Dear Lars,
Just to give you a follow up on the Chilean setting:
[1] Many of the houses that were destroyed were made from "Adobe"
[Mud+straw]. There is some guilt coming from the international architecture
and landscape architecture circles which would encourage the historical need
to maintain those kinds of buildings. The local architects do know that: it
is a crime to build in mud in a country that is subjected to the largest
seismic activity in the world.
[2] Reconstruction is slow, overall for such an unequal country as ours. As
many international organizations left [at least here in the States, the
Chilean Earthquake wasn't such a big news due to the horrible situation
Haiti was facing] Chileans stood up and helped. Luckily, solidarity is still
present. Today, we are in charge of our reconstruction. We have our own
budgets and our own fleet of volunteers [a great percentage of students
engage in volunteer activities during their time in School or University].
We are a country that suffers from Tsunamis, Earthquakes and Floods. We've
learned how to deal with disaster. Nonetheless, climate change is not just
the fault of those who suffer it, it mainly has to do with the consumer
behaviors of the so called "First World Countries" and their Ecological
Footprint <http://www.myfootprint.org/en/about_the_quiz/what_it_measures/>[which
also entails the importation of commodities of "Developing
Countries"]
[3] The Santiago Area resisted very well the Earthquake. The advanced
technology of our building system and laws allowed Skyscrapers as
large as "Torre
Titanium <http://www.titaniumlaportada.cl/en/index.html>" to be standing.
My impression is that Chile has learned to manage these situations the "hard
way". There are not many international NGO's in our country, so it seems we
are building a successful model for the region. Nonetheless, there are
larger issues to solve like: Inequality, which is mainly the reason why some
individuals are still living in the transitional housing from the 60's. *So
the issue is not how much are architects looking to build a new future in
the country due to the opportunities given by natural disasters, but how
unequal standards get highlighted uncontainable situations. *
Sincerely,
On 18 January 2011 13:45, Lars Albinsson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I connect this to for instance the situation in Chile after the earthquake
> in feb 2010. (I have been there to work on "reconstruction".)
>
> This is definitely a design situation.
>
> 1) In my experience a key point is not to "reconstruct" or "rebuild", as
> there is good reason to believe that this may happen again. A new
> town/city/village has to be designed that will be resilient to similar, and
> other foreseeable, events. To assure this the new towns etc should not be a
> copy of the old.
>
> 2) As lots of things, structures etc etc is destroyed this also offers a
> great potential to do something new and different.
>
> The design issue is "what future do we want", not "how do we reconstruct
> what was lost". For the people in the area, however, there is most likely a
> strong, human need to get back, to recover, rebuild and anything that turns
> life back to the situation before the disaster. (In Indonesia there are
> examples of new houses that was built following the tsunami, that were
> flooded again even before they were finished.) Going back is however seldom
> even technically possible. To take the simplest example you cannot build new
> houses to old standards. For instance old apartments may have been having a
> low rent owing to limited bathrooms. It is probably not a an option to build
> new houses with low rents and inadequate bathrooms. People from the outside
> can provide vital assistance in managing this situation.
>
> In my experience, with relocating mining towns and earthquake response, the
> situation is far more challenging than I thought before I started working on
> them. But it also offers a large potential.
>
> I write "in my experience" as there is clearly a need to further research
> and development knowledge around this as a design issue. Most of the
> "disaster" literature I have come across appears to center on "rescue" and
> "emergence" rather than "recovery" and "reconstruction", to use one phase
> model for disaster management. For instance: practitioner experts tell me
> that a lot of energy and support, both from locals and international groups,
> are available the first 6-12 months. Then local volunteers get burned out
> and international concern move to new events. In Chile, for instance, there
> are still a large number of people living in temporary houses built
> following the 1960 earthquake.
>
> In Sweden we are working on establishing an center on urban relocation,
> based on the increasing needs around the wold on both response to, and
> prevention, of such natural or man-made disasters. We offer the possibility
> to gain knowledge from the current relocation of two mining towns, as they
> are being destroyed, intentionally and under more controlled forms than with
> natural disasters, but to perhaps an even more drastic effect, as they will
> be blasted and sent hundreds of meters below ground.
>
> Best wishes and hopes to the people in Australia,
>
> Lars
>
>
>
> .........................................................................
> LARS ALBINSSON
> +46 (0) 70 592 70 45
> [log in to unmask]
>
> AFFILIATIONS:
> MAESTRO MANAGEMENT AB
> CALISTOGA SPRINGS RESEARCH INSTITUTE
> UNIVERSITY OF BORÅS
> LINKÖPING UNIVERSITY
> .........................................................................
>
>
>
>
>
> 17 jan 2011 kl. 16.17 skrev Terence Love:
>
> Hi Simon,
>
> Good you are safe. I hope same for Vesna and rest of the design research
> crew at QUT.
