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Design and Planning of Post-Disaster Temporary Housing: Design and Planning of Post-Disaster Temporary Housing

Design and Planning of Post-Disaster Temporary Housing
Design and Planning of Post-Disaster Temporary Housing
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  1. Design and Planning of Post-Disaster Temporary Housing: Cultural and Lived Experience Aspects

Design and Planning of Post-Disaster Temporary Housing: Cultural and Lived Experience Aspects

Sanjoy Mazumdar (The University of California, Irvine)
Shunsuke Itoh (Tokyo Denki University)

Disasters disrupting lives and destroying homes is fairly common in some places. Here our focus is on temporary housing (TH) that was provided in the Tohoku region in Japan, following the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami. A naturalistic field research (participant observation) study was conducted involving visits to several TH sites, observations, and unstructured open-ended in-depth interviews. This research began in 2015 August and is ongoing. Analysis of the data collected was done from the point of view of understanding lived experience and cultural aspects.

Victims of disasters living in TH have a drastically changed life. Assigned to a particular TH site and unit a resident may be separated from family, friends, and people from the same village, neighborhood, town, or city. Mostly located in vacant available land away from city centers and shopping, at the TH they experienced inconveniences in shopping for food and essentials. As making modifications to the units was prohibited, many depended on the municipality to have permitted repairs done, whereas some nonetheless made alterations or additions to the units.

The design of the units made living a culturally appropriate life difficult. The units were too small, had inadequate storage for articles they had to acquire, their design disallowed inviting guests for tea and socializing, and made cooking several favorite cultural foods difficult. Aural and visual privacy were minimized by the size, layout and nature of construction. There was no space for religion - even a small altar. These features were especially problematic in the disaster- stricken areas where most victims had been accustomed to living in detached houses with several rooms. These and other features and difficulties will be described.

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Resilience: Abstracts
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 | Proceedings of the Environmental Design Research Association 50th Conference
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