Improving Sustainability and Cultural Integration in Post-Disaster Temporary Housing

Natural disasters have drastically increased over the last decades causing extensive material and non-material damages. The destruction of houses and the increasing number of homeless are some of the most visible effects of post-disaster scenarios. Housing is one of the people‟s most important needs and it is essential for their well-being. After a disaster, it is crucial to supply temporary accommodation in order to provide survivors with comfort, protection, and privacy until they have permanent houses. Temporary housing is, therefore, 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, especially after large-scale disasters, temporary housing as a fast solution adopted in emergency situations has not always proved to be an effective option. Moreover, temporary housing has been greatly criticized mainly for being unsustainable, and culturally inadequate to local contexts. Through a literature review and case studies, the research points out the main causes of problems in temporary housing units. It also discusses possible solutions to overcome or minimize these problems, offering recommendations based on concepts that have proved to be effective in previous studies. The recommendations focus on useful concepts in the development of more sustainable, locally sensitive and culturally integrated solutions. It is 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.