Sustainable Post-Disaster Housing Reconstruction
Environmentally, economically, and socio-culturally friendly strategies to repair, improve and maintain buildings in post-tsunami Tamil Nadu

The last decade has seen an increasing number of humanitarian agencies shifting their focus from the provision of emergency aid to housing reconstruction.  It is often assumed that this domain requires little more than employing a contractor to build the desired number of multi-hazard resistant houses.  However, sustainable habitat and housing reconstruction needs to keep into account environmental socio-cultural, economic and technological aspects and hence calls for multi-disciplinary competences.
The ongoing post-tsunami reconstruction in Tamil Nadu (India) lends itself well for raising these issues.  Housing reconstruction currently involves 38 non-governmental agencies to which the government of Tamil Nadu entrusted the construction of over 75,000 new houses.  By evaluating Tamil Nadu’s housing reconstruction policy and practices we noticed that most agencies opted for building new houses through construction firms without keeping into account the multiple advantages -from a sustainable development perspective- of preserving, repairing and upgrading the pre-disaster built environment.
Through empirical research on vernacular housing and building practices in coastal Tamil Nadu, the project first of all aimed at raising awareness about the importance of recognising and building upon local housing culture and building capacity.  The research further aimed at identifying the challenges and risks of exogenous agency-driven housing reconstruction.

Why should this house be demolished?

It was found that many ongoing recovery projects are replacing traditional undamaged houses with new socio-culturally, economically and environmentally unsustainable ‘modern’ houses.  The project aimed at advocating against this trend by appraising the reparability of tsunami-affected buildings in two villages with a methodology developed by ISAAC to assess the rehabilitation and improvement potential of buildings in western countries.  This methodology was adapted to the ecological, socio-cultural, economic, technological, and post-disaster context of Tamil Nadu.
The research project is funded by the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC) and is jointly implemented by ISAAC, Ecosmart India and the South Indian Fishermen Federation Society (SIFFS), in collaboration with the Department of Social Anthropology of the University of Zurich. Our publications related to this project can be found on ISAAC’s website.

For further information please contact Dr. Jennifer Duyne Barenstein (Jennifer.duyne@supsi.ch) or Ing. Daniel Pittet (daniel.pittet@supsi.ch).

Contact Persons
Dr. Jennifer Duyne Barenstein
Ing. Daniel Pittet
Dipartimento Ambiente Costruzioni e Design (DACD)
Istituto di sostenibilità applicata all'ambiente costruito (ISAAC)
Scuola Universitaria Professionale della Svizzera Italiana (SUPSI)
6952 Lugano-Trevano (Switzerland)
Email: jennifer.duyne@supsi.ch
Email: (daniel.pittet@supsi.ch)
http://www.isaac.supsi.ch/
 
Dr. Vijay Joshi
IL&FS Ecosmarat Limited
Anna Salai, Nandaman
Chennai, Tamil Nadu
600 035 India
Email: vijay.joshi@ecosmartindia.com
 
Vivekanandan, V.
South Indian Fishermen Federation Society (SIFFS)
SIFFS, Tarangambadi Reconstruction Project Office
1 / 4 Kamarajsalai, Tarangambadi 609313
Tamil Nadu, India
Email: vivek@siffs.org