Dear Miranda,

Thank you for your update.  Just a note: I was referring to the Biobio region where the epicenter was, not Santiago. Of course most major tall buildings stood, with a few notable exceptions (google  images "concepcion toppled over") and the Chilean people's knowledge on how to behave during earthquakes saved thousands of lives. But a very large number of the buildings destroyed in the villages along the coast was wooden and built more or less on the same spots as many of those destroyed in 1960. (for instance in Dichato). Also the port in Thalcuano was to a large decree openly exposed to the tsunami, sending large numbers of containers racing through the town. The example you give of proposals to rebuild with old, traditional techniques is unfortunately not uncommon.

I agree that the design challenge is not simply architectural, but rather as you suggest, centering overall social and economical development. For instance in the village Llico the citizens have proposed plans that are focused on creating far better conditions for shell fish farming, processing and tourism in the bay, rather than rebuilding their old harbor. This is a good example on how the disaster response can take advantage from not thinking "rebuild" and help develop better conditions for people. But there are too few of them, even in the experienced Chile. This is what design research could focus. Such design knowledge should be made useful and available to people locally. Because, as you say after some time the international focus is shifted elsewhere.


Best Regards,

Lars

Ps: I propose that the words "reconstruct" and "rebuild" should be replaced by "redesign" and "develop".


.........................................................................
LARS ALBINSSON
+46 (0) 70 592 70 45
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AFFILIATIONS:
MAESTRO MANAGEMENT AB
CALISTOGA SPRINGS RESEARCH INSTITUTE
UNIVERSITY OF BORÅS
LINKÖPING UNIVERSITY
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18 jan 2011 kl. 20.05 skrev Constanza Miranda:

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 [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" 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



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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"