Resilience by Design

Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications
Alexandra Jayeun Lee
Resilience
by Design
Advanced Sciences and Technologies
for Security Applications
Series editor
Anthony J. Masys, Centre for Security Science, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Advisory Board
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Panagiotis Karampelas, Hellenic Air Force Academy, Attica, Greece
Christian Leuprecht, Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston, ON, Canada
Edward C. Morse, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
David Skillicorn, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada
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Resilience by Design
123
Richmond, CA
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ISSN 1613-5113 ISSN 2363-9466 (electronic)

Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications
ISBN 978-3-319-30639-1 ISBN 978-3-319-30641-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-30641-4
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To Alexander
Foreword
The serious climate changes we observe these days are, without a doubt, increasing
the chances of harsh natural disasters—flooding, tsunamis, typhoons, hurricanes,
landslides, etc.—to hit human habitats the world over. Likewise, earthquakes
remain an inevitable threat, except perhaps those provoked by human activities
such as fracking. How are we to prepare for such disasters and, more importantly,
how are we to manage the aftermaths; the long periods of recovery? These vital
questions are at the core of Alexandra Jayeun Lee’s timely book.
Her careful study of the aftermaths of three major natural disasters—Hurricane
Katrina, which hit New Orleans in 2005, and the earthquakes which shook Haiti in
2010 and Christchurch in New Zealand in 2010–2011—led Lee to the conclusion
that “decision-making in the aftermath of disasters is inherently different from that
when the machinery of government was functioning” and that it has all the char-
acteristics of wicked problems as first defined by Horst Rittel, my late colleague at
UC Berkeley and whose work laid the groundwork for current paradigms in design
thinking.
One of the characteristics of wicked problems is that they are essentially unique,
that is, no two wicked problems are the same, however similar they may appear.
Lee’s case studies clearly illustrate how the different historical, political, socioe-
conomical conditions in the three countries pre-disaster very differently influenced
and guided the post-disaster decisions and interventions.
Wicked problems don’t have any clear formulations or any evident solutions.
The many parties involved in the aftermath of disaster—government agencies,
NGO’s and other humanitarian organizations, engineers, architects, property
owners, citizens, etc.—may have very different, often conflicting, perceptions and
understandings of what is at stake and how to deal with it. As the case study of the
Haiti earthquake’s aftermath reveals such conflicts can lead to well-intentioned, yet
more damaging decisions.
The resolving of wicked problems, if it is at all possible, lies far beyond the
expertise of any professional. This is clearly illustrated, for example, by the
shortcomings of FEMA, which took days to establish operations in New Orleans,
vii
viii Foreword
and even then failed to present a sound plan of action. As Rittel argued, the
expertise and skills needed in dealing with wicked problems is typically distributed
over all the people and organizations involved in and affected by the problem. As a
consequence, if a wicked problem is to be resolved productively, all the people
involved in and affected by the problem should be made active participants in the
planning, decision-making, and the recovery activities.
Throughout her book Lee documents the many shortcomings and failures of
human interventions, but she also reveals the powers of an encouraging strategy:
Resilience. She writes: “Because disasters seem inevitable, resilience remains the
last line of defense we have.” In agreement with Rittel and to the surprise of many
experts she found that the most “successful post-disaster interventions are more
about building resilient communities through equity in decision making, discov-
ering shared competencies, values, and visions than they are about rebuilding
architecture as a destination.” Indeed, Resilience by Design offers an antidote to
prescriptive, linear problem-solving methods still used by many and, more
importantly, reminds us that every decision has a consequence—a lot sooner than
we think.
January 2016 Jean-Pierre Protzen

Professor Emeritus
Department of Architecture
University of California Berkeley
Preface
Change is the only constant
—Heraclitus
(Disaster) brings about social change, though not necessarily

progress
—Rebecca Solnit
Resilience has become a ubiquitous buzzword in recent decades as the global

awareness of natural hazards and their impact on society has deepened. The need
for resilience in social, political, and economic upheaval that often accompany
natural disasters prompt many of those affected by the event to take action.
Resilience is slowly emerging alongside sustainability as a recurring theme amongst
the thought-leaders of technology, design, and architecture as well as in the social
fields and politics. The definition of resilience is nuanced by the given social
context, yet the common thread that weaves through the narratives is the realization
that we as species are beyond the point at which we can depend on the sustainable
adjustments alone to counteract the forces that are endangering our global
ecosystem. Traditional measures that we have relied on to keep human species
sustainable have failed in the face of insatiable growth that feeds the vicious cycle
of consumption. In the current post-industrial era, the promise of technology to
solve all of the world’s problems has failed to deliver, and because disasters seem
inevitable, resilience remains the last line of defense we have to change.
Indeed, since sociologists first developed the concept of disaster as a catalyst for
social change, the field of disaster research has since exploded to become a thor-
oughly interdisciplinary affair. At first glance, the architectural voice is all but
missing in the mainstream disaster research literature, but we find that the archi-
tectural narrative on disasters is not as well integrated as with all the other disci-
plines. Architectural points of view on disasters are embedded in topics of historic
preservation, planning, and vernacular buildings, as disasters have been part of an
ix
x Preface
urban layer that is constantly changing and evolving with the built environment in
which building activities occur.
The architectural narrative is an important one, because of its ability to represent
multiple viewpoints across time and space. This book takes a number of transdis-
ciplinary strategies developed in the design field to help key decision-makers of our
cities, organizations, and communities navigate the urban politics of cities in crisis—
what Horst Rittel calls “wicked problems.”
List of Interviewees
Agnos, A., 39th Mayor (1988–1992), San Francisco, USA

Allison, R., Social Entrepreneur, NZ
Athfield, I., Architectural Ambassador, Christchurch, NZ
Bell, B., Director, Public Interest Design Institute, NY, USA
Bernhard, S., Former Director (2007–2012), TCC, LA, USA
Bishop, T., Social Entrepreneur, Dunedin, NZ
Boult, J., CEO, Christchurch Airport, Christchurch, NZ
Buck, V., Deputy Mayor (2013-Present), Christchurch, NZ
Carr, R., Vice-Chancellor, UC, Christchurch, NZ
Cary, J., Design Advocate, NY, USA
Cesal, E., US Architect, AFH, PAP, Haiti
Clifford, P., Former NZIA President (2010–2011), Auckland, NZ
Cox, L., Former President (2008–2011), UIA, Sydney, Australia
Culvahouse, T., Editor, ARCCA, Berkeley, USA
Dalman, R., Architect, Christchurch, NZ
Dalziel, L., Mayor (2013-Present), Christchurch, NZ
Desrosiers, N., Urban Designer, AFH, Haiti
Fisk, P. III, US Architect, CMPBS, TX, USA
Gill, D., UK Architect, AFH, Haiti
Glavovic, B., Planning Consultant, EQC, NZ
Granvil, B., Haitian-American Architect, AFH, Haiti
Greene, M., Urban Designer, EERI, CA, USA
Grote, M., Architect, GCCDS, MS, USA
Hammer, M., US Architect, Berkeley, CA, USA
Hutchinson, V., Social Entrepreneur, Taranaki, NZ
Johnson, L., US Planner, San Francisco, USA
Johnson, S., Community Leader, Christchurch, NZ
King, B., US Engineer, Berkeley, CA, USA
Kipa, M., Community Leader, Christchurch, NZ
Lafontant, J., Haitian Architect, AFH, PAP, Haiti
Langenbach, R., US Architect, Berkeley, CA, USA
xi
xii List of Interviewees
Lucas, D., Landscape Architect, Christchurch, NZ

Lutz, J., Architecture Professor, UMN, MN, USA
Macer, D., UNESCO, Christchurch, NZ
Manus, C., 87th President, AIA, CA, USA
Matheson, B., Social Entrepreneur, Auckland, NZ
McKnight, J., Social Entrepreneur, Chicago, IL, USA
Moore, S., Lecturer, UT, TX, USA
Ogbu, L., Design Advocate, San Francisco, CA, USA
Palleroni, S., Director, BaSiC Initiative, Portland, OR, USA
Patel, A., Vice President (2011–2014), ADPSR, San Francisco, CA, USA
Perkes, D., Director, GCCDS, BX, MS, USA
Potangaroa, R., NZ Structural Engineer, Auckland, NZ
Roberts, C., Director, Social Policy, Salvation Army, Auckland, NZ
Sinclair, C., CEO (1999–2013), AFH, San Francisco, CA, USA
Theodore, M., Director EDC, AFH, PAP, Haiti
Van der Lingen, J., Architect, Christchurch, NZ
Vittori, G., US Architect, CMPBS, TX, USA
Watkins, T., Co-Director, Sustainability Work Program, UIA, Auckland, NZ
Contents
Part I Understanding Resilience

1 Design Advocacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........ . . . . . 3
1.1 Architecture and Disasters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........ . . . . . 4
1.1.1 Disasters as Social Change Catalyst . . . . ........ . . . . . 6
1.1.2 Social Orientation of Disaster Research . ........ . . . . . 7
1.2 Dilemmas of Disaster Urbanism . . . . . . . . . . . ........ . . . . . 8
1.2.1 Politics of Humanitarianism . . . . . . . . . ........ . . . . . 9
1.2.2 Lessons Learned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........ . . . . . 11
1.2.3 Resilience as a Measure of Success . . . . ........ . . . . . 12
1.3 Bridging the Gap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........ . . . . . 13
1.3.1 Emergence of Humanitarian Architecture Movement . . . . . 14
1.3.2 Disaster’s Last Responders . . . . . . . . . . ........ . . . . . 15
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........ . . . . . 17
2 Systems Thinking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.1 Design as a Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.1.1 Democratic Decision Making for Wicked Problems . . . . . . 21
2.1.2 Democratizing Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.2 Operationalizing Wicked Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.2.1 Limits of Systems and Professionals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.2.2 Disaster as a Wicked Problem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.2.3 Beyond Rittel: Reasserting Design as Universal
Human Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 30
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 31
3 Paradoxes of Building Back Better . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.1 Communicating Resilience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.1.1 Anti-resilience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.1.2 Cognitive Dissonance in Disasters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
xiii
xiv Contents
3.2 Societal Pathologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

3.2.1 Build Back Better Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.2.2 Bring New Orleans Back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.2.3 Before After . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.3 Design Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.3.1 Urban Conditions of Consumption. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.3.2 Design Equity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.3.3 Disaster Activism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Part II Resilient Tactics and Strategies

4 Haiti: NGO’s Republic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.1 Setting the Scene: Wicked Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.1.1 Haitian Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.1.2 Systemic Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.2 Civic Resilience: Haitian Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.2.1 Environmental Cost of Urbanization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.2.2 The Haitian Way. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4.3 Social Equity: Haitian Diaspora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4.3.1 Haitian Diaspora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.3.2 Design Innovation or Invasion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.4 Design Outliers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.4.1 Building Accountability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
5 Katrina: Collective Resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.1 Politics of Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.1.1 Characteristics of Emergency Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.1.2 Civil Protection or Civil Defense. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
5.2 Starchitecture and Community Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.2.1 Making It Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.2.2 Rebuilding Trust Through Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5.3 Design Equity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
5.3.1 Activist Community Designers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.3.2 Post-Katrina Citizen Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5.4 Public Interest Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
5.4.1 Systemizing Public Interest Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
5.4.2 Alternative Roles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
6 Christchurch: Going Grassroots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
6.1 The Polarized City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
6.1.1 “Munted”: Militaristic Intervention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
6.1.2 Que CERA, CERA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Contents xv
6.1.3 Technical Incompetence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

6.1.4 Disaster Czar or Strawman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
6.2 Emergent Community Leaders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
6.2.1 Tactics: Suburban Community Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
6.2.2 Improvisation: The Māori Recovery Network . . . . . . . . . . 132
6.2.3 Strategies: CanCERN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
6.3 A People’s Republic of Christchurch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
6.3.1 Radicalism as Resilience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
6.3.2 Overcoming Distrust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
6.3.3 Architecture for Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
6.4 Architecture of Tomorrow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
6.4.1 Societal Value of Architects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
6.4.2 Architecture and Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
7 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Abbreviations
AFH Architecture for Humanity

AIA American Institute of Architects
ALNAP Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in
Humanitarian Action
ATC-20 Applied Technology Council (Document 20)
BBBC Build Back Better Communities
BNOP Bring New Orleans Back
CanCERN Canterbury Citizens Earthquake Recovery Network
CCC Christchurch City Council
CCDU Christchurch Central Development Unit
CCRP Christchurch City Recovery Plan
CDEM Civil Defense Emergency Management
CERA Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority
DAP Disaster Accountability Project
DHS Department of Homeland Security
EBNet Ecological Building Network
EQC Earthquake Commission
FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency
GCCDS Gulf Coast Community Design Studio
GNS GNS Science, New Zealand Crown Research Institute
GoH Government of Haiti
HRF Haiti Reconstruction Fund
IDP Internally Displaced Persons
IFRC International Federation of Red Cross
IHRC Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission
INGO International Non-governmental Organization
LEED Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
LRA Louisiana Reconstruction Authority
MINUSTAH United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti
Mission des Nations Unies pour la stabilization en Haiti
MRN Maori Recovery Network
xvii
xviii Abbreviations
NGO Non-governmental Organization

NZIA New Zealand Institute of Architects
OSE UN Office of the Special Envoy
PID Public Interest Design
SEED Social Economic Environmental Design
SPRPAU Social Policy Research and Parliamentary Affairs Unit
TCC Tulane City Centre
UC The University of Canterbury
UCAONG Unité de Coordination des Activités des Organisations
Non-gouvernementales,
Government of Haiti Ministry of Planning
UC SVA The University of Canterbury Student Volunteer Army
UIA International Union of Architects
ULI Urban Land Institute
UN United Nations
UN-HABITAT United Nations Human Settlements Programme
UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
UNOP Unified New Orleans Plan
USACE US Army Corps of Engineers
USGBC US Green Building Council
List of Figures
Fig. 2.1 Eight rungs on a ladder of citizen participation

(from Arnstein 1969. Reprinted by permission of Taylor &
Francis Ltd., http://www.tandfonline.com) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 24
Fig. 4.1 Haiti’s National Government Palace after the 2010
earthquake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 60
Fig. 4.2 Coordination structure in Haiti (from “Inter-agency real-time
evaluation in Haiti: 3 months after the earthquake”,
A. Binder, F. Grünewald, p. 40, Global Public Policy
Institute and Groupe URD, August 31, 2010. Reprinted with
permission from GPPi). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 63
Fig. 4.3 The UN cluster system (from “How the Cluster System
Works” by UNOCHA, ©2013 United Nations. Reprinted
with the permission of the United Nations). . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 65
Fig. 4.4 A Haitian hillside near Port-au-Prince showing the extent
of erosion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 67
Fig. 4.5 AFH Haiti team debriefing after work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 69
Fig. 4.6 UNESCO school built by AFH Haiti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 71
Fig. 4.7 Haitians celebrating Easter on the streets
of Port-au-Prince . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 72
Fig. 4.8 UN service vehicle passing through a market
in Port-au-Prince . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Fig. 4.9 Haitian street vendor setting up shop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Fig. 4.10 View of an IDP campsite with modifications by Haitians . . . . . 82
Fig. 4.11 Informal housing on the capital’s hillside . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Fig. 4.12 Bati Byen, the collaborative rebuilding center
in Port-au-Prince . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 86
Fig. 5.1 A tour group surveys the new development in the Upper
Ninth Ward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 99
Fig. 5.2 Mike Grote (L) and David Perkes (R) at GCCDS . . . . . . . . .. 102
Fig. 5.3 Habitat for Humanity Musician’s Village in the Upper Ninth
Ward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 107
xix
xx List of Figures
Fig. 5.4 MIRF’s house in the Lower Ninth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 113

Fig. 5.5 TCC’s Grow Dat Youth Farm project built from shipping
containers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 114
Fig. 5.6 GCCDS’ outreach initiative include bayou ecology
education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 116
Fig. 6.1 Timeline of governance decisions from Sept 2010
to Sept 2012. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 123
Fig. 6.2 CanCERN’s ladder of community engagement
in Christchurch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 134
Fig. 6.3 Athfield addressing the public at NZIA’s
Before After exhibition opening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 139
Fig. 6.4 Before After exhibition poster. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 143
List of Tables
Table 4.1 Disaster paradigm shift before and after the 2010
earthquake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
xxi
Part I
Understanding Resilience
Chapter 1
Design Advocacy
Design is the first human intention.

—Bill McDonough
Design, within the context of architecture, is analogous with conceptualization of

the ‘big idea’—an ‘A-ha’ moment—that which triggers a creative activity. Design
is also considered a process: as communication medium for bringing together
disparate variables that eventually converge on a unified situation or context. The
paradoxical goal of design is to espouse universal understanding that leaves little
room for misunderstanding its intentions while remaining conducive to multiple
interpretations. Whichever the case, the design journey encompasses countless
revisions, adjustments, and modifications along the way, but rarely is design con-
sidered a failure. Most designers eschew failure, because design failure is the very
antithesis of the profession’s objective. In theory, any designed element presented
as an end-product has survived the rigors of innumerable tests and of trial and error
to eliminate potential redundancies that could result in failures. Failures, in other
words, conceded that design has fallen shorts of its intents.
But failures can sometimes be a cause for celebration. Failures allow design to
finally break free from the preconceptions of its maker and to evolve with the needs
and intentions of its user. Failures in design can also catalyze a revelation, leaving
behind the static past to become more adaptable, autonomous, and resilient. This
truism extends beyond objects to buildings and even cities. In his book, How
Buildings Learn, Brand (1994) laments how most buildings are not built to be
resilient. Across the Atlantic, Pier-Luigi Cervellati, an Italian planner, reiterates the
importance of the social narrative in the built environment: “it is with an under-
standing of social issues that one should approach the process of designing the
modern city, both as a cultural and as an economic entity… We are not interested,
then, in studying and preserving the historic core merely because it is beautiful or
because it is old, but because it represents the design model that we can use
ultimately to transform the remainder of the city” (Cervellati 1984) A city’s design
history can be revealing, as it contains layers of the past, the present, and presents
the needs of the future. History of design is as much a history of mankind as design
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 3

A.J. Lee, Resilience by Design, Advanced Sciences and Technologies
for Security Applications, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-30641-4_1
4 1 Design Advocacy
is a manifestation of human intentions. We study them to learn more about society,

the human condition, and resilience.
Large-scale urban disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones, and floods
makes us more aware of design’s transience, as everywhere we turn, we witness
design failures: in the built environment, in public infrastructure, in social systems,
in what for many had become known as the routine everyday life. But over time,
most cities do spring back, as if resilience is programmed into them. Eventually, the
citizens restore their roads and bridges, rebuild their houses and schools, and prop
up new structures as necessary. When seen as a larger metabolic system of human
activity, cities are but a dense cluster of designed elements built over time. The built
environment at any given time is more than a live feed for the state of a city; its
external façades remain a useful canvas for imagining the cultural quirks, the social
norms, and the personal past times of its residents.
1.1 Architecture and Disasters
Natural disasters that we experience in the world around us—earthquakes, hurri-

canes, wild fires—are temporary phenomena in comparison to what inevitably
follows: the long period of recovery in which its survivors search for meaning amid
what has been lost, displaced, and unmistakably broken. In Space in Crisis, Wigley
(2009) presents a dilemma that while such catastrophes remain peripheral to the
practice of architecture, they permeate both architectural practice and the broader
society in which architecture inhabits.
Crises always appear as the failure of a spatial system, a failure of architecture …Nobody
can plan for crisis since crisis is exactly the name for that which defeats both planning
beforehand and response afterwards.—Mark Wigley
Indeed, potentially valuable interdisciplinary connections and references to

disasters are rarely made within the scholarly architectural texts, and where they do
exist, the discourse has been largely political in nature (Alexander 2006; Fox 2001;
Cuff 2009). And the absence in such social discourses may be rooted in what our
aversion to political topics (Thorpe 2012; Till 2009).
Lebbeus Woods argued that architectural discourse since the Cold War had
become stagnant and fearful of contention: “The monological tendency in global
affairs has cast a pall on architectural debates… the conversations of architects
shifted… to narrower concerns… When the World Trade Center towers fell, the
only question obsessing architects was who would be commissioned to rebuild
them” (2004). Woods advocated for the interdependence between architecture and
society, and used architecture as a creative vessel for political provocations.
Architecture, rather than being a beauty contest among few, can serve as a
springboard for engaging in insightful discussions about the past, the present, and
the future of society as they are built around us.
1.1 Architecture and Disasters 5
When Woods studied post-disaster buildings, he observed two distinct patterns

that characterize how people respond to failures. The first approach is to build back
as before, by performing necessarily cosmetic and structural repairs as need to
restore the building to its former state, and the second approach is to adopt a tabula
rasa method: by deconstructing what has been damaged and building anew, from
scratch. In the former, restoration work is in the image of the past, where one seeks
to replicate the past to the extent his or her resources would allow, and would carry
on living life as usual as if the disaster never happened. In the latter, the restoration
work is in the image of the future, where the maker relinquishes all memories of the
past and essentially erases the memory of a place as it existed. Woods contended
that neither of these solutions were appropriate given that both methods of
reconstruction fail to acknowledge the historical significance of the event in the
city, and thus proposed a radical third approach, what he conceptualized to be the
middle ground: to repair the damaged buildings from the remnants salvaged on site.
This concept culminated in his book, Radical Reconstructions. In it, Woods
recounts a myriad of flaws in “human nature” how they manifest in architecture
across four cities that he saw, directly or indirectly, engulfed by disasters.
Distinguishing what constitutes a natural or a manmade phenomenon becomes
blurred once it becomes clear that human intention has contributed to its destruction
in all cases. After all, disaster is an event that manifests at the intersection of human
activity and nature. Yet time and time again, dense concrete jungle emerges out of
known active earthquake zones like San Francisco.
Buildings can also kill. That a large number of people who perish in urban
earthquakes do so due to building failures is a well-known truism amongst disaster
professionals. According to Woods, the incessant construction of brittle and weak
orthogonal frames in earthquake-prone cities like San Francisco may be rooted in
the stubborn attachment to the Cartesian system that have been held in place for a
long time. So he proposes: let’s do away with conventions, orthogonal architectural
forms, and consider radical methods of reconstruction; create architecture that
embraces earthquakes, uses its destructive forces as fuel, triggers transformation,
and defuse the effect of disasters through metamorphosis. Central to Wood’s
argument and his obsession with the relationship between disasters and architecture
is a political one: to reify the public image of architecture from a place of passive
and static power symbols to one that actively participates in society. He considered
the context of urban crisis as demonstrating this potential most saliently. Woods
argued that architecture “must do more than valorize in monumentally stylish new
building’s global power” and also “valorize the struggles to change… [within] the
places of crisis” (2004). For Woods, this idea was demonstrated most saliently in
the context of urban crisis.
Others, however, criticized Woods for aestheticizing disasters through his
drawings in War and Architecture. Designers like Woods are often chastised for
sharing their proposals in the public, because it was seen to fetishize another’s grief
through some voyeuristic art form, rather than as a well-intended yet naive attempt
to assuage their loss and instilling hope in the minds of those who have survived
and are seeking better days ahead. Often this is due to a combination of mistiming,
6 1 Design Advocacy
misrepresentation and miscommunication. In a climate of uncertainty, speculative

design solutions without first establishing public consent can tarnish what positive
influence design could have had at another time, another place, another audience.
At one point, even Woods relented that, “When you arrive at the scene of a human
disaster, the first thing to do is stop the bleeding. There is nothing architecture can
do until that is done” (1992). Could he be right?
1.1.1 Disasters as Social Change Catalyst
Wigley argued that a crisis is a threat to an existing system in which an emergency

