Temporary Optimism For Temporary Housing
Following the tsunami there was quite a lot of media coverage focused on the outpouring of support for rebuilding communities demolished by the sea. The waves killed hundreds of thousands of people across Southeast Asia. In Aceh, an estimated 120,000 houses needed to be rebuilt.
The tsunami has long lasting human tolls, not only in deaths, disease, ruined livelihoods, and material destruction. It also eats away at optimism. Following the tsunami proposals for temporary housing in Aceh poured out. But not Indonesia's rebuilding is bogged down in the harsh realities of bringing the project to reality.
At one time, it seemed like arrangements for temporary shelter would quickly emerge from the many proposals highlighted by the media....
- Harvard/MIT's "Sri Lankan house", touted as not only economical but "built with local materials and engineered to withstand a tsunami".
- Architecture for Humanities' structures, designed specifically for use in India and Sri Lanka.
- World Vision's project of 139 houses, lauded "as 'best practice' in post-tsunami rebuilding".
- Projects NPR noted were low-cost and framed with cheap, flexible, strong bamboo.
- Homes by architectural wunderkind Daniel Libeskind, who worked pro bono to rebuild a town in Sri Lanka.
There were a plethora of architecturally innovative ideas from universities and architects for sustainable projects and innovative solutions. But now building progress on temporary housing stalled because of a shortage of wood, according to a Financial Times. 67,000 people still living in tents and "only 800 of the planned 20,000", temporary homes are finished in Aceh. What happened?
Sourcing Lumber From Canada
Materials for rebuilding turned out to be the sticking point. Concrete used in many places isn't a sound seismic choice. Steel and tin were initially used for temporary shelters in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, turn out oven-like structures which are uncomfortable for the climate. Solutions poured in but wood was the most practical building material. therefore reconstruction depends on lumber sourced from foreign countries. (Still, illegal logging in places like Gunung Leuser National Park by industrious entrepreneurs threatens to destroy local forests.)
Conservation International wrote that they successfully advocated for the use foreign wood . By May of 2005, donations had been offered from US, Australia, Belgium, Finland, Sweden, New Zealand, Germany, and Denmark. British Columbia wooed Indonesia with their ideas of wooden prefabricated homes, cut from Canadian forests, shipped to Aceh, then trucked to villages and assembled.
Getting timber from places like Canada however, ties progress to shifting environmental standards, the "inexperience of many aid agencies in sourcing large amounts of wood.", and promises like: "a UK-based timber broker was expected in coming weeks."
In addition to the challenges of sourcing timber from far flung places such as Canada and Sweden, organizations coordinating rebuilding efforts must also get clearance from the bureaucratic Indonesian government. So, along many NGO's have neat press-ready plans to show and tell, but scaling those plans and coordinating all the agencies to meet the epic challenge of the massive reconstruction effort of the tsunami isn't easy.
Little Cardboard House Models
The challenge of affordable, sturdy emergency housing has been solved over and over again by innovative teams of architects, at universities and via the dedication of non-profits and lots of generous support. But the problem remains historically unresolvable. An article in Slate last year described the issue:
"Architects in the past have proposed a variety of ingenious shelters, including prefabs, inflatables, geodesic dome kits, sprayed polyurethane igloos, and temporary housing made of cardboard tubes and plastic beer crates. As Davis [the author refers to Ian Davis, who wrote the book Shelter After Disaster (1978)], points out, not only are these often untested 'universal' solutions generally prohibitively expensive, their exotic forms are usually ill-suited to local conditions. That may be why such shelters, when they have been deployed, have frequently been rejected by users, and why historically the most common temporary shelter is the tent. Emergency housing sounds compelling, but it almost never works."
This wouldn't be a surprise to citizens of the areas hit. Six months after the crisis, many areas had already tired of the slow, spurious progress. In India the Habitat for Humanity proposed one model for a house for Tamil Nadu. Prompted for a reaction when shown "the little cardboard house model", a lady from Killai commented:
"People have been here before talking about houses; now they are gone. You are here now, but how do I know you will come again?"
Temporary housing is not the only rebuilding issue. Aid organizations overseeing the rebuilding of thousands of boats that were also destroyed in the tsunami report conflicts size and technology of the boats being built; many are smaller than the larger trawlers they are replacing, which may lead to over-fishing in shallow waters. The boats are also apparently made of unseasoned wood, because of the timber shortage, which is far less seaworthy the seasoned wood.
Though many of the problems are expected given the scope of the disaster, life remains on hold for thousands of Indonesians on Aceh still living in "rotting" tents while agents track down millions of cubic feet of lumber half a world away.
