is just enough food to feed themselves.
When you compare this with the returns from tourism, it is hard to judge them
for getting their heads turned.

The concept of pilgrimage itself has been corrupted because it’s meant to be a
spiritual journey, with suffering and engagement with elements along the way
that is meant to give them realizations about their lives. Instead, when you bring
helicopters and luxury hotels into the mix, it becomes just another industry.

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 The locals need more avenues of earning a living. Here, the element of teaching is
under-utilised. If one teaches them skills, then they can use their culture to their
advantage and contribute unique products to the economy.

5. What skills can an architect bring to disaster-hit situations?

When one of talks of building closely with nature, we cannot ignore the fact
that traditional material is very limited in supply. Therefore the speed of
availability is and construction that modern materials provide cannot be
ignored.

What the architect can do is bridge the gap between these two kinds of
materials, create composites that incorporate as much indigenous materials
as possible. Such as, help create thatched roofs that use something other than
slate, which is virtually finished in the region.

In terms of recovery, the architect can work out some sort of temporary
shelter that provides for the community while longer-terms solutions are
built.

In conjunction with building hybrid materials, there is a requirement of

teaching good building skills, as the labor don’t understand the material they
are working with.

Many of the locals express surprise at why one would want to live in a
traditional house. There is a sense of inferiority that they feel about their
building methods. If they can be shown why their methods are appropriate,
then they might be slower to adopt outside methods.

Also, there is very little correspondence between the social and technical
organizations. The architect is someone who can bring both sides together.

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