response tries to contain the failure. It’s a failure of a system. Characterizing a crisis
as a symptom of systematic failures is mirrored by the sociological articulation of
disaster as a moment in which the social structure becomes dysfunctional. Yet
compared to specialized disaster research disciplines, as with sociology and polit-
ical studies, discourse on the phenomenon of disasters is relatively nascent in
architecture. That there is seldom any distinction between terms such as “disaster”,
“crisis”, and “catastrophe”, implies that such attributions are firmly rooted in not
only history, but also determined by culture as well as the prevailing social and
political context. Definitional challenges within disaster research continues to be a
minefield (Alexander 2005) and while such distinctions illustrate the tentative
nature of the disaster research, they are secondary to more pertinent issues like
social equity and urban resilience that bring those concerned with this field of
scholarship to the fore.
As much as a disaster can provide opportunities to build new upon a blank slate, it
can also catalyze a shift in how one rebuilds and reassesses what it leaves behind.
One of the earliest architectural writing that documents the impact of disasters on
buildings is Leon Battista Alberti’s architectural treatise, On the Art of Building (De
re aedificatoria, c1452, 1988), which is an extension of Vitruvius’ Ten Books on
Architecture (De architectura, 15 BC, 1999). For the most part, Alberti reinforces the
Vitruvian principles of firmness, commodity, and delight, which consistently remain,
even by today’s standards, the hallmarks of quality in architecture. But Alberti’s
distinctly humanist approach (Pearson 2011) to the built environment is one of the
key theoretical distinctions from Vitruvius, as is his recurrent discussion on the
relationship between buildings and disasters (Books I, II, IV, and X). Alberti’s
preoccupation with destruction of buildings was perhaps influenced by the fact that
he witnessed, firsthand, the physical destruction of Rome through multiple earth-
quakes and invariably saw how urban environments “(hold) within itself not only the
possibility… of its final destruction but also of its total transformation, of upheaval
and reinvention” (Pearson 2011). As an architect who has experienced multiple
disasters, Alberti operated in an environment where he constantly faced a possibility
for destruction of the built environment. But he believed that a failure of a building
was not simply a product of nature’s malice, but rather the fault originating with
man, as his punishment for not building in complete harmony with his surroundings:
1.1 Architecture and Disasters 7
“the body has no defense against the laws of Nature… there are frequent accidents
by fire, lightning, earthquakes, battering of waves and floods, and so many irregular,
improbable, and incredible things that the prodigious force of Nature can produce,
which will mar and upset even the most carefully conceived plan of an architect”
(Alberti 1988). So how can architects avoid construction of follies that present
impediments to the laws of nature? What kind of architecture did Alberti consider to
be harmonious?
Alberti condemned those buildings that he considered to be inadequate, whether
in their planning, construction, or expression, as per the Vitruvian principles of
commodity, firmness, and delight, he suggested alternate design guidance on
materials, construction, and ornamentation that were more appropriate for the ages
and timeless. Timelessness, in this case, was synonymous with disaster resistance.
But contemporary Albertian scholars (Roccasecca 2009; Pearson 2011) argue that
his design principles derive from the Aristotelian concepts of matter (physical
materials) and form (knowledge), in that “the humanist demands that the architect
have[sic] two capabilities: that he be an intellectual insofar as he creates the project,
and practical insofar as he chooses the materials according to form” (Pearson 2011).
In Pearson’s view, Alberti saw architecture to be in a constant battle with nature,
where, depending on how it was approached, architecture “may be one of the
noblest activities that man can undertake… [or become] among the greatest follies
—proof of how far man has strayed from the order of nature” (2011). The guiding
principles of architecture—commodity, firmness, and delight—has been, to this
day, a reflection of core values held by the practitioners of contemporary archi-
tecture, and more importantly, how architects reconcile those values in the face of
ongoing metamorphic changes in nature has been an enduring challenge.
1.1.2 Social Orientation of Disaster Research
Current research on disasters are largely conducted outside of architecture, hosted

within the fields of sociology and engineering, and to a lesser extent, international
development, geography, and anthropology. However, what remains constant
throughout the history of disaster research is in how the studies (Kreps and Drabek
1996; Hoffman and Oliver-Smith 2002; Alexander 2005; Aldrich 2012) consis-
tently suggest social change that results from the physical phenomena.
Catastrophe and Social Change, Samuel Prince’s thesis about the tragic Halifax
explosion in 1917, is considered by disaster scholars as the first systemic study of a
disaster (Drabek 1968; Scanlon 1988; Stallings 2003). Prince, who had worked as a
rescue worker following the sinking of the Titanic just five years earlier, had
narrowly survived the explosion of SS. Mont-Blanc, a French cargo ship that
landed at the port city of Halifax in Nova Scotia. As a pastor and social worker,
Prince recounted his experience in his subsequent academic work at Columbia
University to document and reflect upon the sociological effects of major disasters
8 1 Design Advocacy
through an academic lens. Despite its seminal value, scholars contend that the
“unverified” and “journalistic” character of Prince’s research methodology dis-
counted its credibility and overall significance (Scanlon 1988), reinforcing the need
for methodological vigor in disaster research. Catastrophe and Social Change was
a research ahead of its time, as it was not until some 40 years later that the
sociological perspectives of disaster gained scholarly credibility. Nearly a hundred
years on, the sociological angle on disasters remains an emerging area. The idea of
disaster as socially constructed phenomenon has been explored by scholars like
Perry (2007), Stallings (1995), Smith (2005), and Cutter (2005), and follows an
evolutionary path similar to that of the classical sociological discourse, gaining
credibility as it began to move away from the philosophical tendencies grounded in
intra-disciplinary legitimatization and self-referentiality to one that is grounded in
practice. Disaster scholar E.L. Quarantelli (1978) observed that disaster research
shifted its initial focus from the physical elements of disaster to the social behav-
ioral aspects of people affected by the event.
The emergence of disaster sociology among disaster researchers also suggests a
shift away from a Eurocentric understanding of disasters as a systemically dis-
ruptive event that ought to be managed and contained as its end goal to one that
looks beyond recovery to recognize disasters as part of a larger, global system.
Disasters have become opportunities to extend discussions about sustainable
development and resilience of an increasingly urban global habitat. Maureen
Fordham, a professor of Gender and Disaster Resilience at Northumbria University
explained that historically, disaster discourses have been largely “male-dominated”
and “world-dominating” (Fordham 2005), which seldom account for alternative
perspectives. Fordham also noted that while development research began as study
of developing countries, disaster research has reinforced a predominantly European
milieu, leaving behind a large gap in terms of considerations for gender, ethnicity,
and culture.
Considering that disasters often amplify disparities along the economic, racial,
and gender lines (McClean 2010), there is value in advancing the understanding of
disasters with insights drawn from conventionally non-dominant and
under-researched perspectives. And in order to lay the ground for this discussion,
we must first reflect on the history of what we understand today as the global
humanitarian industry.
1.2 Dilemmas of Disaster Urbanism
The 20th century was an age of contradictions. Not only was it the bloodiest
century (Margot 2000) as compared to earlier eras, it was also a turning point for
the world which progressively coalesced into democracy. It marked the beginning
of the modern human rights movement, most notably with the formation of the
1.2 Dilemmas of Disaster Urbanism 9
United Nations (UN). As part of the first generation1 of international aid agencies,
the UN was conceived “at the apex of human folly …it represents a monumental
change in moral and political thought, where the ancient paradigms of power and
strength begrudgingly cede turf to conscience and morality” (O’Neil 2006). By
replacing the League of Nations in the early years of Cold War, the UN sought at
first to contain the spread of communism through diplomatic interventions and
assistance of its member states. However, as communism became less of a threat
and as trade barriers between nation states opened up to create a more stable
political economy, the existing multinationals and humanitarian aid conglomerates
have evolved to focus on disaster relief and development of nations. Early inter-
national disaster relief efforts thus began as an ad hoc volunteer effort by multi-
nationals to bring political stability and peace in fragile states, and as such, the
humanitarian agencies have enjoyed a privilege akin to diplomatic immunity in
carrying out this mission. The UN’s growing political influence has inspired the
ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948,
which remains the most ambitious aspiration constructed and endorsed by world
leaders since the WWII.
1.2.1 Politics of Humanitarianism
Despite the enduring global influence of such multinational agencies that continue to
mobilize in the wake of catastrophic events, humanitarianism is receiving more
scrutiny in recent years. As heroic and commendable their efforts were on the ground,
the decades of their humanitarian interventions have also spawned some undesirable
side effects that went undetected until recently. Holmes (2011) and Fox (2001)
contend that some of these efforts were brazenly laden with imperialist undertones
that demanded economic reforms on the fragile nations, on terms that dispropor-
tionately favored the advanced industrial nations in exchange for temporary aid.
Indeed, some argue that modern humanitarian efforts are less reticent about its
political agendas. Even while restricting bilateral aid “to those countries prepared to
follow Western structures on the economy” (Fox 2001), implementing effective aid
is difficult enough and humanitarian agencies can easily get caught up in the local
politics. But sometimes it can get much worse. In The Shock Doctrine, independent
journalist Naomi Klein goes as far as suggesting that disasters are a common
breeding ground for implementing what she calls ‘the shock doctrine’—an
exploitative political tactic advanced by neoliberal economies that use disasters to
prey on its victims while they are lost in a state of sociological paralysis.
An international relations scholar Roberto Belloni criticized the trouble with
1
Other non-governmental organizations (NGO), such as the Red Cross, Médicines Sans Frontières,
Salvation Army, and Oxfam, followed suit, joined by smaller, local NGOs and civic society
organizations operating at regional scales.
10 1 Design Advocacy
humanitarianism as effectively “sheltering Western states from the spillover effects

of political crises but is less so in solving problems it claims to address” (Belloni
2007), and French sociologist Jean Baudrillard referred to such “Western human-
itarianism” as an instrument of neocolonialism without regard to and respect for the
affected population (as cited in Lacy and Wilkin 2005). Following any major
natural urban land disruptions such as earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, and floods,
many humanitarian agencies are quick to rise and champion populist policy
frameworks that serve to “build back better” for the devastated communities. But
because such policies are presented under much time pressure and incomplete
information, they opt to aggregate the complexities of disaster. Often, how they
optimize their aid efforts are closely tied to those activities that in the past have most
successfully mobilized their donors, and not surprisingly, most benefited them-
selves through the phenomenon of ‘tied aid’ where majority of donor disbursements
are spent internally to replenish its own economy through commissioning of con-
tractors from donor countries rather than with the local population. At its worst,
humanitarianism—which at first was celebrated for its principled, politically sen-
sitive, and human rights-based characteristics in its founding years—may have
evolved to, or perhaps had always been unbeknownst to the rest of the world, a
convenient moral banner under which Western values were advanced.
Political agendas aside, humanitarian agencies need to be better coordinated to
improve their effectiveness on the ground. Humanitarian efforts are not as effective
as they once were. With rapid population growth in urban settlements around the
world, natural disasters are becoming more difficult to predict and manage. Despite
the highly systematized process for disaster response backed by its army of
experienced field personnel, the inability of international aid agencies to cope with
major disasters in the 21st century is raising doubts among its supporters, peers, and
even its beneficiaries as to whether “international system as it then stood was…
really a system at all” (Holmes 2011).
In the reality of post-disaster reconstruction, evidence suggests that even when
disaster victims are given decision-making power over the aesthetic of new con-
struction, people seem motivated by the perception of progress rather than what
maybe more context-appropriate. In the Pacific Islands where cyclones are seasonal
the residents rely on the help of their neighbors from Western industrialized nations
like Australia and New Zealand. When given the opportunity to rebuild many of the
residents overwhelmingly choose the less seismically stable “western” concrete
designs instead of vernacular designs that use locally sourced timber and con-
struction systems (Rapoport 1969). While the psychological benefit of having
houses that symbolize wealth and higher social status cannot be said to serve no
purpose in palliating the pain of those whose houses have been washed away
overnight, when its physical benefits are so short-lived and are otherwise preferred
over long-term safety and structural integrity, rebuilding professionals are in
untenable position to advocate for building back better. Then what does building
back better actually entail? What is the extent of aid agencies responsibility in
assisting fragile states after disaster?
1.2.2 Lessons Learned
Contrary to the grim outlook for the humanitarian movement painted above, history
tells us that formalized humanitarian efforts are seldom met with resistance on the
ground. Over the last 40 years, humanitarian agencies and government entities have
learned to value the long-term benefits of community participation in their
policy-making and have sought to make urban development processes more
inclusive by adopting community-based post-disaster recovery approaches.
Humanitarian agencies are waking up to the fact that urban resilience goes in hand
with community-centered approaches to post-disaster reconstruction. The results,
however, have been mixed and largely underwhelming (UNCHS–Habitat 2001),
and reveal deeper systemic issues.
The first problem is structural. Take the UN for instance. Organizationally, the
UN is composed of a flexible network of specialized institutions that each focus on
specific aspects of post disaster response: World Food Program focuses on distri-
bution of emergency supplies of food to disaster victims; World Health
Organization distributes healthcare; the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) assists refugees and internally displaced persons in repatriation process
through short-term supply of emergency shelters. Within such structure, partici-
pation of wider public in addressing the post-disaster design problems is often
suppressed or bypassed by professionals themselves in the name of expediency and
short-term results (Davidson et al. 2007). Contrary to the common knowledge that
wider social participation in the process of recovery is beneficial in the long run, the
organizational design in many humanitarian agencies do not, in practice, consider
community participation as an instrumental performance measure.
Secondly, early attempts at community participation have failed to meet their
expectations. In theory, rebuilding from the ground up implies an equal partnership
throughout the process among various rebuilding agencies, governments, and
communities, yet according to the UN report on capacity building in select number
of projects where the key driving force was for the overall social cohesion and
long-term resilience of communities, but a number of factors have impeded pro-
gress, namely, (1) the lack of clarity in their respective roles on how to achieve
equity in decision-making as well as equity in resulting projects, (2) the lack of
technical capacity to carry out the projects, and (3) inadequate training given to
partnering communities prior to a formal hand-over. Such difficulties have, in turn,
led many governing agencies to overturn and default back to decentralization
strategy whereby they turn over the key responsibilities to external contractors to
keep projects on track and to deliver on results. The larger goal of social cohesion
and long-term resilience is long forgotten. Progress reports of many aid agencies
tend to highlight their humanitarian impact in numbers, and while the financial
accountability to donors are critical for the day-to-day operation of these organi-
zations, the promise of community empowerment and participation of beneficiaries
on the ground can prove to be more challenging in practice, and the fact that such
devolution of resources without accountability to the community can lead to an
even greater inequality than before, making the end-result, however successful on
paper, bittersweet on its social consequences.
But an overemphasis on social capital is also prone to abuse (Fordham 2005) for
similar reasons. The resourcefulness of the local residents—who develop depen-
dence on foreign assistance—can be limited. Social capital is a “double-edged
sword” (Aldrich 2012), which can increase the resilience of those with robust
network while disadvantaging those at the margins even more. The next logical
element for our consideration in testing the viability of community-centered
approach in post-disaster settings is to look at some case studies where they were
successfully implemented.
1.2.3 Resilience as a Measure of Success
Community-centered disaster recovery may have started out as a romanticized ideal

for humanitarian agencies that aspired to help the disenfranchised communities in
ways that fell beyond the remits of their work, but its overwhelming success in
communities where this strategy was implemented reinforces the central role of
social capital as key to resilience. Granted, strategic recovery matters are decided
long before a tiller is raised to break soil at the project site, usually at the same time
as when funding allocation decisions are made during the early days following the
disaster. This is also a time when government agencies are placed under immense
time pressure to make long-range policy decisions amid a torrent of new data and
information. But because disasters are by their very nature unanticipated events,
their consequences can overwhelm many of the so-called key decision-makers
given that very few of them are equipped to deal with the level of complexity and
challenges that accompany them. As observed in the behaviors of local political
leaders following the 2005 Hurricane Katrina, typically politicians are elected on
the premise of delivering a number of populist policies that match the span of his or
her political tenure—typically lasting no more than three to four years. As such,
they are unequipped to deal with challenges that accompany systemic crisis brought
on by disasters let alone consider major policy decisions that could span several
generations. While this does not imply that politicians ought to cede key
decision-making responsibilities to, say, the disaster experts, it does suggest that the
dynamics of decision-making in the aftermath of disasters are inherently different to
those from when the machinery of government was functioning.
While mature governments in industrialized states with history of recurrent
natural disasters are adequately prepared in having some mitigation measures in
place to minimize the damage to existing infrastructure as well as being equipped to
handle disaster recovery without external intervention except in the extreme cases,
more fragile states are reliant on the resources of international humanitarian
agencies. Where outside experts are involved, the role of the local leaders and
members of communities in affected areas are critical, as humanitarian aid agencies
are only intended to serve as a temporary stopgap for capacity deficit rather than as
a replacement for existing governing agencies. For instance, the 2001 Gujarat
earthquake in India near the Pakistan border caused some 20,000 deaths and
400,000 houses to be destroyed in the area, and Bhuj, the State’s capital, was
damaged beyond recognition with no recourse but to be rebuilt from scratch. The
local government established the Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority as
its central reconstruction agency to oversee and coordinate the recovery efforts with
financial backings from developmental agencies such as the World Bank and the
Asian Development Bank. As a major financier, the World Bank had great influ-
ence in developing the state’s rebuilding strategy, which also meant that the State
agency’s activities were closely monitored and financial disbursements were subject
to approval by the Banks. Beyond Bhuj, the World Bank’s key priorities for
development have since shifted to focus on initiatives that would improve
long-term resilience of communities, which meant that they had to be
“owner-driven”—in other words, community centered. Once on the ground,
building professionals have played a pivotal role in meeting this goal by bridging
the available resources with local needs.
The partnership between the local leadership and humanitarian agencies helped
to incubate the founding of innovative local NGOs like Hunnarshala foundation.
A network of building artisans led by a group of local architects, Hunnarshala has
since undertaken many successful artisan-led reconstruction projects, including:
local housing and business development; capacity building and job creation through
training of new artisans; sustainable tourism; and improvement of urban environ-
ment through upcycling of industrial waste and wastewater treatment. The
post-earthquake reconstruction strategy of Bhuj, and of Hunnarshala foundation in
particular, is a testament to how a well-supported, community-centered recovery
process can catalyze innovation and resilience.
1.3 Bridging the Gap
The story of Bhuj is far from common, however. Post-disaster activities are cate-
gorized into three or four consecutive phases, beginning with the initial emergency
response, the medium-term transitional stage, followed by the long-term recovery
and reconstruction stage as the final stage. Significant portion of the key planning
and resource allocation decisions pertaining to building activities are made early in
this process, but all too often, they happen in the absence of building professionals.
UN-HABITAT, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, has a mandate
for promoting sustainable towns and cities by working in partnership with gov-
ernment agencies, non-government agencies and civil society groups. Among the
UN’s eleven strategic program areas, UN-HABITAT boasts one of the most
ambitious agenda but their limited influence reinforces the harsh reality that even
for such powerful multinational agency, the longer-term considerations of archi-
tecture remains at the margins of shorter-term recovery priorities.
Against such odds, the world is currently awash with proactive humanitarian
design practices like Architecture for Humanity (1999–2015), Builders Without
Borders (1999–), Public Architecture (2002–), Emergency Architects (2005–), and
Project H (2008–) to name but a few. The success of these groups demonstrate the
fact that when properly implemented, architecture has power beyond its material
constructions “to reconstruct social networks, raise solidarity, empower commu-
nities and encourage partnerships” (Boano et al. 2010), reinforcing the need for
coexistence of those with not just the technical expertise but those who also
appreciate the central role of communities they serve.
1.3.1 Emergence of Humanitarian Architecture Movement
Still, architects are considered as the last responders to disasters. Currently, the
architectural contributions to disaster reconstruction are few and far between. Some
manifest in the form of design manuals of largely aspirational nature, which are
typically found conspicuously hidden at the back of one of dozens of technical field
reports outlining the number of emergency and transitional shelters deployed. Few
receive commissions on permanent reconstruction projects. Esther Charlesworth, an
advocate of architects in post-disaster recovery observed that architects are seldom
involved in the critical political decisions that determine the reconstruction process
of post-disaster societies, and suggested that “architects should adopt an interven-
tionist stance by taking a professional stand against the violation of human rights…
[by using] their design expertise”. In finding architects to have little political
influence in post-conflict cities, Charlesworth sets out a challenge for the archi-
tectural profession: “how can architects engage in… the problem-sharing processes
needed in urban centres… broken by systemic urban conflict? Is it our role to
provide the definitive solution, or rather to provoke… collective action in
rebuilding civil society after the disaster…?” (2006).
Alternative design solutions for emergency housing—offered by architects in
equally spontaneous design competitions that crop up after major disasters—rarely
evolve past the prototype stage in development (Ban December 3, 2012). Merkel
and Whitaker (2010) argued that many have turned into “an architectural beauty
contest”, citing that “unproven concepts can be a distraction to the task at hand”
(Merkel and Whitaker 2010). Indeed, Regan Potangaroa, who has over 20 years
experience in disaster relief, observed that, “there are two types of aid workers we
don’t want to see in emergency: first, those with a lot of passion but no experience;
second, those who are technically competent but has no heart” (Personal
Communication, March 13, 2012), and suggested that architects like to design
‘things’, but they are not the skills prioritized in emergency relief stages.
Despite there being many social, cultural, political, and economic reasons that
add to the complexity of post disaster contexts, the urgency of disaster recovery
activities remains the main reason why architectural design activities are
de-prioritized. In addition, UNHCR is mandated to provide temporary alleviation
1.3 Bridging the Gap 15
from suffering caused by major social disruption—whether it is caused by war or

natural disaster (Wilde 1998). Many humanitarian aid organizations steer clear of
activities that can prolong the temporary nature of external assistance, despite most
of its beneficiaries lacking alternatives except to overstay in the lodgings of tem-
porary nature. However, in Clear as Mud, planners Olshansky and Johnson (2010)
argue that emphasis on speed alone can lead to mistakes from inadequate analysis
and hasty decisions that cannot be corrected (2010). Overall, it points to a large
systemic gap between what is logistically possible on the ground and the types of
aspirational architectural design solutions offered by many architectural designers.
1.3.2 Disaster’s Last Responders
Even as the global humanitarian aid sector have been evolving in response to the
needs of its clients, changing the way they respond to disasters by moving away
from predominantly donor-driven, top-down approaches to that which considers
long-term resilience of communities, the architectural industry has been more
sluggish to do so. As a profession, architects have been less unified than other
industries because of their structural dependence on markets, which leaves little
room for deviation inasmuch as the markets are by their very nature reactive rather
than responsive. Historically, this has not always been the case. In fact, architects
were among the first group of professionals that joined the global humanitarian
movement in the 1960s. The International Union of Architects (UIA), founded in
1948, was the first global professional organization to advance the spirit of global
citizenship by mobilizing with their peers for the purpose of sharing knowledge and
to work together without discrimination.
Today, the momentum of architects interested in humanitarianism has resumed
but the progress made on the architectural front pales in comparison to the thun-
dering start that architects had in championing the vision for universal human
rights. In Architecture and Design versus Consumerism, Ann Thorpe has deter-
mined that there is some 20-year gap between the profession’s active involvement
in the public affairs. What was then described as the “community design move-
ment” in the 1960s suddenly lost traction in the late 1970s, and then reemerged in
the late 1990s as architectural designers began to take interest humanitarian and
ecological design principles (Thorpe 2012). The resurgence in humanitarian design
movement has sparked interest particularly among the young generation of
designers who saw ways in which architecture could provide “agency” and
“engagement” in their immediate communities as well as beyond, but the move-
ment is not without skeptics. Bruce Nussbaum from the Parsons School of Design,
for instance, questioned whether humanitarian design was the “new imperialism”
(2010). Why do majority of so-called humanitarian designers emerge out of
America and Europe, for clients in Asia and Africa? Do these designers understand
the colonial legacies of the countries they want to do good in? Could the locals
produce their own solutions without external intervention? Nussbaum’s
reservations about the premise of humanitarian design and Thorpe’s observations

