Improvement of vernacular housing for disaster prone areas in Bangladesh: a six year experience

Olivier Moles (1) , M.S. Shariful Islam (2) , T.R. Hossain (3) , R.K. K Podder (4)

1 CRAterre - CRAterre
2 Department of Civil Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET)
3 Department of Civil Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) - dept
4 CARITAS

All around the world, societies show capacities to evolve their living conditions taking into ac-count their environment, cultural, social and economical specificities. In hazard prone areas, this process goes through phases of normality, crisis, and rehabilitation. Working in such context it is important to identify local best practices, integrate the whole concept of sustainable development and develop strategies linking emer-gency, rehabilitation and development. Bangladesh is a multi-hazardous and disaster prone country. In 2007, super cyclone Sidr devastated one-third of the country and along with various supports Caritas assisted affected people through housing project. However, evaluation of the housing project showed even though that if technical solution was adequate, it was more focused on house than housing. To improve this, Caritas in-volved CRAterre and BUET to provide support for development of disaster resilient houses. Caritas is in-volved in house/shelter building since 1970. CRAterre is involved in disaster response for more than 13 years. Although more than 80% population lives in non-engineered low cost houses, BUET conducts only few re-searches in this field and wants to improve this situation. A pilot project was initiated in 2009 in two different regions. A thorough local survey was carried out for understanding the local building culture, its strength and weaknesses. Based on testing of materials available and a 3D stress analysis of the structure, and including cultural, social, environmental and economical aspects, initial design was developed. After two levels of vali-dation by beneficiaries, 25 houses were built in each location under cyclone and flood prone areas. Based up-on the lessons learnt, a 3 year extended project, covering the whole country, started in 2011, solutions are de-veloped through a strong participatory approach and a deep understanding of local existing context. This paper presents the learning of the past and some of ongoing and expected further phases of the project.

Domaines: Architecture, aménagement de l'espace

Olivier Moles, M.S. Shariful Islam, T.R. Hossain, R.K. K Podder. Improvement of vernacular housing for disaster prone areas in Bangladesh: a six year experience. Vernacular Heritage and Earthen Architecture, 2013, pp.683 - 688. ⟨hal-00973837v2⟩