Home Environments of Disaster Relief Housing

Nikoomanesh, Keeven, Mater, Trevizo

What makes a house a home?

Home environments of disaster relief housing ARCH 630 Kraus

Nikoomanesh, Keeven, Mater, Trevizo

When man first secured branch to branch and raised a roof over his head, he created the primogenial home. This hut sheltered him from the sun and shielded him from the rain, protective functions that make homes necessary for human physical need (Laugier 143). The hut is a manifestation of human psychological needs for shelter from the stressors of the environment. All homes today mimic that archetypal form. Over time, homes have become places of recovery. Homes are protective, not only from the exterior elements of nature, but to the stressful encounters of everyday life. Faced with the continual stressors of daily life in the public environment, one returns home to recover.

The cross-cultural archetype of the primitive hut provides some evidence that people desire spaces that feel protective, but not altogether isolative of the natural world. There is a desire to be connected to our surroundings, but also be embraced and secured by a familiar enclosure. Childhood memories may play a leading role in the ultimate perception of a home as a space to retreat. For children, these memories do not linger on the architectural formalities of the space, but rather emphasize the importance of the feelings generated by the space (Pallasmaa 34). Children tend to have a stronger connection to the transcendental qualities of spaces, and are more affected by subtleties of light, sound, and ambiance. During the developmental years, children become attached to their environment through experiences which allows a house to become a protective space of retreat. Not only is childhood perception a key to understanding the development of relief housing design, it is also an indicator of how the adult psyche responds to the environment. Architecture is responsible for creating

Nikoomanesh, Keeven, Mater, Trevizo

experiences, “confronting a building rather than the facade... the act of entering and not simply the frame of the door, of looking in or out of a window, rather than the window itself� (Pallasmaa 35). Through these lived moments, people establish homes for themselves.

But, what happens when a person’s home is destroyed and taken away? The state of permanence of all buildings exists alongside the continual flux of nature.

Landslides cause buildings to topple, earthquakes level towns, and hurricanes and floods submerge entire cities. Disaster victims have their possessions torn away--their photographs, furniture, family heirlooms, and memories all reduce to an irreparable pile of landfill-ready rubbish. In this fragile psychological state, they also discover that they lost their protective huts; their familiar recovery places are no longer available to bring them relief, and instead they feel homeless and scared. Many families turn to governmental and philanthropic aid to help them restart in a new, transitional place.

Being relocated to an unfamiliar space is discomforting in itself, but being faced with the challenge of adapting to a new flexible living arrangement is an arduous undertaking. There is a possibility that the architecture of these homes can exploit the transcendental qualities that create spaces to ease the transition of people from the psychological aftereffects of disaster to a state of recovery. This can be accomplished by studying the phenomenology of home environments and applying that research to the design of disaster relief housing. These places can do more than simply function as houses, they can feel like homes. Architects should evaluate phenomenological properties in the designs of relief housing in order to find creative solutions that

Nikoomanesh, Keeven, Mater, Trevizo

improve the quality of life of displaced persons. Such buildings will alleviate building related stress by creating environments that feel like home, while being cognizant of the constraints of limited time and modest budgets.

Designing a rehabilitative environment for people enduring the emotional crisis of losing their home is no easy task when coupled with the challenges of a compressed timeline and exiguous budget. Unforeseeable acts of God allow little to no time to prepare for the demands of the aftermath. In these instances, the loss of a house requires an immediate shelter, which is usually found in accommodative community buildings such as gymnasiums or worship centers with spaces large enough for the number of affected families. In the case of Hurricane Katrina on August 23, 2005, which most severely affected the New Orleans area due to the flooding of Lake Pontchartrain, the local football stadium was utilized to temporarily house and provide services for the affected. The initial appreciation for the availability of these communal spaces wears off quickly, as families yearn for privacy and a chance to emotionally recover. Temporary housing must be completed as quickly as possible, timeframes ranging within days, weeks, or a few months. Twenty-seven days after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, 218,114 families had applied for temporary housing assistance; at that point housing trailers had been provided for less than two-thousand families, and it took several months to meet the demand (FEMA). Having lost many of their assets, victims who cannot afford to move away from the site of the disaster must be provided with affordable housing options. Benefactors and governmental grants provide funding for relief housing, but the demand of the sheer number of victims often far surpasses the amount of donations

Nikoomanesh, Keeven, Mater, Trevizo

received. These constraints tend to result in houses that are shoddily assembled and fashioned of low-quality material. Victims of Katrina can attest to this. Forty-thousand long-term residents of FEMA trailers were affected by degradation of formaldehyde, which remained largely undiscovered until three years after the hurricane, due to the negligence of the designer in the material selection of the trailers (FEMA). Though pressed by constraints of time and money, it is the responsibility of the architect to ensure the health and safety of the residents through creative design solution to these situations.

Homes can be perceived as both physical shelters and spaces that provide meaningful, emotional experiences. When families are forced to relocate due to natural disasters, it is often hard for them to form emotional connections to relief houses because of a lack of integration to self-identity. “Our home and domicile are integrated with our self-identity; they become part of our own body and being” (Pallasmaa 37). A new house does not have the same memories or experiences that settled homes are filled with. People become attached to their homes because of the specific familiarities and traditions they associate them with. Although new traditions are stimulating and provide the opportunity for new experiences, there will always be a sentimental attachment to the memories people have of their previous homes, especially in the case of displacement due to natural disasters. This concept coincides with Oswald and Wahl’s idea that “the meaning of home on the most general level links the person with his or her environment” (Oswald 22). People want to feel an attachment to the physical space they are living in.