raise further questions about the architectural profession, and what may have
triggered the 20-year hiatus in the profession’s engagement with society at large.
On one hand, the professionalization of architecture, by creating a special
interest group of highly skilled architects inherently denies the notion that “ev-
eryone is a designer”, rendering the systemization of professions inherently
undemocratic and even “imperialist” (Nussbaum 2007). Those who advance the
view of professional design skills as best served in the public interest argue that
such attitudes have led the modern society to view architectural contributions in
post-disaster contexts as covert forms of colonialism (Bell and Wakeford 2008),
and their effects are “marginal at best” (Sanderson 2010). The ‘Nussbaum con-
troversy’, as it is widely referred to by design bloggers attests to the fact that design
services in post disaster settings can yield undesirable results.
Such criticism is symptomatic of much larger hostilities reflected in the main-
stream media. Professionals like architects are placed under increasing public
scrutiny for their involvement in humanitarian endeavors that were previously
thought to be immune from criticism. Experts who were once sought out to remedy
the aftermath of disasters are implicated in endangering lives, as more urban dis-
asters are associated with human activities. After all, a popular assertion exists
among international seismologists that “earthquakes don’t kill people, but buildings
do” (Gledhill et al. 2011). In Haiti, development of informal settlements alongside
the decades of unregulated industrialization and overcrowding have been blamed
for a significant percentage of earthquake casualties in 2010 (Oliver-Smith 2010).
In October 2012, Seven Italian experts—which include engineers, a government
official, and four scientists—were convicted of manslaughter charges following the
2009 L’Aquila earthquake (Cartlidge 2012), and in May 2015, a ruling by the U.S.
Supreme Court has found the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) as negligent and
liable for the flood damages following the 2005 Hurricane Katrina (Connolly 2015).
Such lawsuits are setting the precedent where professionals operating in high-risk
context of disasters are compromised in their ability to perform their work without
fear of prosecution. Furthermore, they serve as cautionary tales for experts con-
sidering humanitarian service.
So then, what do we make of the humanitarian designers? Are their contributions
to future urban crisis doomed from the start? If humanitarian designers do not see
themselves as the last responders of disaster, what role do they play? Why do
humanitarian agencies not demand higher standards for post-disaster reconstruc-
tion? Despite the emergence of architectural professionals’ active involvement in
humanitarian endeavors in the last two decades, minimal research exists on the
progress and contribution of the architectural profession in disasters and many of
these questions remain unanswered. Contextualizing disasters within architecture
and sociology enables us to have a broader conversation about what design
strategies are relevant for bridging the communication gap amongst disaster
stakeholders and can be adopted for improving the future resilience of our cities.
References 17
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Chapter 2
Systems Thinking
Design is an activity, which aims at the production of a plan,

which plan—if implemented—is intended to bring about a
situation with specific desired characteristics without creating
unforeseen and undesired side and after effects.
—Horst Rittel, 1968
How architects have come to be largely absent in disaster recovery activities

compared to some of the other sectors in the medical, the legal, and even the
engineering fields can, in part, be explained by how architects have responded to
industrialization, which transformed how cities developed. In A New
Professionalism: Remedy or Fantasy? Bordass and Leaman (2013) argue that the
diminishing authority of building professionals is a result of professional systems
being replaced by a bureaucratic one in the industrial era. Appeal to expertise alone
no longer provided the same privilege that traditional architects of earlier era had
over influencing the design of the built environment, and building professionals
have been left to compete against what came to be characterized as alternative
forms of structuring expertise, such as through establishment of organizations and
commodification of professional services. According to this theory, the combined
forces of commodification and organization had already “colonized” professional-
ism via “larger, often multinational, organizations… employ[ing] building profes-
sionals as part of the organizational machine, [while] constrain[ing] their
independence” (Bordass and Leaman 2013). It then follows that organization forces
in the form of government regulations, and commodification of the building
industry via standardization of processes and products have contributed to cur-
tailing the independence of the architectural profession. By taking these factors into
consideration it is hardly surprising that architects are disaster’s last responders in
many societies.
The architectural profession has endured an increasing climate of marginaliza-
tion within the building sector since the 1970s. Apart from the gradual fragmen-
tation of roles that were once exclusively in the domain of architects such as those
caused by the rising demands of construction and the necessity to specialize due to
increasing complexity of some building types, Thomas Fisher, the Dean of the

20 2 Systems Thinking
College of Design at the University of Minnesota, attributes the profession’s

marginalization to their inability to establish value. Aesthetic values have little
appeal for the modern day patrons of architects who are accustomed to economic
appraisals, so architects struggle to articulate their value to those outside of the
profession. When pitted against competing service providers such as developers and
engineers, architect’s input naturally becomes delayed to ever more belated stages
of the building process (Fisher 2000). In spite of the shared conviction that the
“[designer-user] relationship… [is at] the heart of what the architect does and has to
offer the community”, architects have become, in many cases, “mere expendable
cosmeticians” (Marshall 1973). Increased demands for efficiency and cost-reduction
have effectively replaced trust for accountability to minor details, and ethics for
basic adherence to rules and regulations.
Nevertheless, the silence of architects in the public realm in the 1970s and 1980s
were also productive times for those who were incubating big ideas that are now
beginning to gain traction. One such an example is the ‘design methods’ movement
of the early 1970s led by design thought-leaders such as Christopher Alexander and
Horst Rittel, whose ideas gave rise to the current prevalence of design thinking, a
strategy used not just in design but also in business management, marketing, and
engineering applications. Understanding the systemic thinking as developed within
the design field can enrich how post-disaster spaces are conceptualized, inhabited,
and constructed.
2.1 Design as a Method
The rapid industrialization in the first half of the 20th century fueled the widespread
systematization of societies. Exceptional technological advancements were
achieved within a fraction of time that humanity has reached civilization. The
NASA’s successful space mission on the moon made anything seem possible. Wars
were fought and won by those who were able to most optimally calculate and
allocate their resources. Systems thinking assumes that all problems exist under
definite conditions, and that they can be predicted with definitive accuracy and
solvable using a linear process. Systems thinking was the technocrat’s answer to
societal problems that would be executed with high levels of efficiency, pre-
dictability and control over outcomes and were increasingly applied to streamline,
commodify, and quantify every dimension of our lives.
At the peak of systems thinking, the design methods movement was also in full
swing among the specialized design theorists and practitioners advancing what
Richard Buchanan, editor of Design Issues journal, characterizes as “the new liberal
arts of design thinking” (Buchanan 1992). Attracted by the reductionist logic and
the potential to design better buildings, the proponents (Cross 1984; Buchanan
1992) of design methods simplified a typical design rationale as only consisting two
stages: design problem definition and its solution. Systemizing design in such a way
was intended to supplement rather than to supplant traditional design methods.
2.1 Design as a Method 21
Early on, many designers worldwide, led by visionaries such as Walter Gropius and
Le Corbusier, were seduced by the concept of International Style, and rejoiced the
newfound liberty to break free from the past traditions in favor of pure function-
alism and simplicity. By the second half of the 20th century, however, this scientific
orientation of early systems approach in design was met increasingly with strong
resistance from those who felt threatened by increasing marginalization of the
profession through automation and mimicry of styles that were once the hallmarks
of good design. By the 1970s, the designers were not alone in believing that, “the
‘systematic’ must be the enemy of the ‘intuitive’” (Cross 1984) and figures like
Jane Jacobs and George Baird led the way in fueling the public backlash against the
modernist movement that littered the cityscape with sterile metal frames and glass
façades devoid of history, identity and context. The dynamic and often improvised
nature of design process, and the desire for the particular, were inherently incom-
patible with deterministic rationality of early systems approach.
Horst Rittel and Martin Webber, early proponents of design methods movement
recognized that majority of design issues and those that manifest in society are too
complex and indeterminate for scientific systems approach to apply (Rittel and
Webber 1972, as cited in Protzen and Harris 2010). The main shortcoming of
systems thinking is that the reductionist nature of systems fails to consider the
complex social and environmental conditions in which they operate. In her book,
The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at
NASA, sociologist Diane Vaughan illustrates the dangers of institutionalized sys-
tems and its lack of flexibility in incorporating the incremental social, behavioral
and psychological anomalies that eventually culminated in the disaster. While
systems approach is highly effective at measuring outcomes within predefined
parameters, it has evolved to recognize the need to operate in concert with social
factors that are in a constant state of flux.
Indeed, the burgeoning fields of interaction design, experiential design, and
service design reflect a renewed demand for designers to curate new spaces for
communicating, finding meaning, and building experiences that transcend existing
frameworks and systems. This further reinforces the need for architects to
strengthen their understanding of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects of
human condition in urban settings beset with systemic crisis and disruptions. These
are the wicked problems of our generation.
2.1.1 Democratic Decision Making for Wicked Problems
Although Horst Rittel, as both a designer and a mathematician, recognized the

shortcomings of the early models of design methodology, he sought to reframe it in
terms of “wicked problems” (Rittel et al. 1984). He proposed a generational split
between the earlier generation of systems approach, which were linear and were
only suited to what he considered to be “tame” problems, and proposed a mature
version of systemic thinking which would be modified to incorporate more
complex, “wicked”, and non-linear situations. Rittel believed that this “second
generation” design methods had the potential to lift the design profession from its
own crisis of marginalization, because it was both procedurally and attitudinally
different from the scientific, mission-oriented systems approach of the former
generation (Rittel et al. 1984). In developing the second generation approach to
design, Rittel coined the expression “wicked problems” which he broadly defined
as a “class of social system problems which are ill-formulated, where the infor-
mation is confusing, where there are many clients and decision makers with
conflicting values, and where the ramifications in the whole system are thoroughly
confusing” (Churchman 1967). By reframing the systems thinking as a strategy
more germane to “tame” problems than “wicked” ones that are more prevalent in
everyday life, Rittel drives at the essence of what design contributes to systems
thinking: the fundamental shift from outcome-orientation to placing value on
processes that can lead to transformative decision-making as an outcome in itself. If
earlier generation of systems thinking was focused on solving problems, the latter
generation of systems thinking was geared towards problem framing. To illustrate
this point, Rittel outlined the ten characteristics of wicked problems in 1972, which
sets out the basis for collective participation and argumentation:
1. Wicked problems have no definitive formulation, but every formulation of a
wicked problem corresponds to the formulation of a solution.
2. Wicked problems have no stopping rules.
3. Solutions to wicked problems cannot be true or false, only good or bad.
4. In solving wicked problems there is no exhaustive list of admissible operations.
5. For every wicked problem there is always more than one possible explanation,
with explanations depending on the Weltanschauung of the designer.
6. Every wicked problem is a symptom of another, “higher level,” problem.
7. No formulation and solution of a wicked problem has a definitive test.
8. Solving a wicked problem is a “one shot” operation, with no room for trial and
error.
9. Every wicked problem is unique.
10. The wicked problem solver has no right to be wrong—they are fully responsible
for their actions.
As can be ascertained from the above list, framing a problem in terms of wicked
problems is conducive to a collective, democratic decision-making strategy. Rather
than an expert-centric model as espoused by the first generation model, the second
generation model embraces equity and pluralism by placing the expert on par with
other stakeholders. This shift away from expert centrism was in fact congruous with
the wider societal trends of the 1960s. What had been the “golden age” for tradi-
tional experts—whose esoteric scientific power was unencumbered by criticism and
where they had considerable authority over the public—was long gone by the
1970s. The initial period of positivism as shaped by systems thinking gave way to
the “second wave” (Bogner et al. 2009), the age of democracy, which, along with
the technical revolution made knowledge available to all. And having access to
information at one’s fingertips made the concept of subject expertise seems acutely
pedestrian.
Problem solving through democratic process can unclog an existing system that
may eventually become redundant over time and transform it to ones that are open
and receptive to pluralism. By reconciling multiple perspectives, such system can
evolve beyond its conceptual state to one that can encompass the complexities
outside of itself, making it more resilient, relevant, and robust.
Nevertheless, approaching wicked problems through democratic process is laden
with uncertainties. It is necessarily complex and risky. Some of the risks are:
(1) Objectivity—how do we ensure that an expert does not dominate the process
and heavily influence the outcome through his or her expertise? (2) Equity—how
do we ensure the plurality of perspectives is honored? How do we bridge the
differential skill-sets? (3) Ignorance—how do we ensure that sufficient data has
been collected and all possible scenarios had been considered before arriving at a
decision with confidence?
Attaining objectivity in accordance with the characterization of wicked design
problems is inherently problematic because it presupposes an outcome of a decision
as being independent of the subjects carrying out the task. Especially in architec-
ture, as most design decisions are concerned with the particular rather than the
general, they are necessarily subjective. In light of this, Rittel argued for trans-
parency through sharing all available data among stakeholders as being sufficient to
reach what he called “objectification”. Objectification is distinct from the notion of
scientific objectivity in that the person making a decision is responsible for
objectifying the decision-making process to all those that are affected by the out-
come by stimulating doubt, sharing of information, delegating judgment, and most
importantly, allowing others to participate in the democratic design
decision-making process. Objectification, therefore, allows subjective viewpoints to
be balanced and reconciled through evidence-based approach of systems thinking.
Design systems of the second generation departs from the traditional charac-
terization of the designer as the “prima donna” whose authority rests on the
“operational knowledge” of the profession, to that which acknowledges “everyone
is a designer” (Protzen and Harris 2010). Celebration of pluralism, which Rittel
articulates as a “symmetry of ignorance”, broadens the definition of experts to
include those who have specialist knowledge in one field alongside those who may
be non-experts but rich in experiential, local knowledge, allows identification of
decision blind spots and biases of systems designers—be they architects, politi-
cians, or scientists. This in turn has the effect of deepening trust and credibility
among all those affected by the system, experts and non-experts alike.
When faced with wicked problems, value conflicts can precipitate further
uncertainties and produce unintended consequences. While Rittel proposed some
practical strategies for overcoming some of the risks within the second generation
systems thinking, they serve to describe, rather than prescribe how wicked prob-
lems of society can be tackled.
Fig. 2.1 Eight rungs on a ladder of citizen participation (from Arnstein 1969. Reprinted by
permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd., http://www.tandfonline.com)
2.1.2 Democratizing Design
Another seminal work that emerged from this era is Sherry Arnstein’s illustration of
the “Ladder of Citizen Participation” (Fig. 2.1), which articulates a tiered notion of
power distribution in the participatory process of planning.1 Both Rittel and
Arnstein’s work converge on seeing their work as being influenced by politics.
Social participation in the process of design and planning was a phenomenon that
developed in reaction (Jenkins and Forsyth 2010) to the government driven
building boom that followed in the post-war era in the UK and North America in
the 1960s.
1
The ladder of participation is categorized under eight successive rungs according to the levels of
participation, determined by extent to which the participating citizen has influenced the outcome.
The eight rungs of the ladder are clustered into three tiers of power, namely: citizen power,
tokenism, and non-participation.
Arnstein (1969) posited that citizen participation is unequivocal to attainment of

citizen power since forms of participation are distinctly independent of their actual
substance, and argued that participation can become an “empty ritual” if it does not
accompany resources and influence. The lack of robust guidelines on how the
principles of participation can be applied in practice can hinder effective community
participation.
To illustrate this, tokenism is a commonly observed phenomena in town hall
meetings and public consultation workshops where participants are given the
opportunity to voice their views based on proposals developed ahead of the ses-
sions. A city hall meeting that brings together neighborhood residents of a pending
high rise development in the vicinity is one such example.
One downside of consultation is that the participants—who are often stake-
holders of the issues being consulted on—are heard but not necessarily listened to.
Because there is no assurance that the views of participating community will be
reflected in the decisions ultimately made for them, such consultation is a guise for
predetermined action which gets “passed off as legitimate forms of community
participation… despite the users’ participation in decision-making being stifled”
(Davidson et al. 2007), the community is held hostage to consequences that they
had no power to change.
Beyond Rittel and Arnstein, design thinking has been widely adapted as
democratic tools for participatory decision-making and community empowerment.
Design charrettes facilitated by architects and planners are often employed in
community settings to level the power discrepancy between sponsors and their
beneficiaries. The U.S. based design consultancy firm IDEO’s Human Centered
Design Toolkit is an example of systems thinking that has been adapted for use by
those from non-design backgrounds in remote locations where professionals are
scarce, to solve a wide range of social, political, environmental problems using
basic design principles. OpenIDEO, a global online platform for documenting
human centered design implemented in local communities, have dealt with a ple-
thora of issues that span the environment, politics, and economy.
With the human centered design, participants are able to reap the benefits of
design process with minimal learning curve, while discovering and co-creating
ideas through the structured creative process that begins with empathy building,
followed by storytelling, and the recursive process of trial and error until the group
reaches consensus. A defining characteristic of such strategy is the establishment of
personal responsibility and ownership, where power is distributed to willing par-
ticipants rather than on the basis of professional merit.
IDEO’s example suggests a paradigm shift not only in the social perception of
professionals but also in what society demands of professionals in the new era of
democratized knowledge and platforms for communication. As we enter the age of
diversified expertise, the knowledge base on which decisions are formed is
co-created by both professionals and the public, and the professionals’ role as both
providers of specialist knowledge and as supporters of the public needs is
particularly valuable. Imbalanced power dynamics or over-reliance on professionals

can debilitate recovery efforts in disasters. The main risk of expert centrism is that
while professionals provide specialist service to a community using deep domain
expertise gained from outside, when the relevant skills are not transferred to the
public, it can create an unhealthy dependence for the public. In The Abundant
Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods, social policy
experts John McKnight and Peter Block assert that “professionalization is the
market replacement for a community that has lost or outsourced its capacity to care”
(McKnight and Block 2010). Professionalization of disaster can alienate commu-
nities from its ability to be self-sufficient. But the rejection of professionalism is by
no means to advocate for an insular society that is hostile to outsiders, but to
highlight the dangers of unabated reliance on globalization and potentially
one-sided systems of commodification that can diminish the well-being of com-
munities at every scale. For communities to truly prosper, McKnight and Block said
that people cannot thrive in a consumer society, and that people must also re-learn
to become citizens and producers.
2.2 Operationalizing Wicked Problems
In a world with little respect for traditional structures, almost everything… can be
approached as a design problem, in which new solutions must be sought to meet particular
needs and specific contexts.—Fisher (2000)
One recurrent controversy surrounding the second generation design thinking is

that in spite of its many achievements, working with wicked problems is still an
evolving and, to a large extent, an emergent endeavor. Much of its development,
though endured through successive research and scholarship since Rittel’s initial
articulation, remains a description of the social reality of wickedness rather than
grounded in empirical investigations. The focus has been placed upon raising
awareness, preaching for acceptance, and advocating for creative strategies and
innovative approaches. But little has been reported on exactly how these ideas and
proposed approaches can effectively be operationalized.
Developments in technology have given professionals the power to produce
larger and broader effects at the same time that they become more clearly aware of
the remote consequences of their prescriptions. Rittel defined design as “an activity,
which aims at the production of a plan, which plan—if implemented—is intended
to bring about a situation with specific desired characteristics without creating
unforeseen and undesired side and after effects”. To that end, Rittel focused on
describing wicked problems rather than offering a prescription to solve wicked
problems, which is consistent with his conviction that design is a tool for argu-
mentation rather than a one-size-fits-all type solution.
2.2 Operationalizing Wicked Problems 27
2.2.1 Limits of Systems and Professionals
Systems aggregate deficiencies in the name of efficiency. Systems and professionals promise
that the institutions customizes care and personalizes service, but it is an unfulfillable pro-
mise… What they miss in the aggregation of deficiencies is that the structure itself and the
thinking that underlies it makes personalized care impossible.—McKnight and Block (2010)
Introducing efficiencies in existing systems in and of themselves do not alleviate

problems it is trying to fix, if underlying problem are not first addressed. The
concept of personalized care within structured systems is inherently contradictory,
because the personhood invariably gets lost within the systemic aggregation pro-
cess. The limits within existing systems and professionalization are often hidden
from the view of its agents. The main argument for humanitarian design practice is
not to establishing post-disaster context as the new frontier for engaging creative
professional practice, nor is it to force alternative forms of shelter upon disaster
survivors by competing with established aid operators. Doing so would only be
addressing the symptoms of crisis rather than its root cause. Instead of considering
what skills designers can offer in humanitarian settings, design activities need to be
reframed in terms of how it best aligns with a community’s existing competencies
and their vision for resilient future.
Historically, the moral hegemony of architecture has been polarized between
those that see its practice as a product of traditional patronage typically reserved for
society’s elites, and those that view architecture as a basic human right (Burgess
1983; Ward 1996; Watkin 2001; Ray 2005). In terms of their respective design
process, the former group employs an outcome-led approach defined by policies
and regulations, taking on the characteristics of first generation systems approach,
while the latter employ open-ended, process-centered approach that is conducive to
second generation systems approach. In practice, however, there are advantages and
shortcomings to either approach in humanitarian applications.
Top-down, First Generation As already mentioned in the previous chapter,
humanitarian design is often misconstrued because it is seen as an activity that
threatens to encroach on the resources that are already stretched. Nussbaum con-
tended that democratization of architecture should not promote mass proliferation
of pseudo-architecture, but instead to invite architects to reassess the process of
design and the overall objective by “switch[ing] gears from designing for to
designing with” (Nussbaum 2007). But under ordinary circumstances, design in its
traditional application is seen to carry too much risk for humanitarian endeavors.
Whereas both humanitarian agencies and architectural professionals appreciate the
general activity of design as a systemic tool, humanitarian agencies hold the view
that architectural input is an economically burdensome exercise that can safely be
value-engineered (Ban 2011) out with minimal downsides for the overall disaster
recovery process. Architects, on the other hand, view the same activity as an
opportunity to add value (Jenkins and Forsyth 2010) and productivity through
innovation. When considering design from a purely economic standpoint, the
innovation “valley of death” and the high upfront development cost of design
prototyping and testing competes directly with the urgent survival needs of emer-
gency relief.
Design activities also carry the risk of imparting negative consequences, what
Rittel described as “unforeseen and unintended side and after effects”. The skeptics
of humanitarian design are not concerned so much as with the underlying altruistic
motivations of designers as they are with designers’ ability to do harm. In extreme
cases, systematic architectural responses to social problems can decouple the
designer from reality by turning them into an “anonymous, detached, scientifically
rational diagnostician” (Spector 2001). A temporary refuge that such approach
provides, however, can stifle valuable dialogue with users and limit further
opportunities to integrate their actual needs. Unfortunately for designers, the news
media feeds on the faults of a few by sensationalizing the speculative design
gestures of those who offer their vision for rebuilding an entire neighborhood—
often without ever having set foot on the site—when most from within are still
grieving their loss.
Bottom-up, Second Generation For those designers who advocate for, and
practice, humanitarian design, they insist that humanitarianism is “the new com-
passion”, which “demands more than a one-off transactional relationship between
demand and supply: it becomes an integrated discipline that responds to local needs
more directly than conventional practice” (Kaye 2011). Social design entrepreneur
Pilloton (2010) argues that “most critics who call humanitarian design the new
imperialism haven’t done the work and realized how messy, political, and complex
it can be”, while conceding that “we don’t have the best practices or answers yet”.
Influencing social change by enabling design to occur from the ground up has been
a common strategy for humanitarian design practitioners.
The mediating role that architects can play in local communities as “skilled
understanders” (Ward 1996), and as facilitators for group problem solving is widely
documented. What has now evolved to be called the ‘Public Interest Design’
(PID) movement in the U.S. can be traced back to the community architecture
movement in the UK in the 1960s. It was a direct reaction to, and as an alternative to
top-down development projects amid the proliferation of public housing and state-led
mass redevelopment (Jenkins and Forsyth 2010). The “self-build” approaches of
Turner (1972) and the “supports” approach of Habraken (1972) mobilized a gener-
ation of architects and planners to reinforce the need for wider social participation in
architecture. Its early success was reflected in local policy documents that began to
incorporate community participation as part of their strategic planning process.
Today’s contemporaries such as John Peterson, Teddy Cruz, Bryan Bell,
Maurice Cox, and Cameron Sinclair follow on the footsteps of pioneers like Turner
and Habraken. They continue to champion the social design’s requisite goal of
democratizing design. Though wildly diverse in their approach, whether expressed
in terms of ‘community-led design’, ‘cooperative design’, ‘co-design’,
‘co-creation’, ‘self-help design’, or ‘participatory design’, the underlying principle
is similar in that it goes beyond the token participation of users, where design is
used as a mediating tool for communicating and interpreting needs and priorities of
stakeholders, establishing equity, and empowering those without voice. Maurice

