Ground Rules in Humanitarian Design

Ground Rules in Humanitarian Design establishes essential foundations for thinking about humanitarian design and its role in global change. Outlining a vital framework for designing for impoverished and disaster-stricken communities, this informative guide explores the integration of culture, art, architecture, economy, ecology, health, and education. Experts on land, health, water, housing, education, and planning weigh in with best practices and critical considerations during the design process, and discussion of the environmental considerations and local materials/skills will broaden your understanding of this nuanced specialty. Richly illustrated, this guide combines graphic documentation of projects, maps, and data-tracking developments from Asia, Africa, and the Americas to underscore the complexities of this emerging and evolving field.

The ambition to provide humanitarian architecture for areas in acute need is driving design innovation worldwide among both practitioners and educators. This book provides an indispensable resource for those engaged in the search for the sustainable inclusion of cultural code and compassion as a technology for design innovation.

• Learn how to approach the problem of humanitarian design
• Understand the cultural factors that play into development
• Develop a new framework for planning post-disaster design
• See how humanitarian design is pushing the industry forward

While still in college, students are being given the opportunity to directly participate in programmes that provide vital facilities for communities abroad. While these international initiatives remain largely ad hoc, this book provides parameters for engagement and establishes best practices for approaching these projects with a global perspective. With expert insight and practical strategies on the ground, Ground Rules in Humanitarian Design is an essential resource for architects at any level.

Alice Min Soo Chun is assistant professor of design and material culture at Parsons The New School for Design, with a focus on material technology and renewable energy. She is CEO and president of FAARM, a non-profit organisation, dedicated to humanitarian design efforts worldwide and co-founder of Solight Design, a design startup in New York City. She has taught architecture at Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Arizona, and has been building award-winning community outreach projects. Her work has been published in the New York Times, Architectural Record, Dwell and the Journal of Architectural Education, the Herald Tribune and the New York Observer.

Irene Brisson is a designer and educator interested in the development and implementation of equitable design processes. As vice-president of FAARM she has led design and research projects in southern Haiti since 2010. An alumna of Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she has taught at Parsons the New School for Design and Bowling Green State University and is a doctoral student in the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan.

8 Introduction

Ground Rules for Humanitarian Design

18 Part 1 – Histories of Humanitarian Design and Aid

20 Humanitarian Design
Notes for a Definition
Christian Hubert and Ioanna Theocharopoulou

36 Fifty Years of the Community-Led Incremental Development
Paradigm for Urban Housing and Place-Making
John FC Turner and Patrick Wakely

56 Part 2 – Land

58 Real Estate and Property Rights in Humanitarian Design
Jesse M Keenan

70 Remediating Ecocide
Alice Min Soo Chun

86 Part 3 – Crisis in Health and Culture

88 Crisis Architecture
Conflict, Cultures of Displacement and Crisis-forms
J Yolande Daniels

98 Emergency Medical Structures
Sabrina Plum

110 Part 4 – Water and Sanitation

112 Fluid Matters
On Water and Design
Elizabeth Parker

124 Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Interventions
Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage to Reduce the Burden of Diarrhoeal Disease in Developing Countries
Daniele Lantagne

134 Part 5 – Ecology and Humanitarian Design

136 Architectures of Eco-Literacy
Eric Höweler and J Meejin Yoon

142 Circling Research with Design
NLÉ’s African Water Cities Project and Prototype Floating School for Makoko
Kunlé Adeyemi

148 Part 6 – Local Materials and Local Skills

150 Intelligent Materials and Technology
Alice Min Soo Chun

168 One City
Merritt Bulcholz

176 Part 7 – Shelter and Housing

178 Missing Scales
Deborah Gans

192 reCOVER
Emergency Shelter Interventions
Anselmo G Canfora

210 Part 8 – Education and Practice

212 Humanitarian Architecture Is Hip. Now What?
Eric Cesal

218 Reading Codes Is a Whole New World
Grainne Hassett

238 Part 9 – Architecture, Planning and Politics

240 Delmas 32
A Post-Disaster Planning Experience in Haiti
Sabine Malebranche

250 Building On, Over, With
Postcolonialism and Humanitarian Design
Irene E Brisson

258 Select Bibliography

259 Index

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