>
> Now would appear to be a good time for asking some serious design research
> questions to avoid the problems next time.
>
> Did the design of flood management strategies fail in the Brisbane flood
> plain? If so, why?
>
> In the news, there has been widespread claims that the flash floods were
> totally unexpected an unpredictable and thus nothing could have been done.
>
> The designs of flood run off and flash flood hydrodynamic models is well
> established and tested. In the early 70s, I remember working with a friend
> who was creating this kind of model and they were well established then.
> The
> maths is relatively straightforward and there are commercial and
> locally-developed computer packages that do the job.
>
> Second, it is odd to say that flash floods arrived completely unexpected.
> The claim in the media there was not time for disaster response mechanism
> to be designed and implemented is odd. The run off models can be used to
> identify weather conditions that will cause flash flooding. The time gap
> between seeing forecast of those kind of weather conditions gives days or
> weeks of notification of rapidly rising flood water is days or weeks. One
> hydrogeologist online suggested in mid December the rain forecast for
> December would likely see flash flooding in Brisbane area.
>
> Similarly, the use of runoff flood models provides the basis for designing
> off the food response processes that can be initiated fast. These include
> radio, tv and sms warnings to householders living in areas prone to
> occasional flash flooding that can give substantial notice of high risk
> ahead of time.
>
> Third, there are urban design questions relating to locating buildings in
> high flood risk areas.
>
> Four are design research questions relating to the design of preinstalled
> flood prevention approaches including sufficient levees and the use of
> existing water storage capacity to take the peak off the water flow and
> effectively lengthen the time of flow, hence reducing flooding levels.
> Recent reports today are that dams integrated into the flood control
> strategy did not release water early enough and hence did not offer enough
> absorption capacity to reduce the flood peak. There may be political or
> commercial reasons for these decisions.
>
> Five are questions about the design of decision support systems used, their
> implementation and how they shaped the design of flood emergency strategies
> (including whether people were notified and how soon).
>
> Six is the relative balance of hydrological modelling and hydrodynamic
> modelling. The former can be viewed as more suitable for decisions about
> water quality and water conservation, the latter is a design tool more
> associated with the dynamics of water flow (such as flash flooding
> conditions). When I searched the web about Queensland flood modelling, I
> found mostly info about hydrological modelling in the flood management
> plans.
>
> Addressing the above issues would appear to be useful design research.
> With
> the Queensland floods being claimed as a bigger disaster than Katrina, the
> stakes and benefits are high. This kind of situation would appear to offer
> significant opportunities for design researchers with the appropriate
> research skills to contribute strongly to improving outcomes in similar
> adverse climate events.
>
> I'd be interested to know how many design researchers on phd-design are
> working in this area and whether there is interest to form some kind of
> group.
>
> Best wishes,
> Terry
> ____________________
>
> Dr. Terence Love, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM
> Director Design-focused Research Group, Design Out Crime Research Centre
> Researcher, Digital Ecosystems and Business Intelligence Institute
> Associate, Planning and Transport Research Centre
> Curtin University, PO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845
> Mob: 0434 975 848, Fax +61(0)8 9305 7629, [log in to unmask]
> Member of International Scientific Council UNIDCOM/ IADE, Lisbon, Portugal
> Honorary Fellow, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development
> Management School, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
> ____________________
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
> research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Simon
> Lawry
> Sent: Monday, 17 January 2011 12:03 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Flood water receding, all systems go :)
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> Just wanted to let you know that the library at QUT has switched back on as
> of this morning. I've got access again and things are running along
> smoothly. There is widespread devastation across Brisbane and the state.
> I've gotten in and helped with some of the clean up amongst all the
> writing.
> The response from the community has been incredible. Strangers were walking
> off the street to help the friend I was helping. We were fed by people
> driving round with a BBQ on the back of the truck. I feel this is similar
> to
> what has happened with my situation here. I've had such incredible support.
> People I have never met before have offered assistance, going well out of
> their way to help me get the resources I needed to continue my research. I
> haven't had to use many of the offers of assistance, because I have had so
> many. I'm deeply touched by the support that has been offered to me from
> all
> across the world. I want to thank you all for your support, it's moving.
>
> If you would like to do something else for other people effected by the
> floods, please check out www.floodaid.com.au.
>
> Also, If you would like to check out the extent of the floods, have a look
> at www.nearmap.com, go to Brisbane and flick between the latest photo and
> the previous photo to get a comparison (click on the drop down menu near
> the
> middle of the screen at the top). it's amazing.
>
> Once again, thank you all for your support, it has been incredible.
>
> Simon Lawry
> PhD Candidate
> School of Design
> Queensland University of Technology
>
--
Constanza S. Miranda M.
PhD Student NCSU-Design
www.innovacionsocial.cl
www.facebook.com/designforsocialinnovation
"Develop Design, Design to Develop"
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