Cox, a PID evangelist, recalled that empathic design has been about giving users
choice (March 25, 2010). John Peterson’s “the one percent” initiative was launched
in 2005 to invite the U.S. architects to pledge one percent of their time annually on
community projects. Peterson contends that the work of professionals solely driven
by “generosity of spirit” (John Peterson, as cited in Peterson et al. 2010) or altruism
cannot be self-sustaining in the long run; it must incorporate non-profit work within
normal for-profit practice while the former meets the performance objectives of the
latter. The one percent initiative has shown that the main barrier for architects to
engage in non-profit work—whether in post-disaster reconstruction or in
low-socioeconomic communities—is not in the lack of financial incentives or time,
but because the pro bono component of architectural design service had not yet
been professionalized and recognized as they have been in other disciplines.
2.2.2 Disaster as a Wicked Problem
Whereas human error may be minimized through successive systemic improve-

ments, natural disasters that manifest at the intersection of human activity and
routine metabolic activities of mother nature cannot be avoided, and thus fall under
the class of wicked problems that Rittel espoused. The systemic failures that
accompany such events also require government agencies, humanitarian organi-
zations, professionals, and communities that each has values that sometimes align
and compete with one another.
Wicked problems in disasters manifest in all forms, at all stages from emergency
to recovery, from how they are measured, managed and assessed, in how they affect
individuals, communities, organizations, and government agencies, to smorgasbord
of approaches in which societies and cultures learn from the experience, and the
countless ways in which they do not. The prevalence of disaster myths and mis-
conceptions propagated throughout society add to the challenge for those in
humanitarian aid. Whether driven by popular culture, sensationalist news media
reports, rumors, or even forgetfulness, disaster misconceptions persist and plague
our ability to manage it. David E. Alexander, the Professor of Risk and Disaster
Reduction at University College London, conducted a transatlantic study
(Alexander 2007) among the students of disasters to test the extent of the mis-
conceptions based on the most persistent myths, such as: ‘earthquakes are com-
monly responsible for very high death tolls’, or that ‘looting is a common and
serious problem after disasters’, and ‘companies, corporations, associations and
governments are always very generous when invited to send aid and relief to
disaster areas’. He was surprised to find that many of the myths endured beyond
educational levels and cultural backgrounds (2007).
Disaster research is an interdisciplinary field that has dedicated itself to detan-
gling some of the challenges posed by the recurrent wicked problems of disasters
yet even within this field there is a divergence (Perry 2007) between those
researchers who follow the “hazards” approach, the study of disaster cycles; those
who adopt the “sociological” approach, the study of social disruption accompa-
nying disasters; and those who take the “social phenomenon” approach, the study
of socially constructed vulnerabilities and social change. Such divergent approaches
of disaster researchers can sometimes produce contradictory findings that create
more confusion than understanding (Stallings 2007). Alignment of classifications
and typologies employed in conducting disaster research, which may prove to be
fruitful for the sake of consolidation, still poses a major challenge since bulk of the
prototypical disaster research are produced as independent field studies (Stallings
2007). In other words, the limited resources, tight deadlines, and improvised con-
ditions in which such studies are produced often lead researchers to employ
closed-systems approaches to justify their methods, not unlike the behavior
(Schilderman 2010) of humanitarian agencies that, while preferring participatory
approaches to rebuilding, are still hard-wired to behave in the top-down manner. In
reality, many relief agencies seek to maintain control and implement the first
generation systems approach, and as a result, communities can be left out of the
design decision-making that directly impact on their livelihood.
What these observations also suggest is that the quality of wickedness is not only
inherent in the phenomenon of disaster itself, but also exists as a byproduct of the
human response to the disaster.
2.2.3 Beyond Rittel: Reasserting Design as Universal

Human Right
most of the design problems we face lie far beyond the expertise of a single individual or
profession—Protzen
Resilient design is neither a top-down nor a bottom-up approach, but a design

conversation that provides communities with the means to become authorities in
their own decisions, to support them in making a decision appropriate to the cir-
cumstances, and to build capacity for carrying on the work long after the designers
have left the room. Former U.S. Congressman and architect Richard Swett argued
that engaging the broader community as decision-makers has the effect of “trans-
form[ing] the ultimate users of the project into its stakeholders”, because, “Without
stakeholders, there is little appreciation for the outcome of the project and little
desire to maintain it” (Swett 2005). Even as the nature of humanitarian assistance in
recent years are shifting from a professional-led approach to one that is more
community-centered, architects are hardly strangers to the idea.
The history of architectural profession reinforces the strong reciprocal rela-
tionship that architectural profession has with society (Till 2009; Cruz and Tate
2010; Boano and Hunter 2012; Jenkins and Forsyth 2010), mirroring its develop-
ment in both positive and negative ways. The discussion also leaves open the
possibility for the profession to act as an influential middle-agent that can enable,
mediate, and aggregate societal change, as much as it can disable, disconnect, and
disaggregate relationships. In Architects Without Frontiers, Charlesworth (2006)
employs the terms ‘architect’ and ‘architecture’ interchangeably to encompass
multiple professional groups operating in the built environment. Despite the tra-
ditional association of architecture with “elite edifices for the emerging bour-
geoisie”, Charlesworth argues that architecture also embodies “broader acts of
thinking, creating, and implementing in a structured intellectual framework” (2006).
The context of disasters provide an opportunity to discuss how architects can
engage in the problem-sharing processes needed within the complex parameters of
urban environments, where Charlesworth asks: “Is it our role to provide the
definitive solution, or rather to provoke… collective action in rebuilding civil
society after the disaster…?” (2006).
Richard Coyne denied that Rittel’s conceptualization of wicked problems does
little beyond shifting the problem from those that can be dealt by professionals to
the community: “so-called ‘second generation’ analytical methods shifted the
ground to a consideration of communities and their means of communication… But
this move from a rationality based on abstract logic to a more empiricist or expe-
riential position merely shifted the problem of defining rationality and rational
criteria to the broader arena of community consensus” (Coyne 2005 #873@7),
however, within the post-disaster context, such shift is not only desirable—as it
repositions problems from being contained within the exclusive domain of pro-
fessionals to that of communities—it makes the wicked problems approach a viable
route to resilience.
Operationalizing the wicked problems, which can be considered as the third
generation systems thinking, is about having the wherewithal to bring the second
generation systems approach to the context that is still operating within the first
generation systems mindset. Rittel provided a framework for applied design
thinking but what Rittel advocated for was not a dogmatic adherence to any par-
ticular strategy in practice, but to provide a guideline for resilience by minimizing
the unforeseen side and after-effects that can arise in all design decisions. Finally,
design thinking can be operationalized within the context of humanitarian activities
to diagnose the extent of its wicked properties as well as to develop a better
understanding of the design decisions made during times of crisis so we can
quantify its long-term social impact.
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Chapter 3
Paradoxes of Building Back Better
Forgetfulness is one of the greatest sins of our time. People

block out remembrance of difficult times, of failures, of their
own weakness.
—Albert Friedlander, in “Lessons from Disaster: How
Organizations Have No Memory and Accidents Recur”
The spectacle of a disaster produces an outpouring of event-specific neologisms that

can also impede effective communication across its many stakeholders. This pre-
sents multiple problems where recovery efforts require coordination of multiple
stakeholders. Miscommunication at any point during the decision-making process
can hinder the momentum of collective recovery and post-disaster practice.
Moderating user participation is also difficult given that in most sponsored projects
there is minimal financial leeway for participatory processes and users end up
having very limited involvement in the decisions that affect their livelihood. For
these reasons and others that we will discuss in subsequent pages of this book, most
aid agencies and professionals are predisposed to limiting communication and are
partial to top-down, donor-driven approach to disaster recovery.
Professional interests notwithstanding, there are precedents for architectural
design systems that support user-driven approaches, particularly in the early works
of John Turner, John Habraken, and Stewart Brand. In Supports, Habraken (1972)
advocates for a system of design that tailors each design decision-making process to
the needs of its users. Starting at the macro level, the urban tissue serves as a
background, which is then punctuated with many micro spaces that can readily
morph and change with the users. In Habraken’s view, architecture exists to provide
‘support’ for the users by creating only the necessary structures and membranes
around them. Similarly, in Freedom to Build, Turner (1972) proposes the need for
housing that is ‘dweller-controlled’, articulating it in terms of “housing as a verb”
(1972), rather than as a noun, by focusing on the social aspects of how housing
enables livelihoods rather than from the point of view of a house as an object. Two
decades later, Brand (1994) echoes this sentiment and acknowledges that building

34 3 Paradoxes of Building Back Better
is “both verb and noun”, because even though architecture strives for permanence,
change with use is inevitable because “function melts form” (1994):
Almost no buildings adapt well. They’re designed not to adapt; also budgeted and financed
not to, constructed not to, administered not to, maintained not to, regulated and taxed not to,
even remodeled not to. But all buildings (except monuments) adapt anyway, however
poorly, because the usages in and around them are changing constantly.
But to build back better for all parties involved in post-disaster activities, neither
donor-driven nor user-driven approaches are optimal. In the donor-driven model,
agencies tend to take a linear view of building back better, which essentially follows
a predefined recipe as determined by deadlines and resources allocated to that
particular case to build at scale and at speed. After all, most of its agents are
operating on a predefined timeline with tangible performance outputs rather than on
open-ended terms. Traditionally, this has meant that from the moment that projects
break ground to when the finishing coat is applied, instigators are seldom afforded a
chance to consider other more complex underlying issues that lie outside of the
initial project scope such as social dynamics, local economy, cultural appropri-
ateness, and sustainability. By contrast, in the owner-driven model where time is
not of the essence but there is limited or inadequate expertise available, building
back better is an aspiration that can easily be compromised without adequate
support and guidance from those agencies with ready access to professionals.
Schilderman (2010) builds on Habraken and Turner’s ideas for the post-disaster
context in what he calls the people-centered reconstruction (2010). While building
back better has chiefly been a top-down reconstruction strategy, he argues that it is
possible to get to the heart of the original intention of build back better which
recognizes the physical destruction of the built environment as the symptoms of
deeper underlying vulnerabilities of human settlements.
The urge to return home has been a defining behavior of displaced survivors,
contrary to the advice given by some disaster experts who have found adverse
consequences of doing so (Campanella 2010; Potangaroa and Kipa 2011; Smith and
Wenger 2005). Brunsma et al. (2007) rationalized that the disaster survivor’s sense
of attachment to the land—whether personal, social, commercial, historical in origin
—is only heightened by the stark absence of place that had forged his or her identity
pre-disaster. This primeval sense of belonging predisposes some to resist dis-
placement, and insist on returning to, or even to rebuild on sites already known to
being at risk for future disasters. As counterintuitive as the decision to wager one’s
future in the path of potential future disasters is, for those whom all else has been
lost, the land becomes the last vestige of their home.
Post-disaster decision-making is one of the most challenging tasks, complicated
by pre-existing problems in addition to developmental issues (Chang et al. 2010).
Those who have been displaced by disasters are particularly vulnerable to inap-
propriate design solutions and housing arrangements in the absence of clarity and
suitable alternatives (Davis 1978). Disaster researchers call this stage a “crisis time
period” (Quarantelli, as cited in Stallings 2003), a period “time compression”
(Olshansky and Johnson 2010) and describes the situation as predisposed to being
3 Paradoxes of Building Back Better 35
engulfed by “the tyranny of the Urgent” (Fordham 2005). In most cases, the speed
of recovery is prioritized over the form of recovery, and the aforementioned
complex social considerations are seldom factored into decisions. This is why
leadership is so critical.
3.1 Communicating Resilience
Build back better has become a 21st century tagline for humanitarian assistance.
Disaster researchers trace its usage to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which began
as a slogan popularized by the former U.S. President Bill Clinton that was also
picked up by both government agencies and humanitarian assistance organizations
as a post-disaster strategy (Alam 2006). The build back better agenda has continued
to evolve, taking on new identities in subsequent disasters around the world. In
Haiti, it became part of an international “Build Back Better Communities” design
initiative; in New Orleans, it became manifested in the municipal master plan for
“Bring New Orleans Back”; and in Christchurch, devastating effects of aftershocks
to the initial earthquake in 2010 debilitated people’s ability to reevaluate the city as
“Before” and “After”. Imbedded within such disaster neologism is the political
nature of emergency response, and how wildly different its interpretation can be.
For many political agents, building back better is as much a means to maintain their
status quo as before the disaster by reinforcing their political competence in
addition to aid distribution. In the past, for many governments this had meant using
military interventions to restore perceived disturbances to order, anticipating and
minimizing public panic through media communication, and, if necessary, an
international call for emergency assistance. In Banda Aceh, where much of the
damage was concentrated following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the interna-
tional aid community’s purport to build back better was characterized by “the need
to place environmental hazards within the wider contexts of building sustainable
communities and not re-creating or exacerbating vulnerabilities” (Kennedy et al.
2008). It is worth noting that this definition mirrors Horst Rittel’s characterization
of design, which he describes as an activity “intended to bring about a situation with
specific desired characteristics without creating unforeseen and undesired side and
after effects” (Rittel 1968, as cited in Protzen and Harris 2010). To build back
better, in other words, is to engage in design.
However, whether the aims of build back better are fulfilled on the ground has
been a subject of debate among disaster researchers. Kennedy et al. problematized
the lack of benchmarks for building back better (Kennedy et al. 2008):
The word ‘better’ can have multiple interpretations… does ‘better’ mean more modern,
more environmentally friendly, more aesthetic, more orientated towards livelihoods, more
resistant to earthquakes and tsunamis, more resistant to all environmental hazards, or a
combination? At times… trade-offs are necessary.
Even though participatory approaches to rebuilding after disasters are becoming

popular movements, gaining traction in recent years over the non-participatory
strategies of many governmental agencies and NGOs, the nature of participation
can reveal a discord in their implementation. Most relief agencies are still
hard-wired to behave in a traditionalist, top-down manner (Schilderman 2010),
because their very establishment depends on being able to demonstrate predictable
outcomes and stability for its donors. As such, organizations and government
agencies need years and even decades to make necessarily structural changes to
support such movements.
From an emergency relief perspective, humanitarian aid organizations have
interpreted “build back better” as “build back faster” by focusing on outcomes and
defaulting to “expert-driven” and “top-down” rebuilding approaches, not account-
ing for community engagement and planning beyond the emergency phase, which
is a small fraction both in time and resources compared to the recovery. Taken to
extremes, failure to adequately plan can damage livelihoods by weakening safety
and security (Kennedy et al. 2008), while inadequate planning can lead to resource
exploitation and environmental degradation (Williams 2008).
Suffice to say, build back better warrants further scrutiny and qualification with
regard to whom the build is intended to serve, what is meant by building back, and
how the betterment is measured. Similarly, asking wicked questions in any
post-disaster environment first involves understanding the nature of disasters,
particularly as it relates to a particular event, at a particular time, within a particular
place. Rittel proposed that one of the properties of wicked problems is that, “every
formulation of the WP corresponds to a statement of the solution” (Rittel 2010). In
other words, how a wicked problem is situated within the field of inquiry deter-
mines what approach will be used, for better or worse, to address them. Rittel did
not necessarily suggest a way of solving a problem directly (in the same way that
one would approach tame problems through linear “first generation” thinking), but
rather to approach wicked problems through a non-linear argumentative process
(2010) and to see it from a different perspective (2010). Deliberating on a decision
by weighing all the known pros and cons makes a problem’s “wickedness” more
explicit and transparent, which can lead to better decisions in a state of uncertainty
than otherwise.
Building back, for many members of the local community, entails an impossible
task of replicating a pre-disaster city in a post-disaster environment, as many sur-
vivors displaced by the event yearn to return “home” and persist in doing so despite
the number of setbacks stacked against them. It is not that people are resistant to
change; they fear change when what they might lose outweighs the benefits of
change. The key issue here, however, is for whom rebuilding can be considered
better. For some, it means to “build back faster”, while for others it is to “build back
to original state”. The three case studies demonstrate that architectural design
interventions, while limited in scale, can contribute positively to urban disaster
recovery processes.
Urban disaster recovery processes follow one simple rule, where the total
recovery period only lasts for as long as there are resources available. Much of the
3.1 Communicating Resilience 37
social, political and economic aftershocks of a major disaster can persist for many
years after the event, and the length of the recovery period has cost implications
that, in turn, can affect the efficiencies of the recovery process. Unlike tame
problems that have finite number of solutions and a linear decision-making process,
wicked problems need to be considered from multiple positions and approached as
an argumentative process (Protzen and Harris 2010) to arrive at suitable strategies
for resilience. Decision-making processes within urban disasters share similar
qualities as wicked problems, in that there are multiple stakeholders who may hold
different, and sometimes competing, positions on a design problem. Like wicked
problems, for such design problems there are no irrefutable “right” decisions, but
only “good” or “better” decisions, which can shift according to the values espoused
by each individual who is party to the decision-making.
3.1.1 Anti-resilience
Announcement of humanitarian crisis in the mass media is an informal call to arms

to solicit international relief efforts, a global solicitation of multi-sectoral,
multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary responses because disaster recovery often
exceeds the capacity of the local authority (Kreps 2001, as cited in Rodriguez et al.
2007). Fordham (2005) observes that such humanitarian organizations become
operationally siloed in either development or disaster relief (Fordham), and can
project hostilities towards those in opposite operational focus, whom it sees as
having incompatible vision towards disaster recovery and compete for funds.
Buckle (2005) builds on Fordham’s argument by asserting that the world is con-
strained by “competing interests and limited resources which limit their capacity to
achieve the change they often desire”, which can be extended to rationalize the
behaviors of aid agencies who must compete for relief funding with other organi-
zations in post-disaster contexts. When the expressed objectives of humanitarian
intervention is shared among disaster agencies, the lack of adequate communica-
tion, coordination and clarity can stymie their efforts through overcrowding and
duplication (Drabek 2007; Britton 2007).
Politics and Reforms Disasters can also become a vehicle for legitimizing political
reforms. In Disaster Capitalism, Naomi Klein asserts that major ‘natural’ disasters in
the last three decades became a catalyst for exercising the ‘shock doctrine’, a new
instrument of neoliberal practices prescribed by Milton Friedman—the originator of
neoliberal economic policies (Klein 2007). According to Klein, Friedman set to
exploit large-scale crisis in which to put forward free-market ideas by overhauling
the “tyranny of the status quo”. Friedman proposed that “only a crisis—actual or
perceived—produces real change” (Friedman, November 19, 2006, NY Times Op
Ed. as cited in Klein 2007), which Klein views as a “fundamentalist form of capi-
talism” that the federal government employs during disaster and crisis to advance
unpopular political reforms and undertake economic experiments.
Commercialization of Aid Humanitarian agencies are also culpable partners in

commercializing international disaster relief and reconstruction efforts. McCleary
(2009) observes the extent to which some NGOs are private voluntary organizations
(PVO),1 implicated in carrying out foreign policies of the U.S. federal government,
largely without public awareness. The general public seldom questions the inde-
pendence of PVOs and is instead preoccupied with the fiscal accountability of
PVOs as charitable organizations and in their efficacy in fulfilling the mandate
through their activities (McCleary 2009). She finds that the public’s preoccupation
with quantitative results—what percentage of donor dollars are spent on projects
and administrative overheads—which, while important, neglect the extent to which
how some PVOs can harbor political agendas. According to her analysis, two
distinct patterns have emerged since the end of the second World War: one, the
degree to which PVOs rely on federal assistance and become quasi-government
operators in carrying out foreign policies on the government’s behalf, and two, the
recent trend by the U.S. federal government to channel more development assis-
tance funds directly to domestic for-profit contractors and commercial enterprises.
McCleary contends that this institutional behavior is in part driven by the global
conditioning of large humanitarian agencies in recent years to the growing com-
mercialization of foreign aid, where “familiar humanitarian paradigm that good
intentions automatically lead to good deeds and then to good results was no longer
considered legitimate” (McCleary 2009), deeming the honeymoon period of
humanitarian agencies as essentially over. Financial dependency on federal gov-
ernment has influenced the behaviors of those it finances, leaving to question
whether commercialization of humanitarian assistance agencies are serving the
interests of the disaster beneficiaries they serve globally, and at what cost, as the
political troubles of competing agencies will likely be inherited by communities on
the ground.
3.1.2 Cognitive Dissonance in Disasters
Rumors are vital for disseminating information during a disaster. In the last decade,
social network platforms have revolutionized ways in which individuals share
information, and in disaster settings they have been essential for locating survivors,
eyewitness accounts recorded on mobile phone cameras, live feeds delivered
through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. This phenomenon can be
explained through a concept of ‘cognitive dissonance’, coined by Festinger (1957).
A cognitive dissonance is a state of disequilibrium felt in having two or more
1
In her book, Global Compassion (2009), McCleary characterizes PVOs as non-profit and
tax-exempt humanitarian assistance agencies distinct from NGOs since NGOs can also include
for-profit companies. For the purpose of this research, such distinction is not critical to under-
standing, thus more widely used term of NGO and INGO are used to refer to local and interna-
tional professional agencies engaged in humanitarian relief and development.
3.1 Communicating Resilience 39
inconsistent cognitions (ideas, beliefs and values) such as when expectations do not
align with what is experienced in reality. Festinger asserted that people avert such
dissonance by seeking rationalization through one of the following:
1. By lowering the importance of dissonant factor, (people make do with what they
have)
2. By adding consonance, (add a positive spin on things) and
3. By changing one of the dissonant factors. (Through consilience)
Strategies for Lowering Dissonance—Cognitive adjustments to reality
Dissonance can alleviate the trauma and pain from those who survive disasters.
Canadian psychiatrist MacCurdy (1943) observed that people will demonstrate
incredible resilience and tenacity in the face of adversity, because “there is a
contrast between the actuality of the destruction of others and one’s own scathe-
lessness …and with it has been associated not the previous anticipation of
destruction but the actual experience of successful escape” (1943). While this can
be powerful mental phenomenon, this perception of safety gives people courage but
also a false sense of security that can equally be detrimental for resilience. Nigg and
Mileti (2002) argue that cognitive adjustments allow for the reduction of dissonance
where environmental hazards exist but the person continues to live in that setting
(Nigg and Mileti 2002).
The most extreme form of cognitive adjustment manifests in a form of denial of
the threat itself (Nigg and Mileti 2002), which can be amplified through develop-
ment of ‘disaster subculture’ that conditions people to become complacent about
disaster preparedness and mitigation if the government accepts greater responsi-
bility for hazards. Nigg and Mileti have found that the less an organization such as
the government agency has to change its operating procedures from its routine
non-disaster work the more effective is their disaster response, thereby making the
work consonant with known and routine work process, but also the more flexible an
organization is to deviate from standard operating procedures the more effective
they can be, so that the organization’s inherent ability to accommodate dissonance
is likened to adding consonant, positively reinforced elements.
Strategies for Adding Consonance—Rumors Another interesting point of dis-

cussion on cognitive dissonance is the “induced-compliance paradigm” which
measures the extent to which external incentives can influence human behavior. Less
dissonance may be experienced in a morally conflicting situation if there is adequate
external justification to warrant the dissonant behavior, while internal justification
may be induced if there is inadequate external justification for the behavior.
Despite the dismal realities of post-disaster cities, research has shown that many
societies invent its own silver lining through creative coping strategies that reduce
the physical dissonance they experience. Many cope in emergency shelters because
they perceive it to be only a temporary measure, although given the limited resources
in many post disaster contexts force many people to stay in temporary housing
arrangements for significantly longer period than originally intended (Bolin 1994).
Early research by psychologist Prasad (1950) in her seminal work entitled, A

