Toward permanent emergency: Design-Build-Living Reversible

Abstract

Temporary life has become a topic of discussion in the architectural debate concerning both post-catastrophic events and critical peaks in the housing demand. The strategies adopted to deal with emergency contexts can provide a stimulating testing ground that yields suitable approaches, which can be applied when facing the present permanent environmental crisis at a global scale. This is particularly true for certain post-catastrophe strategies adopted in the poorest countries, where local resources and Low-Tech processes can respond to housing and climate needs, compensating for the limited resources available with the intelligence of design solutions. Some criteria established to map the relationship between quality performance and durability of products are later applied to the critical analysis of three emblematic case studies of emergency housing in extreme contexts to identify their innovation content.