Nikoomanesh, Keeven, Mater, Trevizo

The concept of what makes a house a home is commonly questioned. In the case of displaced persons, the goal may be to create an environment that mimics the qualities of their previous home environment. Allowing flexibility in the design of relief homes may help individuals to connect with their environment by creating a strong sense of identity between the users and the temporary house. It may be even more effective to allow residents to have a hand in the construction process. As seen in the transitional homes built in Sri Lanka following the tsunami of 2004, the affected families were responsible for building their relief homes alongside the homes of their friends and families. This allowed them to imprint their individual identities in to the buildings and create a stronger bond with both their neighbors and their new homes. Maintaining a strong sense of community is a key element in developing successful relief housing complexes. In order to recover, those affected by the natural disaster rely on a strong and supportive network of family and friends (Frtiz Institute 7). Building relief housing with close proximity to family and friends can help to expedite the recovery process and create environments that feel more like home. Being able to have a hand in building relief homes helps to establish a sense of control, pride, and ownership. In the Sri Lanka relief complex, the ability for residents to take part in building was made possible by the simplified form and kit of parts design. By using materials that could be both assembled and disassembled easily, they were able to raise the homes quickly. The design also allowed for the reuse of materials after dismantling the shelters when the families were able to return to their homes after reparations were made (Architecture for Humanity 98). Allowing disaster victims to have a sense of control over building environments can

Nikoomanesh, Keeven, Mater, Trevizo

foster stronger feelings of pride and ownership of temporary housing. Whether in actual construction or in the flexibility of the design, involvement can begin to replace negative feelings caused by displacement.

Memories constitute much of the attachment to home environments. The home embraces its overall physical structure, as a territory, as self and self-identity, and as a sociocultural unit (Oswald 27). Acoustics, smell, and taste, aside from visual elements, all allow one to realize the actuality of being in a particular space, which in this case is their former home. From the sound of trees blowing in the wind in the backyard, to the sound of kids playing in the park just down the block. All of the homes that were taken away in the devastation of a natural disaster had their own database of sound memories, interwoven with the building fabric (Pallasmaa 36). Memory resides in the smallest part of our homes, especially those we interact with each day. The front door of a home is one such moment. In the recognition of the shape of the door handle, the skin reads the weight, density, texture and temperature. Entering the house, there is an association with that door handle which creates a relationship to the “taste� of the building, correlating what the visitor sees and smells (Pallasmaa 36). These are the experiential moments that architects must strive to achieve when designing relief housing.

Architects should design relief housing that has positive phenomenological qualities that ease the transition of displaced persons into temporary environments.

Building design can alleviate stress by emphasizing the psychological comfort of the user while also finding creative solutions to mitigate cost and expedite building. After

Nikoomanesh, Keeven, Mater, Trevizo

experiencing a natural disaster, victims cannot merely resume normal patterns of life.

Once the storm has passed, families affected by the disaster are forced to reconstruct their lives. Relief housing provides shelter for displaced persons, but “many continue to struggle to meet basic needs� for as many as two years post-disaster, and are left with mental health needs that are largely unmet (Kilmer 47). They rely on relief housing to regain stability and a sense of safety. This struggle is the result of having a house that does not provide the comforts of a home. Relief housing, as the name suggests, should be a place that is able to foster feelings of relief.

Nikoomanesh, Keeven, Mater, Trevizo

Works Cited Architecture for Humanity, ed. Design like You Give a Damn: Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Crises. New York, NY: Metropolis, 2006. 94-99. Print.

FEMA. “Hurricane Katrina Update.” Federal Emergency Management Agency. 1604-025.

19 09 2005. Web. 27 Sep. 2012.

FEMA. “Katrina/Rita Housing Facts.” Federal Emergency Management Agency. HQ-08008. 29 01 2008. Web. 27 Sep. 2012.

Fritz Institute. “Hurricane Katrina: Perceptions of the Affected.” Fritz Institute. Harris Interactive, 2006. 2-9. <www.fritzinstitute.org>.

Juhani, Pallasmaa. "An Architecture of the Seven Senses." The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses. Chichester: Wiley, 2005. 27-37. Print.

Kilmer, Ryan P. Ryan P. Kilmer, Gil-Rivas, Virginia Virginia Gil-Rivas., (2010).Helping families and communities recover from disaster: Lessons learned from hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association.

Laugier, Marc-Antoine. "Essay on Architecture." 1753. Architectural Theory. Vol. 1.

Malden: Blackwell, 2006. 141-46. Print.

Norberg-Schulz, Christian. "The Phenomenon of Place." 1976. Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology of Architectural Theory. New York, New York: Princeton Architectural, 1996. 412-28. Print.

Oswald, Frank, and Hans-Werner Wahl. "Chapter 2: Dimensions of the Meaning of Home in Later Life." Home and Identity in Late Life. Ed. Graham D. Rowles and Habib Chaudhury. New York: Springer, 2005. 21-45. Print.

Stanley, D. S.Toward a poetics of home: A phenomenological approach toward understanding living in public housing. Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering, 3225.

Withagen, Rob. (2011) Affordances can invite behavior: Reconsidering the relationship between affordances and agency. New Ideas in Psychology. 30(2). 250-258.