Comparative Study of Rumours and Reports in Earthquakes proposed that cogni-
tive dissonance can occur when people seek to ‘self-justify’ when a disaster occurs
in a community, leading to irrationally fearful rumors to spread in nearby com-
munities not involved in the disaster because of the need of those who are not
threatened to justify their anxieties in disasters. They are ‘constructions’ formed
under special circumstances of the crisis. Such behaviors are also seen in com-
munities of adjacent towns not adversely affected by disasters where the residents
exaggerate the disaster’s effect in their own community (Hunt et al. 2009).
Furthermore, mass media can sensationalize one-off minor crimes—such as looting
of emergency resources by disaster survivors—and blow it out of proportion
(Alexander 2005). Sometimes such tactics have been employed as political tactics
that serve very narrow economic or developmental agendas unrelated to the event
itself (Klein 2007). Stallings (1995) and Alexander (2007) both describe such
myth-making behaviors as detrimental to the broader community since such actions
only serve to feed irrational fears of threats that simply do not exist.
Strategies for Changing Dissonance—Convergence Disaster sites are magnets

for convergent activities. They can be informational, material, or personal in nature,
and each can be a source of both strength and weakness in disaster recovery. In
informational convergence, excessive communication can clog the network, but
timely warning systems can move people at risk into safety (Stallings 2007); in
material convergence, poorly considered relief initiatives—such as donation of
unseasonal clothes and perishable food items that are surplus to local needs—can
divert valuable resources on the ground (Alexander 2007); personal convergence of
unofficial, emergent community leaders and official first responders—police, mili-
tary, urban search and rescue workers, medical workers—can mobilize people from
within and from outside to redress gaps where existing social system failed. Kreps
and Bosworth (2007) argue that a systemic adaptation to disasters require both
formal and informal groups to act in unison.
While government agencies and scientists discourage the spread of misinfor-
mation to abate the risk of inciting false alarm and panic in the public, Turner
characterizes rumors as “intensive information-seeking” behavior that fills the
information gap in times of uncertainty (Turner 1994). Turner observes that
moderate spread of rumors can be helpful to restore some sanity in an otherwise
dull routine of post-disaster survival, but it can also be essential to mitigating future
disasters through its potential to drive resilience through collective problem solving
in the absence of leadership. However, rumors can also backfire in the public when
a minor incidence of looting becomes exaggerated through the media and result in
security measures that not only delay the recovery process but also draw resources
away from more useful rehabilitative projects (Dynes and Tierney 1994). Part II of
this book illustrates how cognitive dissonance manifests in various disasters, where
factors influencing post-disaster decision-making shed valuable insights into how
we can tackle the wicked problems in this age of urban resilience.
3.2 Societal Pathologies 41
3.2 Societal Pathologies
Nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any
lessons they might have drawn from it.—Georg W. Hegel, 1832
Human societies throughout history have come together to form competitive

advantage over other species, but not all were able to thrive to the present day.
Wicked problems pervade every society, and it is their response to the challenges
that determine its fate. Where they fail, it is a result of what Rittel calls ‘patholo-
gies’ stemming from failures to plan, failures to take action, inability to admit or
learn from a mistake. Similarly, in Collapse, geographer Diamond (2005) attributes
most of the societal collapses as resulting from environmental damage, which he
describes as an aggregate of five contributing factors—climate change, trade part-
ners, hostile neighbors, human impacts on the environment, and societal response to
environmental problems—that can lead to the demise of society. Out of these,
Diamond asserts the human response to environmental problems to be most pow-
erful due to the snowball effect that competing political, economic, institutional,
and cultural values can have over other problems (2005). A case in point is the
environmental divergence of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Despite sharing the
same Caribbean Island, Hispaniola, their land management policies over the years
have turned the Dominican Republic into one of the wealthiest nations in the
Caribbean, whereas Haiti has become the poorest nation in the Western
Hemisphere. Suffice to say, leadership plays a central role in decision-making and is
a critical component of a city’s resilience.
This book examines three recent disasters: the 2005 Hurricane Katrina in the U.S.,
and the 2010 earthquakes in Haiti and New Zealand. The way disasters are handled
among different governing agencies seem to have little effect on the extent of human
disasters that follow a major catastrophe, because once the system breaks, the efforts
to repair or restore it through conventional means no longer suffice. Decision-making
is a significant part of managing disasters, since who gets to weigh in on the decisions
is a determining factor in how key decisions are made. In the U.S., disaster man-
agement mandates the city officials to serve as the control center supplanted by
federal resources, while in New Zealand disaster management is handled by the
national government itself. In Haiti, which has long been subject to political reforms
from abroad, insufficient systems are in place for its own disaster management; so
multinational humanitarian agencies must intervene in the recovery efforts.
3.2.1 Build Back Better Communities
The 2010 Haiti earthquake remains one of the largest natural disasters in the recent
history of global humanitarian action, characterized not only by the crisis of
humanitarian response that followed the event but because it amplified the human
disaster that preceded it. The scene that unfolded before the global media
demonstrated a convergence of misfortunes where everything that could go wrong,

did. Over two centuries of political volatility and ongoing transnational conflict had
blinded the Republic of Haiti from heeding the warning that disasters don’t kill
people; buildings do.
The epicenter of the 2010 earthquake, Port-au-Prince was a city initially
designed to accommodate 250,000, but industrialization since the 1980s led to its
population ballooning to 2.6 million by the time the earthquake hit. Industrial
factories of transnational corporations popped up like mushrooms, the Haitian
leaders were eager to have foreign investment, and the locals whose traditional
livelihoods were on the brink of extinction were happy to find employment in the
city. But because this urban sprawl was left unregulated, Port-au-Prince became an
architect’s nightmare. Many newcomers to the city had to improvise and build their
own homes, forming informal settlements in every unclaimed nook and cranny left
over in the city. Lacking in appropriate skills or the wherewithal to construct
earthquake-resistant structures, these dwellings served to be little more than privacy
screens. Though they resembled concrete blocks, the limestone walls contained
little to no steel rebar content and stood no chance against the 7.2 magnitude
earthquake, where entire settlements crumbled into rubble in just 35 s.
Given the perilous history of Haiti, humanitarian agency reports often
rationalized the magnitude of the disaster by referencing Haiti’s history of recurrent
disasters and highlighted the plight of Haitian politics, often faulting their failure to
institute ‘true’ democracy in 200 years. It is true that historically this first African
republic endured a long period of civil war since the founding in 1805. Following
several foreign occupations, two generations of dictators, innumerable coup d’états,
Haiti’s independence cost its citizens dearly. Even when the democratic constitution
was instituted in 1987 and first democratically elected President took office, the
leadership was devoid of democratic purpose, requiring the UN’s intervention. The
political argument is used to explain everything from deforestation, industrializa-
tion, right through to proliferation of informal settlements.
The most publicized rebuilding initiative by the Government of Haiti
(GoH) following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti was the “Build Back Better
Communities” (BBBC) campaign. Jointly overseen by Michel Martelly, the
incumbent Haitian President, and the former U.S. President Bill Clinton who also
serves as the U.S. Special Envoy to Haiti, BBBC was an ambitious global campaign
to solicit innovative ideas for new housing prototypes for Haiti (Ministry of
Tourism 2011). From some 360 submissions that flooded in from around the world,
over 140 RFPs were shortlisted and invited to exhibit the full-scale prototype in the
second stage: the housing expo. The basic criteria for the housing prototype were
that it had to be (1) affordable, but also be earthquake and cyclone resistant,
(2) made of quality, durable materials, (3) capable of being delivered at scale, and
(4) built by Haitian workforce. Bruemmer (2011) observed that while all of the
exhibits would have been accepted on the basis of fulfilling the design criteria,
many of the schemes fell short of the competition’s initial promises to build back
better on almost all other accounts. The prototype houses were simply unaffordable
for majority of Haitians. Based on the Ministry’s website, the construction cost of
the prototypes ranged from US$ 6,400 to US$ 70,660 (exhibit 12 A Ministry of
Tourism 2011). In a country where 85 % of the Haitians live below minimum living
cost of US$ 5 a day (Wearne 2012) rendered even the cheapest available prototype
unaffordable, thereby largely missing the campaign’s focus on the Haitian com-
munities. Affordability, quality control, and scalable reconstruction issues aside,
such paradoxical standards of design ideas campaign only amplifies the cultural
incompatibility of predetermined design solutions and ideological dilemmas that
arise in the realities of post disaster reconstruction.
Yet culturally appropriate reconstruction is a heated topic among disaster
practitioners (Lizarralde et al. 2010) as well as researchers (Quarantelli 1978;
Hoffman and Oliver-Smith 2002; Hamad et al. 2003). First we look to Haiti’s long
history of NGO-driven neoliberalism, which led Haitians to develop a distrust for
humanitarian professionals (Maguire et al. 1996). While the UN peacekeeping
forces have been credited for suppressing civil instability and crime reduction since
their arrival in 2004, whether their presence had an unintended consequence of
hampering humanitarian engagement with the local population remains unknown
(Rencoret et al. 2010). Post-disaster activities are often driven by fear of the
unknown, characterized by the incumbent government’s need for civil defense
rather than civil protection. In the days following the 2010 earthquake, Haitians
were left to loot for survival because of rumored civil unrest in the capital forced
those at the helm to turn back cargos of food and valuable medical aids to make way
instead for additional military forces. Concerns over imagined threats to political
security had thus diverted humanitarian aid away from earthquake survivors by
prioritizing “military over humanitarian flights” (Hallward 2010).
The incapacitation of the national government following the 2010 earthquake led
the Haitian leaders to look to the assistance of intergovernmental agencies, most
notably led by the U.S. government, yet just five years earlier, when Hurricane
Katrina swept through the southern coast, they were unable to respond to the same
extent that it could mobilize its own humanitarian agencies abroad. So how is it that
a nation that is a major contributor to global humanitarian aid could not efficiently
manage its own disaster? What can be learned from the design decisions that were
made or not made in response to Katrina?
3.2.2 Bring New Orleans Back
In the early days of post-Katrina, a three-year rebuilding plan for New Orleans was
launched by the name “Bring New Orleans Back” (BNOB). Spearheaded by the
then New Orleans City Mayor Ray Nagin, BNOB was New Orleans’ equivalent
plan of action for building back better. Nagin corralled a strong team of experts who
could “turn our pre-Katrina dreams into post-Katrina realities” (Nagin 2006),
consisting of eight subcommittees tasked with specific portfolios—such as land use,
economic development, infrastructure, education, health, and social services.
But apart from BNOB, a number of other design initiatives mushroomed

throughout the city, from government-funded projects to community-led initiatives,
with the private sector supporting and serving both the public and community
sectors.
Unfortunately, everyone who felt responsible for, or in some instances felt
outright entitled to having a stake in post-Katrina New Orleans initiated some form
of collective visioning exercise in isolation, which invariably duplicated work and
polarized communities. Such planning initiatives, often ad hoc in nature, are
problematic because they are “neither rigorously pursued nor consistently funded”
(Alexander 2006). Such haphazard planning endeavors at local, the state, and the
federal level—BNOB commission notwithstanding—resulted in a “plandemonium”
(Campanella 2010), which, while not considered threatening, were collectively
unsuccessful because any radical change is unwelcome in the early days of urban
disasters:
History indicates that in the wake of urban disasters, the most ambitious and revolutionary
rebuilding plans usually suffer the greatest likelihood of failure. Victims of trauma seek
normalcy and a return to pre-traumatic conditions; the last thing they want is more change.
(Campanella 2010)
In the face of uncertainty, the Urban Land Institute (ULI), the subcommittee of
BNOB, had released a report outlining the initial redevelopment plans in which
they suggested that the low-lying districts should be decommissioned altogether in
anticipation of future floods in the region. This plan, which Campanella conceded as
an otherwise compelling logic infuriated the residents of the “condemned” land
which despite the high risk of future flooding they wanted to return (Campanella
2010). The proposal to reduce the overall footprint of the city by rezoning the
low-lying and flood-prone lands into green fields was too “radical” for the flood
survivors. The proposal also seemed racially motivated, since the low-lying areas
were overwhelmingly owned by ethnic minorities and immigrants. In fact, if the
city were to shrink its footprint according to ULI’s recommendations, New Orleans
would lose over 80 % of black residents in the city (Logan 2006). In the end,
despite the intention of BNOB to create a “socially equitable community with a
vibrant economy… planned with its citizens and connect to jobs and the region”
(Nagin 2006), Nagin’s proposal was far from being equitable in the eyes of those
whose land was affected.
The failure of BNOB demonstrated that building back better takes more than an
innovative proposal from top subject-matter experts and industry leaders. A sense
of community and New Orleans identity cannot be forged out of only what makes
technical sense, since the implications of post-disaster design decisions reach
beyond the social, cultural, and political dimensions into individual and personal
realms. Many homeowners are reluctant to relocate given their emotional attach-
ment to the local community and place. This paramount urge to return home and to
restore normalcy, in the minds of survivors, is the most sensible path to building
back better, and consequently can drive them to perceive any radical changes as, “at
best, a misallocation of resources… or, at worst, as opportunistic scheming by
sinister forces at their expense” (Campanella 2010). However, the realities of

sea-level rise demand that those living in coastal communities make mature deci-
sions about where and how humans inhabit the built environment, learn from
historically-rooted planning mistakes, and consider these wicked problems as
challenges for the current generation, rather than leaving them for the next gener-
ation to solve.
3.2.3 Before After
New Zealand, dubbed as the ‘Shaky Isles’, has a long history of earthquakes
(Nathan 2011). The last major earthquake recorded was in 1931 in Napier, which
was the last time the nation was reminded of Rūaumoko’s2 presence. When the
magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Christchurch in 2010, New Zealanders had prided
itself in having a robust building stock and its structural engineering abilities among
the world’s best Wellington (AFP) (2010), perhaps second only to Japan. But the
subsequent earthquake in February was New Zealand’s true wake up call.
The involvement of the Christchurch architects in the reconstruction phase had
been bipolar, with the NZIA member activities defined by responses in two phases:
a period between the first earthquake in September 2010 until the second earth-
quake in February 2011, then from February onwards. In the first phase, the city
had only suffered what seemed to be a minor cosmetic damage to some of its
character buildings, sparking discussion among the public and engagement with the
local architects who were able to contribute to this discussion. The local branch of
the New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA) centered its activities on discussing
issues related to the city’s heritage buildings, local infrastructure, landscape, its
urban environment, and issues around housing. It culminated in a public exhibition
entitled “Before After”, for which the architects assumed active roles to facilitate a
discussion about the built environment with the public. Several local architects who
were part of the organizing committee for the exhibition reported their experiences
as “hopeful” and “engaging”.
(The exhibition) is intended to communicate with the public… the intention was to get the
public involved, where we’re not seen as a group from outside saying, ‘you shall do this’
(Van der Lingen, J., Architect, January 26, 2011, Personal Communication)
At the national level, the NZIA responded by appointing a well-respected,

Christchurch-born architect, Ian Athfield (1940–2015), to be the conduit between
the community and the architectural profession. However, a series of miscommu-
nication had led the public to believe that the appointment of Athfield was but a
political gesture by the incumbent Mayor Bob Parker. Athfield expressed his
frustrations in the early days as the ambassador:
2
Rūaumoko is the God of earthquakes in Māori mythology.
I felt I was useless… as time went by it seemed more hopeless. The city didn’t talk to us…
because they decided not to employ local architects, because they believed that architects
were object driven… (Athfield, I., NZ Architect, February 10, 2012, Personal
Communication)
It had been less than ten days since the launch of the NZIA’s “Before After”
public exhibition, when Christchurch was hit by another devastating earthquake.
All previous talks on heritage and culture of Christchurch’s architecture was muted
out by more urgent lifeline related services. There were human fatalities, lique-
faction had deluged entire neighborhoods, an international team of Urban Search
and Rescue were brought into manage the emergency recovery, and for the first
time in New Zealand’s history, the national state of emergency was declared, which
lasted some ten consecutive weeks (Radio New Zealand 2011).
The thing that was most frustrating right from the start was our inability to get heard, and
the architects’ inability to have any say. Earthquake seemed to be about structure more than
architecture. (Dalman, R., Architect, January 25, 2011, Personal Communication)
Richard Dalman, a local practitioner, explained the frustration shared by many of

his colleagues. In the meantime, the engineers and seismologists enjoyed an
unsurpassed demand for their services, and were held in high esteem by the local
residents for their work. Clifford, the president of the NZIA at the time, explained
that the architectural profession were not able to intervene to the same extent as the
engineers had, because the engineers, unlike the architects, were already actively
involved in the Civil Defense and Emergency Management committees prior to the
earthquake.
A lot of these patterns are established in normal times and they’re repeated in a disaster
circumstance… one of the lessons out of this is… simply coming along afterwards isn’t that
effective… if you want to be really involved, get involved now. (Clifford, P., NZIA
President, September 7, 2011, Personal Communication)
Patrick Clifford, the New Zealand Institute of Architect’s incumbent President

during the 2011 earthquake, stated that “no professional person thinks their opin-
ion’s valued high enough”, a concern shared by other architects in Christchurch.
Where the architectural practitioners had difficulty “getting heard” at top levels,
their best chance for public service and contribution was directly with the com-
munity, from the bottom-up. Those who felt compelled to assist did so quietly in
their own time and at their own expense while the engineers were extolled on the
front pages of The Press.3
However, the veneration of engineers in Christchurch was short lived. The Royal
Commission of Inquiry into the causes of the February 2011 earthquake found that
local engineers had not properly tagged the buildings, endangering lives.
But perhaps the biggest professional controversy was upon discovery that
seismologists withheld information on possibility of major aftershocks of
3
The Press is the regional newspaper of Christchurch.
September 2010 earthquake. It led to questioning the intentions and the credibility
of professionals who advised government agencies.
Professional involvement in post-earthquake Christchurch was a political bat-
tleground, much in the same way that Port-au-Prince became a setting for NGO
land grab and Hurricane Katrina was deluged by sponsored village developments.
Christchurch earthquake was a galvanizing force for some communities but it also
amplified the ideological divisions between individuals, tactical differences between
professional organizations, and socio-economic divisions across neighborhoods.
Such are adaptive challenges, one that requires a transformational change in society.
Ultimately, they are the wicked problems for our increasingly urban world. There is
much to be learned, or rather un-learned, from both architects’ and engineers’ past
responses to natural disasters.
3.3 Design Strategies
Disasters often lead to mass displacement of communities and destruction of their

habitat, which needs to be rebuilt and restored in some form. In urban settings,
disasters catalyze mass reconstruction projects, typically instigated by government
agencies and, in some instances, humanitarian NGOs and even corporations.
Unfortunately many of these projects run into similar challenges as those seen in
low-cost state housing developments (Davidson et al. 2007). Mass produced and
prefabricated shelters often associated with disaster reconstruction are abhorred by
some architects, who have long-held prejudice against them for being devoid of
vernacular authenticity and character, lamenting the missed opportunity to give
individual home owners and tenants choice. As typical in such mass reconstruction
projects, significant failure rates for reconstruction strategies that exclude the
end-users in its development process call for an alternative and more participatory
design process where users have more design input and where the chief sponsor
cannot act as a sole decision maker (Davidson et al. 2007). But the economic
constraints of post-disaster reconstruction, coupled with the need to integrate
community input in the reconstruction process make this especially challenging
wicked problem for any recovery actor.
Like any conventional architectural practice, the way in which many government
agencies undertake post-disaster reconstruction seldom engages the users until the
very end. Many disaster reconstruction projects that are kick-started by government
agencies rarely offer structured opportunities for its beneficiaries to participate in
the decision-making process, yet the responsibility for the actual construction and
maintenance are left in the hands of the beneficiaries. There is a need to establish a
balance between short-term goals and long-term outcomes, but enforcing universal,
one-size-fits-all design standards seem inappropriate given the divergent social,
political and cultural contexts that necessarily accompany each situation.
Nevertheless, there seems to be no shortage of disaster researchers (Haas et al.
1977; Kreps and Drabek 1996; Alexander 2005; Potangaroa 2006; Davidson et al.
2007; Drabek 2007; Rodriguez et al. 2007; Kayser et al. 2008) that attempt to
establish a set of principles that can be used as a guideline. The wicked problems
approach offers a possible reprieve by offering an evaluative framework for how
such principles play out.
Major progress has been made in recent years among professional societies in
the U.S. despite their generally risk-averse nature. The American Institute of
Architects (AIA) leading the charge on initiatives such as pre-disaster professional
training for architects; the Good Samaritan statute, which provides a legislative
protection during the emergency period of disasters to encourage architects to offer
timely and much needed pro bono professional services. Such considerations reflect
the increasing need of architectural services in the public realm as well as the
growing community of independent architects opting to extend their work for the
public good. Architects engaged in humanitarian endeavors often work closely with
local communities in innovative ways to achieve a high level of local satisfaction,
though their impact remains minimal. Such projects are overshadowed by negative
implications of more visible, large-scale, quick-fix solutions that co-founder of
Architecture for Humanity, Cameron Sinclair, amicably refers to as the “microwave
architecture” (Sinclair, C., CEO, AFH, July 27, 2011, Personal Communication).
He argued that such designs, which are perhaps the beginnings of future slums,
ghost towns, and ghettos, could leave humanitarian designers drowning in the
negative public image. And taken further, when such interventions go awry, such
interventions can render architecture to be little more than a political instrument for
advancing contemporary imperialism masquerading as socially conscious effort to
restore the environment. Given such risks, it is rather unethical for designers,
architects, planners as well as engineers to not be involved early on in the disaster
response.
3.3.1 Urban Conditions of Consumption
How cities recover is a function of the power dynamics within and across these
sectors and its leaders that ultimately shape the direction of the urban environment’s
future development. This book provides an overview of how these power dynamics
play out in disasters from predominantly an architectural perspective, which we will
deal with in more detail through recent case studies. We examine the three recent
events from an architectural perspective beginning with how pre-existing envi-
ronmental conditions can mire the recovery efforts, reiterating the concept that
disasters we see today are not sudden events but rather they are catalysts unraveling
human design flaws cultivated through decades—and sometimes centuries—of
social, cultural, political, and ecological decisions. Second, we examine how
pre-disaster power inequity can persist through post-disaster context, where eco-
nomic disparity and systemic barriers to recovery becomes transparent. These
conditions, however, can also spur innovation through activism, and we look at
some examples where thriving communities emerge in spite of the setbacks.
3.3 Design Strategies 49
In an effort to better understand and manage the complex elements of disaster

research, disaster researchers have proposed a number of ways to measure and
quantify disasters in terms of risks. Despite such efforts, disaster remains a difficult
phenomenon to comprehend since the full extent of its social consequences can take
years to manifest. Risk management literature defines disaster risk as a product of
one’s exposure to hazard and the level of vulnerability. Risk can be calibrated based
on the type of hazard—earthquakes, floods, wild fires, drought, etc.—as well as the
extent of affected population’s exposure to such hazard as determined by a measure
of how existing assets are distributed, and vulnerability as measured by the regional
geography, building construction type, and demography.
Human factor is seldom discussed Historically such studies place emphasis on

measuring the total loss of disasters, and the human factor is seldom discussed
beyond its direct contribution to the overall post disaster resource. But global
multilateral development agencies such as the UN and the World Bank are turning
to community-based disaster recovery, placing more reliance on the resilience of
existing communities is critical as the extent of urban disaster damage around the
world is no longer manageable with limited resources they carry.
Formulae are unreliable What seems apparent is not only the fact that variables of
risk differ according to each context, but how each of those variables are defined
and what is deemed to be at stake determines the outcome. As Rittel suggested in
his formulation of Wicked Problems, how a question is posed can dictate the type of
answers it finds.
Resilience is at the center of reducing vulnerability Italian disaster scholar

