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| Opportunities & Exposures: Architecture |
Shelter Skelter
Cameron Sinclair
12/01/2005
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In the wake of last winter’s Asian tsunami and the recent hurricane
catastrophes in the U.S., we must ask ourselves: What if sustainable,
renewable—not just basic—shelter were our benchmark for success in responding to
disasters?
The tsunami hit 12 countries and forced 4 million from their
homes. Hurricane Katrina displaced a million residents. Many of us who devote
ourselves to relief and reconstruction have never seen suffering on this scale.
Even as billions of dollars stream into our agencies, the background murmur is
worrisome: How can we respond effectively and responsibly to such calamity?
In the aftermath of the tsunami, many relief agencies, faced with so much
suffering and with pressure from donors to get something done, built the most
basic temporary structures to provide short-term shelter, rather than working
with communities to create long-term, sustainable habitats—sometimes at the
expense of those who needed the most help.
In 1999, I cofounded a small
not-for-profit, Architecture for Humanity, which seeks architectural solutions
to humanitarian crises. Over the past six years, we’ve been involved in a number
of projects, such as the development of mobile health clinics to combat HIV/AIDS
in Africa.
We have seen thousands of pragmatic ideas for housing,
infrastructure and sanitation projects from every corner of the globe. But with
little funding, most have never made it off the drawing board, and only a
handful have been implemented. Not one of these solutions has been scaled to the
point where it has made a real difference. Yet every time disaster strikes, our
office receives hundreds of requests for help. Without the means to evaluate and
test these ideas, we risk exacerbating problems if we implement them during
emergencies. Months after TV crews left Sri Lanka, children are still being
taught under plastic tarps, waterborne diseases have spread through camps
because of poor sanitation, and refugees have begun to deforest surrounding land
for building materials. If we are serious about creating sustainable renewal in
disaster zones, we need to introduce innovative solutions.
Next
year, Architecture for Humanity and its partners will launch Rethinking Tent
City, an international challenge to the creative world to examine ways to
improve these settlements. But we also need new ways to distribute and implement
these ideas where they are needed most. By giving away these ideas, we may be
able to put access to humane shelter, sanitation, health care and education in
reach of millions now excluded from them.
Today there is no resource of proven design ideas that
can be freely distributed for nongovernment organizations to use, adapt and
implement in the field. Architecture for Humanity is in the initial stages of
developing the Open Source Architecture Network, an online database of
sustainable designs that can be used to respond to real-world situations. Using
the network, a relief group responding to flooding in China could identify past
projects dealing with flood zones, built or not, in areas with similar climactic
and geographical issues. Then they could connect with an experienced design team
to help tackle their situation with the benefit of shared insight.
Of
course, designers face a difficult choice in distributing their work freely so
that it can be used for the greater good while trying to protect it from being
exploited by others. This is where the work of a new system of intellectual
property rights, Creative Commons, and the idea of a “developing nations
license,” comes into play. We are working with Creative Commons to refine use
licenses that not only allow designers to determine the level of copyright for
their work, but also provide protection in the developed world. International
treaties would assure such agreements are enforceable almost anywhere.
The next 30 years of humanitarian relief must focus on community
engagement and sustainable renewal, not plastic tarps. The reconstruction and
design communities need to support innovative ideas and advocate for them both
locally and with funders. New avenues for collaboration need to be established,
and new systems of intellectual property protection devised that will let
designers protect their interests while meeting the needs of millions—perhaps
billions—for shelter, sanitation and, ultimately, a secure economic future.
Cameron Sinclair is
executive director of Architecture for Humanity
and a contributing writer for www.worldchanging.com. |  |
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