Shelter after disaster: Facts and figures

Several small changes were made to traditional house designs: earthen walls were stabilised and strengthened with lime — a cheap, local material that massively improves water-resistance and reduces the environmental impact of the building process; wider roofs were built, with protruding eaves to pro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inSciDev.net - Environment
Main Author Monica Wolfe Murray
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford 10.11.2015
Subjects
Case studies
Construction materials
Cost control
Disasters
Earth
Environmental impact
Habitats
Houses
Housing
Humanitarianism
Innovations
Lime
Low income groups
Shelters
Slums
Timber
Trends
Water resistance
World population
Pakistan
United States > US
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Summary:Several small changes were made to traditional house designs: earthen walls were stabilised and strengthened with lime — a cheap, local material that massively improves water-resistance and reduces the environmental impact of the building process; wider roofs were built, with protruding eaves to protect the walls from the rain; the floor level was raised by building a ‘toe’ from earth and lime — which offered protection from stagnating water. New designs and technologies At the other end of the spectrum, housing experts and businesses propose new designs, construction materials and technologies to respond to shelter crises in resource-poor countries. 1] World population prospects: the 2015 revision, key findings and advance tables. (UN, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2015) [2] Financing urban shelter (UN-Habitat, 2005) [3] Housing and slum upgrading (UN-Habitat, 2005) [4] Humanitarian Shelter Working Group Recovery shelter guidelines (Shelter Cluster, 2006) [5] Improved shelters for responding to floods in Pakistan (ARUP, 2014) [6] Shelter projects 2013-2014 (IFRC, UN-Habitat and UNHCR, 2014) [7] Arif Hasan and others Planning for high density in low-income settlements: four case studies from Karachi.