David E. Alexander notes that studies should also consider resilience as a factor for
calculating disaster risk, because it can negate some of the risk factors and is
actually the “inverse of vulnerability” (Alexander 2009). Alexander contends the
role of ‘exposure’ in disaster is variable and ‘vulnerability’ can be partial. It can be
quantified in multiple ways depending on specific conditions of each event,
accounting for the fact that disaster impact is not geographically uniform.
Preexisting conditions persist through disasters and affect individuals in commu-
nities unequally. For instance, introducing long-term drought mitigation strategies
in drought-prone communities can instill confidence and accountability in each
household to prepare and mitigate the effect of future water shortages. The overall
impact and vulnerability of communities decrease in proportion to increased resi-
lience, but the key message here is that resilience is an active condition where its
power is vested in communities at large.
3.3.2 Design Equity
Disaster recovery strategies are more than just a careful coordination of resources
and execution of pre-existing disaster management protocols. Recovery strategies,
more importantly, involve coordination of people and reconciliation of many needs

and priorities of disaster’s stakeholders. Yet the diverse circumstances in which
disasters occur mean that attaining equity in social response to such events is of
paramount importance. For the wider public, this means having a stake in all
decision-making that affects their livelihood at fundamental levels of policy and
planning. This book suggests the concept of design equity as a way in which society
can co-create a shared vision for the urban environment.
Design equity conveys more nuanced meaning than the concept of equity alone.
Equity suggests a dialectic tension around the distribution of power or vulnerability
amongst the private, public, and community sectors within society, while design
equity implies that such relationships are variable and equity may be negotiated
through creative means. One way to demonstrate this is by contrasting the tradi-
tional, authoritarian, top-down strategies employed during disasters with the
non-traditional, democratic, bottom-up tactics. Design equity is best achieved
through active engagement and participation of communities in the
decision-making process. Bottom-up strategies involve active community engage-
ment and ownership of the recovery process that can reduce a community’s overall
vulnerability. That examples of resilient design strategies in this book are
grassroots-based in nature is not a coincidence.
Building on the earlier discussion, the hegemonic tradition of architecture is not
conducive to social participation. Without first engaging in the democratic partic-
ipatory process that empowers people through the medium of architectural dia-
logue, assisting people in urban disasters can be perceived as patronizing.
According to researchers Davidson et al. (2007), even the well-intended architec-
tural designs are commonly mistranslated as an expression of political manipulation
and construed as what Arnstein (1969) would call tokenism. In neither case can
architecture assuage the situation, and in the absence of design equity, the longevity
of any project is unlikely to last beyond the duration of its supervised construction
and its initial period of occupation (Davidson et al. 2007).
In arguing for the participatory process in disaster recovery, the role of archi-
tecture is seen as a creative process facilitating community engagement, where the
architect acts in a “community technical aid” capacity. In their book Architecture,
Participation and Society, Jenkins and Forsyth (2010) suggest that a move away
from “self-defined” and avant-garde characterization of architecture into wider
social participation can reverse an “increasingly restricted role” of architects in the
built environment, and further that unless the competitive nature of the profession
becomes more collaborative, their role will continue to diminish in society (Jenkins
and Forsyth 2010). The desired purpose of participatory design is to have shared
responsibility among all stakeholders, and for everyone involved in the process to
ensure that the outcome reflects the needs and interests of all rather than a select
few. Process precedes outcome, and the democratic strategies of participatory
design can instill an increased sense of ownership, responsibility and belonging,
which in turn can foster architecture’s longevity.
3.3 Design Strategies 51
3.3.3 Disaster Activism
Design is the most powerful tool yet given man with which to shape his products, his
environments, and, by extension, himself.—Victor Papanek, in Design for the Real World
(1971:86)
Politicization of urban reconstruction is a common challenge to the three urban

disaster case studies presented in this book. Architecture reveals the first signs of
urban trauma as well as the earliest form of recovery, and as a consequence the built
environment reveals the health of a city at any given moment. But the same cannot
be said of architectural professionals. The ability of professionals to engage gov-
ernment agencies during a disaster depends on the receptivity of existing disaster
management policy to facilitate this process. Generally, the extent to which com-
munities can participate in future design decisions remains largely dependent on the
extent of the government agencies’ willingness to engage the community sector in
the broader decision-making, planning, and development.
Official first responders of disasters attend to urgent civil emergency services and
activities that have direct implication on human lives, although Tierney (2007)
argued that many disaster management literature fail to acknowledge the “ordinary
citizens” as the key agents of humanitarian assistance. Disaster is hardly an ordinary
event by any means, and the civilian involvement in recovery activities alongside
the official first responders is hardly a surprise. What this reinforces is the critical
role of reconstruction as people desire to return to their homes as soon as possible,
and the need for design decisions around rebuilding to be both transparent and to
begin as early in the recovery phase as possible.
The role of architects and more broadly architecture in post-disaster environment
remains a contentious issue for architectural researchers. Sanderson (2010) argued
that architects are considered the last responders of disasters, because their “tradi-
tional role” is as “designers of buildings in places of relative certainty” rather than as
“facilitators of building processes that involve people in places of uncertainty and
change”. Indeed, other building professionals such as engineers and planners have,
at least in the U.S. and New Zealand, established a professional role and influence in
the wider democratic decision-making process in the early stages of disaster by being
part of the civil defense response and mitigation efforts. Engineers often lead the
post-disaster reconnaissance work alongside other official first responders such as
Urban Search and Rescue workers and the local military personnel to assess the
extent of initial disaster damage; planners consult with government agencies early on
to help direct the strategic policy decisions. Although there are some exceptions
where architects responded in a similar capacity to other building professionals in
demonstrating post-disaster leadership, the lack of wider professional engagement in
disaster recovery process, as Sanderson pointed out, suggests the general acceptance
of the role of architects as the last responder. Yet contrary to this view, Boano et al.
(2010) contended that “architecture has significant power to reconstruct social net-
works, raise solidarity, empower communities and encourage partnerships”, deem-
ing architects as preoccupied with building as a product rather than the process of
community engagement oversimplifies architecture. Popularization of the concept of

“design thinking” in wider disciplines in recent years has created opportunities for
professionals from non-design backgrounds to be more active and environmentally
aware, but does not go as far as considering designers in the same way. In response
to Sanderson’s commentary, architectural scholar Boano et al. (2010) called for “a
total shift of the ‘professional’ approach, towards one of critical anthropocentric
post-disaster practice”, which is to suggest that Sanderson’s conception of architects
as the last responders is merely symptomatic of the “results-based model that
demands deliverables” that has thus far dominated the humanitarian sector.
Design projects depend on reciprocal willingness of both the designer and the
client to engage with each other. But the case studies that follow show that the
communication principles of design and patterns of communication as observed in
successful reconstruction projects are hardly different, leading us to conclude that
timely and appropriate design facilitation is essential to improving urban resilience.
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Part II
Resilient Tactics and Strategies
Chapter 4
Haiti: NGO’s Republic
Images of the collapsed presidential palace circulating amongst the world media
suggested the chaos within the Government of Haiti, but the dysfunctional char-
acteristic of the Haitian government preexisted the earthquake since its establish-
ment as the republic in 1805. The administrative remnants of the 2010 earthquake is
but a byproduct of many years of economic and political turbulence which pre-
cipitated in erosion of trust in government by Haitians themselves, disengaging
them further. The phenomenon of “10,000 NGOs” had outgrown the influence of
the Government of Haiti long before the disaster. The complexity of Haiti’s social,
cultural, environmental, and political dimensions reveal that the physical realities of
disaster and the construction of “the Republic of NGOs” are closely interconnected,
yet contradicts the aspirations of “Build Back Better Communities” international
design campaign. Nevertheless, the earthquake served as a turning point for
humanitarian aid agencies in that the international media limelight and subsequent
influx of talented disaster professionals have galvanized both the international aid
sector as well as those in the community sector whom elect to engage with these
international agencies.
4.1 Setting the Scene: Wicked Problems
On the morning of January 12th, 2010, magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck the
coastline near Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital. Of some 2.6 million Haitians who
called Port-au-Prince home, the earthquake took more than 230,000 lives, injured
300,000, and displaced further 1.5 million. Many fled to the neighboring
Dominican Republic or the suburban towns near the epicenter, but those who
remained took refuge in thousands of makeshift camps for internally displaced
persons (IDP) set up by humanitarian agencies. By IFRC’s estimate, some 70 % of
buildings in Port-au-Prince had crumbled into some 25 million cubic yards of
debris. As the first major urban disaster that international humanitarian community
58 4 Haiti: NGO’s Republic
experienced, the event has brought unprecedented international media attention

which has brought to surface industry-wide problems, the least of which is the
inability to deal with 1.6 million internally displaced Haitians without houses.
With a history of vulnerability and misfortunes before them, Haitians continue to
face many transnational challenges and struggles for democracy. If disasters are
“catastrophes in the making” (Freudenburg 2009), then Haiti’s earthquake is the
“culmination of more than 500 years” (Oliver-Smith 2010). As Wearne (2012)
observed, in Haiti “the symbols and symptoms of three different competing
development models… Haiti’s past, present and every possible future” persist. The
earthquake in Haiti is a Pandora’s Box of many consequences of disastrous yet
human-induced decisions. Particular worldviews of individuals can enhance the
understanding of the disaster subculture but it can equally alienate certain groups
through perpetuation of stereotypes, and the post-earthquake environment of Haiti
is a case in point. To dispel such tendencies, broader mapping of different world-
views are a necessary step towards better understanding of how communities can
build back better.
4.1.1 Haitian Politics
Though the value of government-led public participation in policymaking and

development is widely accepted in principle, the same cannot be said of its
implementation. A case in point is the 2010 Haiti earthquake, which became a
tipping point for humanitarian aid agencies to shift their operational paradigm from
the one that was expert-centered approach to the one that focused more on par-
ticipatory and community-centered recovery. UNHCR, which began as a branch of
the United Nations that specialized in supplying temporary shelters to war refugees,
echoed that “participation… is not necessarily the same thing as influence… [or]
decision-making” (UNCHS–Habitat 2001). Humanitarian aid activity has overall
become more complicated in recent years, as the definition of ‘refugees’ has
expanded to include those affect climate disruption and natural disasters. The result
is that such events produce ‘internally displaced persons’, or IDPs, which, instead
of being temporarily displaced, require solutions that are long-term. The scope of
such agency’s work, instead of focusing on rapid deployment of basic shelters and
emergency goods, now must include tenure security, community development,
transitional housing, and even permanent housing (Table 4.1).
The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a turning point for many aid agencies.
Mobilizing post-disaster recovery and rebuilding processes involve multi-sectoral
coordination. And while urban disasters have been on the rise since the early 1980s
(Davis 2010), previous disasters have not prepared international aid organizations
for Haiti. The politics that unfolded following the earthquake became just as much a
lesson for building back the nation as much as it being an impetus to reassess the
humanitarian sector’s priorities. If expert-centered recovery was once a preferred
strategy in the past because it was efficient and the solutions were easily deployed,
4.1 Setting the Scene: Wicked Problems 59
Table 4.1 Disaster paradigm shift before and after the 2010 earthquake
Paradigm Expert-centered Community-centered
Short-term Time saving: easy to implement Time consuming: difficult to
management protocol implement reaching consensus
Resource efficient Resource intensive
Long-term Remote monitoring Self-monitoring
Limited Continuous
Ownership Dependent: project ownership Independent: project ownership
with agencies within community
Community needs maybe Community needs met
fragmented/unmet
Power Top-down Bottom-up
hierarchy Centralized Decentralized
Engagement Professional Voluntary
method
Project driver Outcome driven Process driven
the growing magnitude and complexity of disasters in recent years make the
expert-centered approach not only resource constraining but also challenging to
manage. While many of those at the coalface of humanitarian relief activities have
come to recognize this, the aid sector at large, like any other large institutions, have
been slow to change (Fig. 4.1).
A great deal of what happens in Haiti is to have NGOs come in, do the bit the government
would normally be doing… There was no mention of the government in any of the (disaster
recovery) plans. (The) French government was putting in a highway, Cell phone companies
were building cell phone towers. People were out there shopping for NGOs where they
could get jobs. The middle-class (Haitians) were translating for the NGOs. (Bob Theis,
Roundtable on “Natural and Unnatural Building in Haiti”, June 22, 2011, AIA San
Francisco, U.S.)
In Haiti’s case, the Government of Haiti (GoH)’s most important role was to
broker the relationship between privatized NGO sectors and foreign investors, in
such a way that they can become self-reliant. However, Haiti’s dependence on
external support over the preceding decades—so much that it had earned the
country the nickname, ‘the Republic of NGOs’—stilted its own development. In the
post-earthquake Haiti, foreign agencies are reminded of their role as Haiti’s
exclusive source of help as well as blame. Despite this, the consensus among
experts is that Haitians prefer its government’s involvement at every step of
recovery because they have seen in the past and understand that foreign agencies
will “eventually phase [themselves] out of the job” (Granvil, B., Haitian-American
Architect, AFH Haiti, April 5, 2012, Personal Communication) and that they would
have to fend for themselves. This is much easier said than done, however.
The tragedy of 2010 earthquake drew an unprecedented support from the
international community (OSE 2011). The event triggered a massive influx of
foreign donations as well as attracting top disaster experts, policy makers and
technicians from around the world (Rencoret et al. 2010). The proximity to the U.S.
Fig. 4.1 Haiti’s National Government Palace after the 2010 earthquake
and Brazil, as well as its Caribbean neighbor, the Dominican Republic, meant that
there were opportunities for accelerating development and growth. Ironically, those
who most benefited from this geopolitical advantages were not Haitians, but out-
siders. The gradual removal of trade barriers since the 1970s, coupled with foreign
investment incentives lured by low-cost labor force made it impossible for Haiti to
compete in the world market, while growing its dependence on foreign aid. By the
time the populist President Jean-Bertrand Aristide took reign in 1990, it was too late
to reverse the effects of neoliberal economy engrained in Haiti. McGuigan (2006)
noted that just three decades ago, Haiti’s rice production was entirely self-sufficient,
but now it imports 80 % of domestic rice consumption. The net negative impacts of
trade liberalization, coupled with trade embargo that extended from the 1990s into
the 2000s made it increasingly difficult for the Haitians. In a struggle for survival,
the GoH had pawned off majority of its assets, including its voice in the global
economy.
Things here are so much more expensive than they should be or than anyone anticipated
they would be …extortionate relative to a lot of other countries. Even fully fledged
developed countries… It’s just effectively a monopoly. So that’s the saddest thing to me…
When you make the effort to employ local contractors as we do, they’re not the ones
making huge amounts of money, the ones making the money are the material suppliers and
distributors and that money doesn’t even stay in this country because those guys are mostly
based in the United States. So the money all just leaves anyway. (Gill, D., UK Architect,
AFH Haiti, April 6, 2012, Personal Communication)
The pattern of NGO aid disbursements illustrates this point. According to the
September 2012 report by the UN Office of the Special Envoy for Haiti (OSE),
some 48.2 % of the total $13.34 billion1 allocated in humanitarian and recovery
funding to Haiti’s earthquake response were disbursed, but less than 10 % was
channeled to the GoH (OSE 2011). The figure was even less for Haitian NGOs
which received a meager 0.6 % of the total disbursements. Aside from the general
difficulty the international humanitarian relief sector experiences in converting
pledges to actual funds, OSE reports that the main implication of these facts
highlight the gap between donors’ perceived risk for fraud–which become grounds
for delaying and withdrawing pledged funds–and the actual reported loss due to
fraud.
Consistent with OSE reports, the GoH exercised little influence over national
policies and recovery plans. The transitional phase leading into recovery was
“underfunded” and “under-realized” (M. Hammer, Roundtable on “Natural and
Unnatural Building in Haiti”, June 22, 2011, AIA San Francisco, U.S.), owing to
the mounting political uncertainty among its leadership that further delayed dis-
bursement of aid, triggering a familiar pattern of post-disaster political Catch-22.
Historically the GoH has struggled to elect a president through democratic process
—because the country was already divided after years of internal political strife and
foreign military interventions—calling into question the legitimacy of state while
eroding the confidence of donors whose only recourse was to withhold funds.
As part of an initiative to help broker the leadership transition, GoH also part-
nered with world leaders via the UN to establish the Interim Haiti Recovery
Commission (IHRC) and set up the Haiti Reconstruction Fund (HRF), the real
beneficiaries of international aid monies were not Haitians. What continues to be
left unsaid between the stories of success among the private and public circles of
donors is the fact that majority of the humanitarian and recovery funds were and
continue to be funneled directly through largely unmonitored INGO-led operations
and private companies outside of Haiti.
A strong public sector is what will lead to better outcomes and sustained social programmes
in Haiti. The ultimate guarantor of social, economic, civil and political rights is a country’s
democratically elected government and government agencies which develop, implement,
and fund policies based on citizen needs. If we truly mean to help Haiti, it is toward the
strengthening of these institutions that we must work the hardest.
—Paul E. Farmer
Paul Farmer, an American physician whose biographical accounts of his pursuit

to end tuberculosis in Haiti made an international bestseller recounted that his early
years were driven by an ignorance that he “could do a much better job of caring for
1
This sum only includes public sector pledges at the 2010 New York donors’ conference,
“Towards a New Future for Haiti”, which are exclusive of individual and private sector funds or
those pledged for direct humanitarian relief activities.
the poor and the sick than any Haitian public institution”, but his experience has
taught him that foreign aid should be an “accompaniment” rather than Haiti’s
default option (Farmer 2012).
4.1.2 Systemic Challenge
The geographic region of Port-au-Prince was planned to accommodate 250,000

people, but it had some 2.6 million in it when the magnitude 7.3 earthquake tore
through the city. In the absence of the institutional framework such as planning
legislations and building code, informal settlements proliferated (Joseph and Wang
2010) as people continued to flood in. Hand-built living quarters in bidonville,
Haiti’s informal settlements, were piled on top of each other without necessary
structural reinforcements. Experts explained that none of what has been planned has
ever been built, and most planners do not anticipate it will get built. Because Haiti
has no building code, efforts to enforce any standards would have been futile
leading up to the earthquake. This was exacerbated in the earthquake where over
75 % of the civic buildings became inoperable, and the administration of the GoH
lacked the institutional strength to deal with the influx of additional NGOs, UN
agencies, bilateral and multilateral donor agencies.
…the planners who do get involved do so for the sake of getting work, not to see it built.
For me that’s where the ethical dilemma sits… if it’s not going to be built what’s the point?
(The) big ethical dilemma is trying to make planning standards and understand and codes
that reflect reality… There’s no certification of… architects… so anecdotally every third
Haitian male claims to be an engineer, and that’s a huge challenge. The lack of codes and
certification and enforcement of the trades and professional classes is just a huge challenge.
(Gill, D., UK Architect, AFH Haiti, April 6, 2012, Personal Communication)
Paradoxically, humanitarian agencies rely on the compliance of preexisting set

of mandates in order to measure the impact of the monetary commitments to their
field operations. In practice, however, Potangaroa explained that in many cases
disaster experts are “running code-less, and we really do need to find out and see
what is the justification for the stuff that we do” (R. Potangaroa, Personal
Communication, June 4, 2010), suggesting that the operations of large aid agencies
are equally marred by uncertainties.
Around the same period that the former U.S. President Clinton advocated for
Building Back Better, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) germinated
the concept of the “Cluster Approach”, an ambitious proposal to streamline and
coordinate the efforts of multiple UN agencies and key INGOs under nine inter-
related but discipline-specific streams. Systemically, the Cluster Approach allows
for cluster-specific decision-making to be expedited while maintaining autonomy
within each area of disaster recovery cluster. Their goal was to become “both a first
point of call and a provider of last resort in all the key sector areas of activity”
(IASC 2006). In Haiti, the UN agencies implemented the Cluster Approach at full
scale for the first time (Fig. 4.2).
Fig. 4.2 Coordination structure in Haiti (from “Inter-agency real-time evaluation in Haiti:
3 months after the earthquake”, A. Binder, F. Grünewald, p. 40, Global Public Policy Institute and
Groupe URD, August 31, 2010. Reprinted with permission from GPPi)
The Cluster Approach can be likened to an attempt by humanitarian agencies to

implement the second generation systems approach to disaster response, whereby
they attempted to break down the giant machinery of the UN and other aid orga-
nizations into multiple recovery clusters that could meet on regular basis to report
on their progress, share information, and make decisions without duplicating each
other’s work. In short, the Cluster Approach represents incremental changes to
humanitarian sector to improve inter-organizational collaboration. Though its
impact has been limited, it is a step in the right direction given that it will encourage
partnership and support amongst locals as well as donors.
However, even IASC admitted that proposing such “reform” is only useful for
“[identifying] gaps in response and enhance the quality of humanitarian action”
(IASC 2006). Indeed, institutionalizing communication pathways between aid
agencies cannot be expected to replace the need to communicate broader disaster
recovery issues across the multiple sectors in operation—particularly the commu-
nity sector—since each locale in which this system is being implemented is unique
and different from each other. Indeed, the Cluster Approach’s chief criticism has
been that it does not use participatory approach, as it “does not automatically lead to
a better situation of affected population” (Streets et al. 2010).
Potangaroa suggested that while a robust institutional system such as the UN or
the Red Cross may be slower to change due to administrative hurdles, it held an
advantage over smaller agencies in that within larger agencies “once you get the
organic ramps sorted in your head, you know who to call up, and you know how to
dive around things… [and] get through the system quicker” (Potangaroa, R., NZ
Structural Engineer, March 13, 2012, Personal Communication). In other words, it
may be easier to navigate larger, more complex systems like the UN because a
known problem within an organization can be amended more readily than in cases
where problems are unknown. This is often the case where systems do not exist as
illustrated previously in the difficulty of enforcing safe construction techniques
where building codes do not exist in the first place. The ‘organic ramps’ that
Potangaroa referred to suggests the importance of professional relationships in
organizations, but such relationships are even more critical outside of organizations
where no formal ties exist and relationships need to be built from the ground
up. Experiences of several NGOs featured here demonstrate that investing in time
and energy to create an environment of trust and transparency for all stakeholders
prior to beginning collaboration can mean less chance for miscommunication down
the road.
A big problem is getting them to work together. And then, when you get them to work
together, it’s to get the message across… the role of an architect needs, in my opinion… to
start with that. Understanding that they’re there to solve problems, looking at all the
problems and start figuring out how to… chip away at it. Because, no matter how com-
plicated you make things, it still boils down to [communication]. (Granvil, B.,
Haitian-American Architect, AFH Haiti, April 5, 2012, Personal Communication)
Fundamentally, the UN’s Cluster Approach simplifies the communication pro-

cess by removing barriers to bringing people with relevant skills and experience,
avoiding the common pitfalls of multi-sectoral disaster response so that more
resources can be made available to other urgent areas. While systemically the
Cluster Approach will require considerable fine-tuning if it were to fully deliver on
its initial promises in subsequent disasters where it is implemented, it reinforces the
value of recognizing that how people work together are equally, if not more
important than knowing what they work on (Fig. 4.3).
But Martine Theodore, a Haitian expat who had returned from the U.S. to assist
in redevelopment of her homeland, observed that the Cluster Approach did not
provide sufficient transparency for those involved to see it as “a complete map” for
coordinating the humanitarian relief operations on the ground. Theodore critiqued
that some aid agencies can behave like private organizations with their own set of
“pre-made agendas” and values independent of “what Haiti is about”.
It is no surprise, then, that Haitians perceive the roles of aid agencies on their soil
as transient entities, despite the fact that many such foreign governmental and
non-governmental agencies—who are a major driver of Haiti’s economy—have
had presence in the country for several decades. Still, international NGOs continue
to work in isolation from the civil society. That they were reluctant to work with
local partners, whether their excuses were due to lack of time, finding the right
partners or trust (Hedlund 2011), spells trouble for Haiti’s long-term recovery
prospects since the legacy of any post-disaster operations is measured by the health
Fig. 4.3 The UN cluster system (from “How the Cluster System Works” by UNOCHA, ©2013
United Nations. Reprinted with the permission of the United Nations)
of communities that remain behind (Weisenfeld 2011), not by the ambition of early
initiatives by governing agencies.
Another dark side of any humanitarian project is that it can backfire at any
moment, particularly if relationships with the locals are improperly managed. When
accountability is not assumed by leading agencies that initiated the project in the
first place, they can cause more harm than good for the intended disaster benefi-
ciaries. Architecture can thus become entangled in local politics, regardless of
whether or not the designers intend to. According Wearne (2012), while donor
agencies tout their success in rehabilitating over one million Haitians from IDP
camps, many of these Haitians in fact “returned to badly damaged, unsafe struc-
tures” (Wearne 2012). ALNAP2 disaster researchers, Rencoret et al. (2010), also
observed that such camps were unsanitary and overcrowded, leading to increased
exposure to violence, rape, and disease outbreak. Such observations suggest that
Haitians left in search of safer, albeit less stable and volatile, environments. In a
2
ALNAP, the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian
Action is a global interagency forum that works to improve the quality and accountability of the
humanitarian sector.
climate of mounting criticism by locals against such foreign aid agencies who
seemed to be causing more harm than good, Theodore explained that Haitian news
media can be “very abrasive” and a “basic misunderstanding” can backfire on those
with good intentions, and some of the criticism can stem from hidden “political
games” that are not related to NGO activities.
4.2 Civic Resilience: Haitian Way
Decentralization of powers from central government, when implemented “without

parallel devolution of resources” can in fact lead to more inequality (UNCHS–
Habitat 2001). Such findings spurring researchers to question the existing con-
sensus on the benefits of community participation (Lizarralde et al. 2010;
D’agostino and Kloby 2011).
Building ethical responsibility is difficult: saying to people, “(If) you do this, you’re
responsible, whether or not you are directly affected by whether this thing falls down or
not” (Gill, D., UK Architect, AFH Haiti, April 6, 2012, Personal Communication)
In the absence of robust governance framework or the administrative where-

withal to establish planning and building codes for the country, Haiti was subject to
many attempts by inter-governmental agencies to institutionalize. Examples include
MINUSTAH3 peacekeeping military forces and bilateral governing agency such as
IHRC, but their efforts seemed to have had mixed impact on the ground, in part
because the Haitians were not party to the decision-making process in the first
place. Such institutional frameworks seem inflexible to the complex problems that
surface in urban disasters, and simply yielding to pressures from donor agencies by
focusing on short-term outcomes cripples the very purpose of humanitarian services
that assist disenfranchised “clients” in their recovery. The BBBC housing expo by
IHRC demonstrated that such results-driven processes can produce ghost towns,
and alienate the very people they were designed to serve. Such initiatives, when not
properly monitored for fit with clients, can lead to creation of further slums,
environmental damage, and social instability.
4.2.1 Environmental Cost of Urbanization
Areas most affected in the earthquake were concentrated in the informal settlements
surrounding Port-au-Prince. The capital grew exponentially from the relatively recent
urbanization, which is a byproduct of industrialization (Joseph and Wang 2010)
3
MINUSTAH is the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (Mission des Nations Unies
pour la stabilization en Haiti), a multi-national military agency established in 2004 to maintain
national security and political stability.
4.2 Civic Resilience: Haitian Way 67
and unregulated building practices (Erikson 2004; Weisenfeld 2011). While majority
of the earthquake fatalities were caused by the lack of structural integrity of these
informal settlements, Haiti’s environmental degradation is also closely linked to
problems accompanying deregulation of human activities (Dolisca et al. 2007;
Concannon and Lindstrom 2012; Diamond 2005). Seen historically, both are
symptoms that can be linked back to what McGuigan (2006) described as a direct
result of “agricultural liberalization” that had led to the “abysmal” demise of its own
economy and political repression leading up to the 2010 earthquake (Fig. 4.4).
Prior to Napoleon’s occupation of Hispaniola, the Caribbean island on which
Haiti now sits was once populated with the indigenous Taino people who led an
agrarian economy. During the French reign, its conversion into monocyclic corn-
fields, though lucrative at the time, quickly depleted minerals in its soil, which later
made for poor raw material in housing construction. Since becoming the world’s
first African republic in 1804, Haiti’s newfound freedom was overshadowed by the
‘independence debt’ it owed France. It took Haiti almost 150 years to pay off the
debt, which some scholars argue had forced its leaders to make decisions that
crippled the country’s economy. One example is Haiti’s move in the 1980s to
almost eliminate import tariffs on its staple agricultural products in exchange for a
multilateral loan (UNCTAD 2010). While the neighboring economies welcomed
this new trade arrangement, it effectively took Haitian farmers out of business
because they were unable to compete against farmers from abroad whose produce
Fig. 4.4 A Haitian hillside near Port-au-Prince showing the extent of erosion
were subsidized and were thus able to lower prices and undercut those in Haitian.
Subsequently, many of these rural farmers had to leave behind their agrarian life-
style for an industrial one in Port-au-Prince. Its once lush forest were stripped bare
(Dolisca et al. 2007) through years of monocyclic crop production (Concannon and
Lindstrom 2012), which dried up the nutrients in the soil, leaving Haitians with no
alternatives for rural livelihood other than to burn through its ancient forest for coal.
This left behind a volatile landscape prone to landslides and even more vulnerable
to seasonal cyclones in the Caribbean. Indeed, the rapid urbanization of
Port-au-Prince, a direct result of poor land management and leadership leading up
to the earthquake was an environmental disaster in the making.
Given this historical backdrop, it is not a surprise that the Build Back Better
Communities (BBBC) design initiative was an abysmal failure. Going back to
BBBC design ideas competition, the four criteria for the model Haitian home:
sustainability, affordability, innovative earthquake-resistant design, and being
adaptable enough to be built by an average Haitian—were not realistic for the
conditions on the ground. IHRC’s BBBC initiative culminated in a demonstrative
public housing development called, “400 by 100” which today stands all but
abandoned, with some houses being used as latrines (Regan 2012). The develop-
ment was the final phase of the BBBC project which promised to build 400 houses
in under 100 days to create a “model Haitian village”.
Who was going to buy those houses? The Red Cross has money to do housing. World
Vision has money to do housing. USAID has money to do housing. Maybe European
Union, etc. They are the ones who should have come to the Expo… but the ones who have
the money, where are they? They have their own housing [model] in their heads already…
(Leslie Voltaire, Haitian architect, as cited in Regan 2012)
Voltaire, the architect of the initiative, admitted that even though the project was
a “success” on the account of fulfilling the original intentions, it was fundamentally
a “farce” in execution because the government agencies took no accountability in
terms of how the project would be carried forward when the funding associated
with the project had dried up (Fig. 4.5).
Darren Gill, a project architect at Architecture for Humanity’s satellite office in
Haiti, explained that one of the major problems of rebuilding in Haiti was the cost
of construction, caused in part by the monopoly in the construction industry since
Haiti had already been stripped of means to produce its own building materials.
…Everything is imported. That’s the main cost… A sheet of plywood costs US$ 45 over
here, but costs US$ 15 in Miami… that’s the saddest thing to me; when you make the effort
to employ local contractors as we do, they’re not the ones making huge amounts of
money… the material suppliers and distributors… are mostly based in the United States…
so the money all just leaves anyway. (Gill, D., UK Architect, AFH Haiti, April 6, 2012,
Personal Communication)
But the extent of Haiti’s struggle runs deeper than what may be discerned from
how such NGO-led construction projects performed upon its completion. For many
of some 1.2 million displaced Haitians seeking a refuge in neighboring countries
were given a mixed reception. Several countries, including its immediate neighbor
Fig. 4.5 AFH Haiti team

debriefing after work
Dominican Republic, offered a grace period for Haitians, but most controversial
among them has been the U.S. response, which began deporting Haitians within
months from the January earthquake. It was not the first time that disaster refugees
were seen as “illegal immigrants” who had to be turned away despite not having a
home to return to (Sapat and Esnard 2012). Six years on, as the conditions in Haiti
remain precarious, even the Dominican Republic began repatriating Haitians across
the border (Wucker 2015). Eric Cesal, the program director for AFH Haiti,
expressed his frustrations at being unable to extend the training of a talented Haitian
design fellow in the U.S., “because he is young, and single. They will think he will
try to stay behind once he is in the country, and won’t issue him a visa” (Cesal, E.,
US Architect, AFH Haiti, April 9, 2012, Personal Communication). The main risk
that architects of Haitian origin faced in the U.S. since the earthquake was threats of
deportation. The fear of mass migration drove the U.S. immigration officials to
resume deportations (Dollar and Kent 2011) and detention of Haitian nationals
without reason (Dollar and Kent 2011) than to forestall the mass influx of Haitian
asylum seekers in the aftermath of the earthquake. The U.S. had been on a high alert
since the earthquake of potential Haitian mass immigration, and many Haitians are
locked up in immigration detention centers for arriving at the U.S. borders without
visas (Dollar and Kent 2011), but the U.S. authorities insisted that “attempting to
leave Haiti now will only bring more hardship to the Haitian people and the nation”
(U.S. Secretary Napolitano, as cited inDollar and Kent 2011).
4.2.2 The Haitian Way
The culture of architectural practice in a different country to the one where the
architect received his or her training in can create tension and pose adaptive
challenges for both the architect as well as the client. From a plain business
operations perspective in most Western industrialized countries, timely production
of goods or services commensurate with market demands is a key driver for eco-
nomic growth. Business owners follow the standard mantra that time is money. This
is more so in post-disaster contexts, as time becomes an even scarcer commodity
that all other essential resources, such as medicine, food, and shelter, are contingent
upon.
In Haiti, however, time does not equate to money:
(In the U.S.), output and time is the same thing, but here (in Haiti)…time plays a critical
factor in how a project is run… We want to make sure that they understand they’re here to
work and what their long-term goal is… and what their intentions are for themselves… in
Haiti things are always changing. Something that’s simple, straight-forward task typically
may take a little longer here and we all understand that, but when every day you have an
excuse for being late or coming in at noon when you should have been there at eight or
eight-thirty… that’s a problem. (Granvil, B., Haitian-American Architect, AFH Haiti, April
5, 2012, Personal Communication)
When it comes to work ethics, Haitians seemed to be output-oriented rather than

time-oriented; time is secondary, as long as the desired results are achieved. Granvil
explained that the U.S. mindset, on the contrary, considers “output and time [as] the
same thing”, since a project’s time management has a direct fiscal implication for
the business. Time and outcome are inseparable.
But Jean René Lafontant, a Haitian architectural design fellow at AFH Haiti,
explained that the reason for miscommunication is due to misaligned expectations
of work output between AFH—which bring with it the U.S. work ethics—and the
Haitian contractors, and equally between AFH and the client: the local community
that AFH has been working with:
…most of the people (at NGOs) are foreigners. They come from different countries, dif-
ferent cultures. There are some ‘reactions’ that they do not understand… in terms of how
they think a contract works… It’s based on time and because here they have a mentality and
when the contractor is doing something he expects you to pay him for time but here they
expects to pay him for a result so that’s the difference. (Lafontant, J., Haitian Architect,
AFH Haiti, April 5, 2012, Personal Communication)
The difference in how architecture is practiced in Haiti on daily basis also

suggests broader socio-cultural challenges at national level. In a 2011 report by the
U.S. Federal Government stated that the work in the construction sector in Haiti is
“volatile” and is considered a “high risk” industry with high incidence of
Fig. 4.6 UNESCO school built by AFH Haiti
work-related injury (US Department of State 2011). Cameron Sinclair, the CEO of
AFH, recalled that at one time his staff even had to shut down the work site
mid-construction upon discovering that the local contractors arrived at work site
without proper safety gear and they did not have access to safe drinking water for
their laborers on site (Fig. 4.6).
As previously discussed, a key protocol for humanitarian agencies working in
disaster zones is to have an established exit strategy for the services they provide,
which is working to a point at which they are no longer needed because its clients
become self-reliant and resilient. Similarly, AFH’s mandate in Haiti is to grow the
capacity of Haitian builders and for them to take over the work that AFH started
since the earthquake. Such organizations operate on the premise that capacity
building in Haiti is a necessary trade-off that can subsequently make up for
immediate delays and inefficiencies. Capacity building also entails building the
technical skills of locals as well as understanding the wider context of Haitian
culture of architectural practice (Fig. 4.7).
How many shelters are built in post disaster period becomes a redundant mea-
sure of success beyond the emergency phase, because there are discrepancies
between the expected usage of said shelters and the actual uptake. Some are a result
of systemic problems. Wearne (2012) critiques that progress reports issued by aid
agencies are skewed to reinforce success and to prolong humanitarian altruism
because he believes “the aim here is to show ‘results’ in closing down camps,
Fig. 4.7 Haitians celebrating Easter on the streets of Port-au-Prince
not the consequences of such a strategy” (Wearne 2012). For instance, the over-
whelmingly successful rate at which the UN accomplished closure of IDP camps
within initial months failed to reveal the fate of those who were “paid off” to leave
the camps. While those who left the IDP camps were no longer physically
dependent on NGO facilities, many had volunteered to leave for their own safety,
and access to amenities such as schools and infrastructure that IDP camps did not
provide. Looking back, the conceptual ideals of the BBBC model village did not
align with the culture code of Haitians. The U.S. architects—in particular, King,
Granvil, and Cesal—who had active engagement with Haitian architects and the
local community describe this phenomenon as the “Haitian Way”.
You don’t want to be pompous and say, “I know what to do; I’ll tell you what to do”… But
if you’re in a situation where… they don’t know and maybe they want to know, then it’s
your duty to start trying to bridge the gap and to say so…I was watching them rebuild from
collapses the wrong way, just doing the same thing over again. (King, B., U.S. Engineer,
July 5, 2011, Personal Communication)
Even after observing, firsthand, the structural failures of building materials and
learning new methods of construction, many Haitians continue to build new
structures using the same building methods as before. Eric Cesal, the director of
AFH’s satellite office Haiti (2010–2013), explained that one’s aspirations to correct
the “Haitian Way” had to be balanced with what was culturally acceptable.
Building “the best school in Haiti”, according to Cesal, does not equate to simply
transposing the cosmetic looks of the best American school—which is not to
suggest that one should hold to lower standards in a different country and context,
rather a culturally appropriate one—but building the kind that embodies the
equivalent aspirations and functions that an American school would have in the
American community:
…when I say they want the best for their children it doesn’t necessarily mean they want an
American school for their children, but they want the school to reflect all those possibilities
and be to the community what a school really can be. (Cesal, E., U.S. Architect, AFH Haiti,
April 10, 2012, Personal Communication)
The Haitian Way is as much a metaphor for how foreign workers arrive at
premature judgments about locals as it is a reflection of Haitians’ survival tactics in
“the Republic of NGOs”. Many experts arrive at the site expecting to deal with the
physical destruction of habitat, only to uncover historically repressed challenges
that are socially, culturally and politically based.
By far the most significant humanitarian effort since the earthquake has been the one you
never hear about outside the country: Haitian-to-Haitian… ‘Lé ou bezwen, se ou k pou
mache’ – ‘When it’s you in need, it’s you who takes the first step’ – Haitians say of this
proud self-reliance and independence. (Wearne 2012)
In addition to the social, political and environmental factors, what has been
largely missing from international literature on Haiti is the perspective of the locals.
In their book, Tectonic Shift, Schuller and Morales (2012) took what had until then
been the dominant western world views about Haiti’s 2010 earthquake and turned
the prevailing arguments about the event on its head by reexamining the earthquake
from the local perspective. As with Rittel’s argument for second generation design
thinking, advocating for a balanced view of both cultures in post disaster recovery
efforts can offer valuable insights into what “building back better” can mean for
Haiti. One caveat, as with any research that involves ethnographic component, is
that the worldview of the Haitian diaspora—who are the primary advocates of Haiti
in NGOs and governmental agencies, as well as those featured in this book—are not
always representative of the Haitian peoples. The small handful of Haitian elites,
the working middle class, and the disenfranchised majority of the nation each have
different priorities, dependencies, and needs with discrepant definition of justice,
equity, and success.
Haiti is not really that different than the rest of the world. It has the same issues like the rest
of the world. The only difference is that it’s concentrated in certain areas and those are the
areas that people outside are starting to see and they think that’s what all of Haiti is about.
(Granvil, B., Haitian-American Architect, AFH Haiti, April 5, 2012, Personal
Communication)
Though much of the present social, cultural, economic, and political conditions
in Haiti had mounted over multiple centuries of foreign interventions and reforms,
Haitians remain adamant that they would endure what may come to keep their
independence: a source of pride and reason behind their unrelenting nationalism.
Fig. 4.8 UN service vehicle

passing through a market in
Port-au-Prince
Martine Theodore, a development manager for AFH Haiti, was a Haitian expat who
had lived in Florida for some 27 years but had decided to move back to help rebuild
her motherland. Theodore was critical of past attempts at national reform and
explained that systems imported into Haiti from outside have not worked for Haiti
(Fig. 4.8):
I believe it would be for Haiti to kind of figure out what their model is going to be. Any
model that is imported will not fit Haiti per se. We’ve tried so many… different models. It
really is about having a national conversation about which is our best model and what is in
our best interest… then build upon it with investment, job creation… reviewing all our
framework for laying title to property… Haiti is still using their Napoleonic code which
dates from the 18th century and so sometimes it just doesn’t work especially in a small
population kind of country. It’s difficult to apply. (Theodore, M., Director EDC, AFH Haiti,
Haiti’s pride can be both a source of its strength and weakness. Gill explained
that, “national pride is an incredibly powerful thing in this country… but I also
think it’s risky” (Gill, D., UK Architect, AFH Haiti, April 6, 2012, Personal
Communication). As the first African republic in the world, the Haitian nationalism
has continued despite, or perhaps reinforced by, its history of bloodshed. It has
experienced multiple foreign occupations by the U.S.; two generations of military
dictatorships led by the Duvaliers; unsuccessful democratic leadership of Jean

Bertrand Aristide; and most recently both the physical and systemic collapse of the
GoH in the earthquake.
In practice, the cultural differences between foreign agencies and Haitians can
lead to miscommunication and frustration on both sides. For project architects from
AFH, aligning the motivations of the Haitian contractors with the project mandates
of reconstruction agencies has proved to be difficult on site. One such challenge was
the difficulty in reconciling the project timeline with the local work ethics.
Time is money. That’s the bottom line and that’s the US corporate mentality. Time is
money. So the more time you spend on something if the quality isn’t going to be better then
they’re going to decrease the time…(Granvil, B., Haitian-American Architect, AFH Haiti,
AFH’s dilemma is shared by other similar small-scale rebuilding organizations.

Their objective is to train and engage Haitian contractors in their projects.
Small NGO operations like AFH operate on a shoestring budget, and their expe-
rience in Haiti suggests that running the project is only half of the battle. It is
equally important that those on the ground can communicate, understand, and
appreciate the local culture and build it into their field strategies to more mean-
ingfully build back better.
4.3 Social Equity: Haitian Diaspora
Given Haiti’s historical backdrop, the country’s main challenge as well as its hope
remains in the social capital development. Recent figures from the UN report that an
estimated 40 % of the population are unemployed, and staggering half of the
population are under the age of 18 (OSE 2012a). Martin Hammer, an American
architect working in rural Haiti for Builders Without Borders learned that people are
the country’s most under-utilized resource, and further that Haitians invest heavily
into their children’s education:
Haitians value education very highly and many families will sacrifice almost everything
else but they will make sure that their children get an education. It costs money to do that.
There is very little public education. (Hammer, M., U.S. Architect, June 28, 2011, Personal
Communication)
For sustainable reconstruction of Haiti, one of the most challenging battles since
the earthquake has been the retention of talent that the event first attracted, and
reconciliation of the fact that many of these experts reside outside of the country.
Vast majority of them are from Washington, D.C. and the two primary states of
Haitian diaspora: New York and Florida, the latter of which is only a 2-hour flight
from Port-au-Prince. Though counterintuitive, Haiti’s geographic proximity to aid
agencies headquartered in North America has meant a step back rather than
forward.
You can still live your normal life and you can come down here, it’s only two hours away.
In principle you can, but obviously there’s an awful lot that gets lost because you don’t
have that day-to-day interaction… there could be better interaction with the agencies if a lot
of these agencies kept people on the ground full time, so it’s not always project specific, it’s
more about the overall level of integration coordinates between agencies I think that suffers
the most… (Gill, D., UK Architect, AFH Haiti, April 6, 2012, Personal Communication)
Gill observed that experts who work off-site do not engage with the community
on a daily basis to the same extent that those who live on site, and often make
same-day trips for meetings where they would make policy decisions without
sufficient awareness or understanding of the day-to-day challenges and Haiti’s
social, cultural, and political dynamics. Gill suggested that overall integration and
coordination between agencies is difficult to achieve without having permanent
presence, since they miss out on opportunities to learn and build rapport with those
on the ground (Fig. 4.9).
A key criticism for such light work arrangement is that, although it may be
convenient and even make short-term economic sense, the time that they are absent
rather than the time they are present at meetings make the integration of work
between and within agencies difficult. This practice also stems from the assumption
that agencies do not station full-time staff on the ground because their main
objective is to implement projects on the ground, rather than on building rela-
tionships with people. Holmes (2011) argued that the most innovative and effective
Fig. 4.9 Haitian street vendor setting up shop

4.3 Social Equity: Haitian Diaspora 77
“humanitarian performers” work at the “sharp end in the field” and concludes that
the “size is not a criterion for effectiveness” (Holmes 2011). What is inferred to here
is the size of projects but scalability is nevertheless a paramount determinant of
effective rebuilding in Haiti.
…It’s the question of 100 versus 100,000, if you find 10 people… that’s great, but what
you really need is 100. So that’s also a big challenge. And there’s no quick fix to that, other
than the only quick fix is to bring diaspora back into play. But the brain drain of this
country has suffered is just huge. And the long term solution is to train people up here to be
able to do those kinds of things, but that, again, would take years and the only quick fix is to
try and staff it with diaspora because there’s no quick way to learn how to do those things.
While Gill agreed with the notion of developing Haiti’s social capital as being
the key developmental objective for Haiti’s long-term sustainability, he explained
that, because there is limited capacity, there are no easy ways to train the locals in
the given time frame to the point they can build sufficient capacity to rebuild the
nation. The only intermediary solution, therefore, was to bring in Haitian diaspora.
Haitian diaspora… there is a huge population, principally in Miami, New York, Chicago,
Montreal who left; who had the ability, either intellectually, professionally, financially to
leave …Their willingness to come back and work here is a critical part of the ability of this
country to rebuild itself. (Gill, D., UK Architect, AFH Haiti, April 6, 2012, Personal
Communication)
But the involvement of the diaspora raises another cultural challenge for Haiti.
There has always been a class tension between a handful of Haitian elite that had
been ruling Haiti and own majority of the business infrastructure, and the rest of
Haitian population, but there is also some tension between the educated, middle class
Haitians—which includes the diaspora—and majority of Haitians. Almost half of
Haiti’s population is minors under the age of 18, and some 78 % of the population
lives below the poverty line. The large gaps in income, access to education, health
care and other resources between the haves and have-nots led Wearne (2012) to
characterize Haiti as having been in a continual state of “development” for the last
50-years (Wearne 2012), and the cumulative effect of the wicked problems that
engulf Haiti means that it will most likely remain that way for the foreseeable future.
4.3.1 Haitian Diaspora
The Haitian diaspora, majority of whom reside in North America—chiefly in the

east coast of the U.S. and Dominican Republic—have been supporting their rela-
tives back home through remittances. The diasporas increasing contribution to
Haiti’s economy has been almost double the official aid flows prior to the earth-
quake (Sapat and Esnard 2012). By one estimate, these remittances account to
between 20 and 30 % of Haiti’s GDP, which equates to about $1.2 billion per year
(Hsu and Aizenman 2010). While the numbers seem significant, it pales in
comparison to those received by Haiti’s neighbors. Dominicans across the border

receive $3 billion in remittances, which is 20 times the foreign aid it receives, and
the Salvadorans receive $3.8 billion, a 15 folds over the official aid flows. One
argument is that by increasing the Haitian population abroad, more reliable eco-
nomic base can be established than by continuing to depend on foreign aid.
Financial aid from foreign entities, unless disguised as loans with a caveat (such as
a high interest rate or requiring an immediate economic or political reform), is
usually tied to project specific performances or risk being lost to competing events
in other parts of the world. But will having more Haitian diaspora definitively
guarantee an economic resilience bring an end to Haiti’s dependency on foreign
aid? The jury is still out.
Nevertheless, Haitians living abroad also play a critical role in rebuilding Haiti.
Many have returned in 2010—some through contractual arrangements with INGOs
and others permanently—to assist with the post-disaster efforts, serving as “an
invaluable post-earthquake conduit for Creole-speaking [professionals]”(Sapat and
Esnard 2012). The most fervent advocates to rebuild Haiti among those interviewed
for this book, too, have been the diaspora: “Their willingness to come back and
work here is a critical part of the ability of this country to rebuild itself”, said Gill
(UK Architect, AFH Haiti, April 6, 2012, Personal Communication). Indeed,
leveraging the skills of the Haitian diaspora is key to rebuilding Haiti, because the
resources required to train the mostly unskilled Haitian work force can barely skim
the surface of the development work that remains ahead of them. This is particularly
critical when there is only limited funding and the timeframe to mobilize the
country’s recovery is also limited. Fortunately, many upper middle-class Haitian
expatriates began returning to Haiti to contribute their skills. Gill explained that the
Haitian diaspora who bring with them their overseas experience can negotiate this
complex environment and offer balanced views:
The Haitian diaspora understand what systems should be like, what business should be like,
what quality should be like and not just being governed by what they’ve experienced here,
but really being governed by what they’ve experienced elsewhere. That’s just a wonderful
opportunity and you meet so many of them. (Gill, D., UK Architect, AFH Haiti, April 6,
2012, Personal Communication)
Yves François, a Haitian-American architect, is a prime example of the Haitian

diaspora. François had trained as an architect in New York and returned to Haiti
before the earthquake to set up a construction practice in the capital’s hillside town,
Pétionville. Diaspora like him return to their hometown and continue to uphold the
same work standard as those developed in the U.S. More notably, François bro-
kered the AFH Haiti operations in Port-au-Prince by co-establishing the rebuilding
center, Bati Byen in the same office building as his practice within the initial weeks
of the January 2010 earthquake.
Yves is somewhat of a different breed here because he brings the U.S. mindset as well, and
the U.S. mindset tends to be very ambitious compared to Haiti. (Granvil, B.,
Haitian-American Architect, AFH Haiti, April 5, 2012, Personal Communication)
4.3 Social Equity: Haitian Diaspora 79
In one interview, François echoed the struggles of other NGOs, chiefly the
corruption of government officials and the patience required to train the Haitian
work force.
One of my shipments sat at the port for six months. The government official saw my big
equipment, and he said he just bought a piece of land and needed to use the machine. Being
[myself], I told him, “You can keep it. When you’re ready to give it to me, let me know.”
I eventually got the call to come pick up my equipment… If you want to go that route, it
can take months. Or you can pay the bribes and keep moving. People who have government
contracts often want 25 % …We ought to take the time to train Haitians. The foreign
companies will make a boatload of money and leave in a year or two, and the Haitian guys
still are going to be untrained. I’m focusing on getting local people trained on best prac-
tices, so they can rebuild Haiti over the next 10, 20, 30 years (Yves François as cited in
McKnight 2010).
Disaster scholars remain divided on whether the post-2010 Haiti can be built back
better. Five years since the event, an independent report by Pro Publica and NPR on
“How the Red Cross Raised Half a Billion Dollars for Haiti and Built Six Homes”
drew concerns over the lack of transparency in how such global high-profile aid
agencies operate, renewing the belief that many NGOs prove to be ineffective and
often fall short on their initial promises (Edmonds 2012). Critics believe that Haiti’s
dependency on foreign aid for decades to come (Erikson 2004; Hedlund 2011).
While Haitian diaspora understand that foreign nationals will eventually leave
once their funds dry up, that is not the only reason for training the locals to perform
most of the work on the ground. Outreach work as well as everything from
obtaining documentation to gathering community feedback seemed to be best
handled by a local who had more familiarity with his or her own community than
by outsiders. However, even the locals were leery of venturing out to certain job
sites, because the worst affected areas—which small, independent NGOs like AFH
target in order to stretch their resources and maximize their impact—were often in
high-crime neighborhoods. Jean René Lafontant, a local architect who was handling
the fieldwork for AFH Haiti’s Civic Art project, admitted “there are some trips I
will not do… There are some places I would never go” (Lafontant, J., Haitian
Architect, AFH Haiti, April 5, 2012, Personal Communication).
4.3.2 Design Innovation or Invasion
Even if diaspora are considered Haiti’s technical stopgap, they are still too few in
number to do away entirely with support from both the public and the private sector
for some time yet. Opportunities still exist for professionals engaged in humani-
tarian endeavors, though their mileages can vary.
What I’ve observed happening in Haiti, and I guess this is common in a post-disaster
situation… is that you don’t have a lot of time to innovate. You are not interested in
innovating or trying something new; you just want to do what you are used to doing. (King,
B., US Engineer, July 5, 2011, Personal Communication)
Potangaroa, Red Cross’ shelter expert in Haiti, offered an alternative view that
architects in fact have many opportunities to bridge the gap between the technical
and the non-technical, because architects are trained to look beyond the technical
problem at hand.
The gap between the technical and the non-technical is actually smaller than you think…
you start talking and having discussions about… how people are cooking food… and you
get into all sorts of discussions about social relationships… and how things are done…
There’s this other aspect of “talking to buildings” which is quite an architectural thing to
do… because the buildings will tell you what’s going on. (Potangaroa, R., NZ Structural
Engineer, March 13, 2012, Personal Communication)
In a similar vein, the infectious enthusiasm with which experts pour into disaster
scenes sometimes leave many well-placed intentions to backfire in the subsequent
stages of post-disaster reconstruction.
Port-au-Prince is a hotbed of innovation and research right now because there’s so many
incredibly talented people working here; you name it. From industry to industry, some of
the best practitioners in the world have had an involvement here… just the resources
weren’t available and now they are, so that’s a huge change in terms of technical capacity
and that’s a really big difference. (Gill, D., UK Architect, AFH Haiti, April 6, 2012,
Cesal cautioned that disaster victims can be overtly agreeable to expert sug-
gestions, in part due to their impatience in wanting to return to a home, and are
more vulnerable because their judgment is affected by the post-disaster trauma, so
professionals must take this into account:
People are scared and they’ve lost a lot, so you know if you say like, hey I designed this
house for you and it is in the shape of a squid and I thought that was really appropriate for
you because Haiti is an island nation… and people are like “yeah, I love squid. I can’t wait
to have my squid house” you know? So you really have to… listen and draw out of people
what they really want and what they really need. (Cesal, E., U.S. Architect, AFH Haiti,
Though the BBBC initiative spearheaded by the GoH and the Clinton
Foundation through the IHRC had limited success, the initiative served as an
important lesson in accountability for architectural professionals and NGOs oper-
ating in post-disaster context. The socio-economic challenges of unemployment,
poverty, and skills shortages, but also challenges of miscommunication stemming
from cultural differences as they manifest in divergent work ethics, building
practices, and social mores are all considered major hurdles for foreign interna-
tionals operating in Haiti. Some of these challenges are ameliorated by the diaspora
who bring the experience of both cultures to build stronger relationships between
the internationals and locals. However, there is still a large gap to be closed between
policy setting and project implementation.
4.4 Design Outliers 81
4.4 Design Outliers
A popular Haitian proverb, “dye mon, gen mon”, translates to: “beyond mountains,
there are mountains” (Kidder 2003). The phrase carries a dual meaning. In one
sense, it means that opportunities are limitless in Haiti, but in another sense, it
implies that there is one great obstacle after another. Haiti has long endured a
history of political instability, environmental degradation and neoliberalism, facing
challenges from abroad as well as from within. Its struggle as a nation can be
tracked from as early as 500 years ago, entrenched with disasters that are histori-
cally produced (2010). At one point, Haiti spent more than 80 % of its national
budget on repaying the French’independence debt’, draining itself of most of its
own resources in the process (2010). While the catastrophe of the 2010 earthquake
in Haiti was an “unnatural disaster” by scholarly accounts of Haiti’s history, the
disaster was a culmination of a series of political misfortunes that was hard hit by
what some would call an “unadulterated neoliberal economics” (Wearne 2012).
Wearne cited some thirty years of “unplanned” development of informal housing
settlements in the urban pockets of Port-au-Prince in the absence of building codes
and seismic strengthening were a perfect recipe for the disaster. The urban condi-
tions of post-disaster Haiti worsened with the outbreak of cholera, which was
another human disaster waiting to unravel as it was later discovered that at least a
quarter of humanitarian agency-supplied camps were unequipped with proper
latrines and over a third were without water (2012) (Fig. 4.10).
It is also alarming that Haiti’s unregulated housing sector was in part a conse-
quence of there being no building code in effect at the time of the earthquake. And
humanitarian actors involved in rebuilding are divided on how it could be done.
Clark Manus, a Californian architect who served as the incumbent President of the
AIA from 2010 to 2011, confirmed that in the two years since the earthquake Haiti
“hasn’t even made a dent” in terms of rebuilding in part due to inadequate skills:
…Those people who are involved (in rebuilding) don’t have the skill set: they’re not trained
in visualization; they’re not trained in planning in building types… (there is a need to)
advocate for building codes to actually make a difference… they were building without
(structural) reinforcing… So it’s just a disaster that’s going to happen, so it’s the ability to
advocate in the early stages of what will make a community safe and resilient and protect
people’s lives… (Manus, C., April 12, 2012, Personal Communication)
During his involvement in Haiti, Manus observed that the main focus of NGO
operations was on health rather than on building better houses that caused the vast
majority of earthquake casualties. But, Manus argued, the health and welfare of the
public are closely related to buildings since safety and resilience of houses that
people live in are an important determinant of their general wellbeing. Whereas
Manus advocated for the need for Haitian building codes, Gill held the view that
introduction of building codes and certification process is only a partial solution and
that they needed to be aligned with what was achievable in Haiti.
There’s no certification… from accountants to architects… so anecdotally every third
Haitian male claims to be an engineer… (But) the risk is that it (becomes) all about
Fig. 4.10 View of an IDP campsite with modifications by Haitians
standards and quality control… if you take on to do a project… you’ve got to ground it in
the reality of what’s achievable in the country and you’ve got to fight for it to be built…
(Gill, D., April 6, 2012, Personal Communication)
In other words, introducing a building code is not viable in a country where such
regulations are difficult to enforce in the first place, and neither does it address the
fundamental issues of limited local capacity.
In addition to the issue of coordination, the proximity of Haiti to the talented
pool of experts from the Americas has led to a significant presence of INGOs. And
it is no coincidence that Haiti has been dubbed the “Republic of NGOs”. According
to research by Kristoff and Panarelli (2010) as many as 10,000 NGOs had reported
presence even before the 2010 earthquake. In terms of the number of NGOs per
capita, Haiti is second only to India (OSE 2012a).
…You’ve got a lot of organizations because of Haiti’s proximity of the United States…
You’ve got a huge number of those kinds of (donor) organizations, their people are based in
the United States and they come down here for a week, and then go back, and it doesn’t
really work… (but) there could be better interaction with the agencies if a lot of these
agencies kept people on the ground full time… So the overall level of integration coor-
dinates between agencies… suffer the most. (Gill, D., April 6, 2012, Personal
Communication)
The sheer number of NGOs operating independently from one another reflects
the deeply fragmented state of humanitarian operations on the ground. InterAction,
an alliance of 180 U.S. NGOs that are involved in international development,

attempted to map its member organizations’ activities via the “NGO Aid Map”
initiative, but as with the findings of other independent studies such as those from
the Disaster Accountability Project (2011), the system of self-reporting has proven
to be an unreliable means of tracking progress. Sandefur and Glassman (2014)
found significant chasm between official data and independent household surveys;
the public sector’s continued exaggeration of its progress has angered even those
whom at first praised NGO activities (Valbrun 2012). Anecdotes of Manus and Gill
suggest that the geographical convenience of Haiti to the U.S. has stymied the level
of NGO involvement on the ground, and, by extension, so too has the quality of
rapport that NGOs may have built with Haitians (Fig. 4.11).
Nevertheless, there were some exceptions. Martin Hammer, a Californian
architect, was among those shortlisted from the Build Back Better Communities
design ideas competition. His first foray into humanitarian design was in Pakistan
following the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, where he found himself involved in local
building policy development as well as capacity building of Pakistani builders. He
has since served alongside other disaster development professionals as an advisor
and consultant to promote and implement ecological building practices through a
number of organizations both locally and globally.
Fig. 4.11 Informal housing on the capital’s hillside

I wanted to do work in places of need, for populations in need, and this certainly fit that
description… and when the earthquake happened, I very quickly started thinking about
reconstruction there… the sustainable reconstruction technologies and whether the work I
did in Pakistan could be applied to Haiti… there was no other way to know except to try it.
(Hammer, M., June 28, 2011, Personal Communication)
Hammer also learned that innovative construction methods he helped to develop

in Pakistan could be transferred back to California, where he successfully tested a
full-size prototype of straw bale construction similar to those he built in Pakistan in
an earthquake simulator. When Hammer learned of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti,
again, he saw it as an opportunity to transfer his experience to help some of Haiti’s
displaced people.
Another finalist of the BBBC design competition, Bruce King, shared a similar
story. Director of Ecological Building Network (EBNet) and a structural engineer
by trade, King had similar motivations with Hammer in arriving in Haiti to help
locals rebuild healthy, ecologically sound and earthquake-resistant structures.
Voicing one of the challenges shared by other designers like him, King suggested
that innovation is made difficult through the circumstances of a disaster.
The problem I had is that it’s not technology, or (for the lack of) good ideas. The engi-
neering that EBNet is doing in Haiti is not complicated, but making the scale–that is,
getting in the culture, getting in where the Haitians own this, where there’s Haitian busi-
nesses… building houses in their communities without the need for me to even be there…
That’s a long valley to cross. (King, B., July 5, 2011, Personal Communication)
Hammer’s experience is representative of those who take on humanitarian pro

bono projects in their spare time, often at their own expense. Though few are
fortunate to turn it into a career, many thrive in it and make it a core part of their
professional practice. King compared the project he was undertaking in Haiti as
having similar dynamics as social entrepreneurship. He used the analogy of the
“valley of death” to illustrate what he deemed as a typical lifecycle of post-disaster
design practice. The analogy is commonly used amongst the Silicon Valley
entrepreneurs, where the majority of new businesses do not survive the initial
period of research and development. King explained that an idea needed to survive
through a countless number of prototypes and adjustments that need to be made in
response to issues that could not have been anticipated at the time of conception.
The period from the initial prototype to the working product is the “valley” in
which most ideas perish. Such ideas fail, not because they are not “good ideas” or
due to inadequate “technology” but because of “disaster fatigue” in terms of both
motivation and funding.
King argued that the same dynamics apply when developing design projects
abroad. The deep valley of negative cash flow period between initial design idea
and a final product is a lengthy process that requires considerable patience, com-
mitment, and investment in prototypes without the certainty of success. A case in
point is the BBBC Housing Expo, which stalled while they were still in the deep
valley of prototyping. Many architectural ideas proposed for Haiti—including those
espoused by well-known international architects such as Steven Holl, Thom Mayne,
David Adjaye, and Mark Mack (Nordenson 2011), or by students at Harvard and
MIT (Werthmann et al. 2011)—did not progress beyond what they were: ideas.
Aside from the good-will and motivation of uncompensated designers, which
such international competitions largely depend on, Hammer emphasized the need to
create culturally sensible designs and self-sustaining communities as the long-term
vision for building back better in Haiti:
You want to create long-term independence… if a short-term dependence is necessary in
order to attain a long-term independence, then you’re on the right track… and architec-
turally… what’s culturally appropriate is very important. There are countless examples of
building solutions post-disaster that have failed miserably because… those who brought
that solution to this place… brought their own cultural biases with it. (Hammer, M., June
28, 2011, Personal Interview)
While design competitions offer a creative avenue and an opportunity to engage

with the global community outside of the architectural professional’s homeland,
innovation is not always welcome in post-disaster environments, particularly where
people under severe distress become risk-averse, seeking familiarity and stability
rather than change or the risk of the unknown. King suggested that it is difficult to
innovate in an environment that is not receptive to change.
…in the construction industry you don’t want to do anything that’s too radically different
than what people are already used to… We didn’t try to do anything particularly exotic; we
stuck with masonry, because that’s what (Haitians) are used to. (King, B., July 5, 2011,
Personal Commmunication)
Despite AFH’s early success, which includes partnership with local architects
and establishment of Bati Byen,4 a Haitian rebuilding center, AFH was not immune
from the systematic difficulties that other NGOs experienced. Darren Gill, a UK
architect at AFH explained that there is a gap between the technical capacity of
locals and the rate at which the reconstruction was being undertaken. What AFH
also experienced was the deep valley of development work that needed to be done
before any progress could be made in architectural innovation.
There’s… millions (of dollars) that have been committed, (but) a lot of it hasn’t materi-
alized… As pilot projects come to a conclusion, there is staffing (issue) in the country…
one of the biggest challenges you’ve got (is that), you’ve got a big, relatively cheap
workforce, but you’ve got a very low level of skills within that workforce. (Gill, D., April
The UN Office of the Special Envoy for Haiti conducted a 4-year research from
2009 to 2012 to ascertain how official foreign aid to Haiti was disbursed. It found
that almost half of the US$13.34 billion allocated for Haiti in humanitarian and
recovery funding since January 2010 has been disbursed (OSE 2012b), yet the
conditions in Haiti remain precarious and volatile.
For instance, Davis (2010) observed that the construction of 100,000 Transitional
Shelters (“T-shelters”), which cost about US$139 per square meter to build, have
Bati Byen, in Haitian Creole, translates to “Build Better”.

4
absorbed a significant amount of funding that could have been used to build per-
manent houses, where the cost differential between transitional shelter and perma-
nent home is marginal at just 20 % or $27 more per square meter (Davis 2010).
4.4.1 Building Accountability
Disaster Accountability Project (2011) reviewed 196 organizations that solicited

donations for Haiti earthquake relief to ascertain the transparency of information
and to promote accountability of the relief organizations. The report found that only
20 % of those surveyed provided sufficient public reports on its progress, and AFH
was the only architectural organization featured among them (Fig. 4.12).
Bati Byen (Creole for “Build Better”), which has operated in the hands of Haitian
architects since 2014, was initially set up as a field office for AFH in Haiti. Nestled
in the busy hillside town of Pétionville, Bati Byen offered three community design
services: architecture, urban design and economic development. Collectively, AFH
focused on “urban acupuncture” design strategy, which seeks to establish com-
munity nodes where the needs for them already exist but are not yet physically
present. The concept of community nodes, while they conjure up images of ad hoc
service facilities hidden in discreet office buildings that dole out food stamps,
Fig. 4.12 Bati Byen, the collaborative rebuilding center in Port-au-Prince

clothes, and even some basic job training, the ones that AFH build are not con-
ventional community centers. They manifest as basketball courts or football fields
where there is a high population of youth, a school where none exists within close
proximity, and mobile health clinics where patients have no means of hospitals.
Cameron Sinclair, co-founder of AFH, described his staff at AFH and its satellite
offices in Haiti and elsewhere as gifted individuals who also bring non-design
related talent in addition to basic architectural competencies. Natalie Desrosier, a
Dominican design fellow working at AFH Haiti described the working environment
as a positive “shock” from an average architectural practice she was accustomed to.
In addition to being a resource for local communities and an interdisciplinary
design NGO, AFH offered opportunities to learn about “different people”, “cul-
tures”, and “countries”. Gill, AFH Haiti’s program director, explained that the
novelty of young, mid-sized NGO like AFH Haiti was its ability to quickly
mobilize, because “it’s not overly bureaucratic”. Still, AFH was not immune from
the “growing pains” of running grassroots based operations abroad.
Take the example of the Villa Rosa project, the project encompasses about 2000 homes and
there’s going to be work on around 1000 of them. That’s not really the challenge. The
challenge is not really 1000, it’s 100,000 and what do you need to do to be able to press
the scale button, and nobody yet has pressed that scale button over here …A big part of it is
the complexities of the situation which I think a lot of people underestimated …I would
argue that one of the biggest challenges (is that) you’ve got a very low level of skill within
that (local) workforce …There is definitely a huge amount of NGO fatigue, which is a huge
killer of motivation. (Gill, D., UK Architect, AFH Haiti, April 6, 2012, Personal
Communication)
Contrary to strategies of larger NGOs that move from one disaster to another, the
staff at AFH seemed resolved in the belief that having an “exit plan” is not a viable
option for agencies with vested long-term interest in the country’s recovery.
True sustainable development of a city such as Port-au-Prince, they argued, is a
lifetime commitment.
The subject of land tenure has been a double-edged sword in Haiti. Joseph and
Wang (2010) observed that the “free market” economic policies led to unregulated
land use and anarchy in recent decades (Joseph and Wang 2010). The need for
much needed social, political and economic reforms were counteracted by more
corruption and property rights of citizens were forfeited in the name of redevel-
opment and security. Klein (2007) argued that large scale natural disasters present a
blank slate on which to implement the political “shock doctrine” on affected ter-
ritories, often at the expense of the disaster victims. Nevertheless, the 2010 earth-
quake also demonstrated the resolve of Haitians to spring back against such forces,
and to rebuild in ways that no aid agencies on the ground could have anticipated.
…people are almost religious in the belief they do own the land there, legally they do not,
but psychologically they do. That community has moved, in two years, from tents and
squatters to permanent construction, which in the history of informal communities, glob-
ally, is just unprecedented. That’s a process that normally takes thirty years and it took two
because there was a belief that the fixture of tenure was actually there, that it was their
land… if you can achieve security of tenure for people then they will take care of this, they
will build it. It becomes so much easier… the scale question becomes so much easier.
Gill contended that reconstruction at scale becomes an easier task when there is
security of tenure. The willingness and the motivation to build, Gill argued, stems
from the belief that they own the land. It is therefore not surprising that in academic
circles the consensus for sustainable rebuilding is when the members of local
community undertake the rebuilding themselves. But humanitarian agencies have
historically underestimated the resilient capacity of locals.
A case in point is Haiti’s new township Canaan, a 200,000-strong squatter
community just 18 km to the North East of Port-au-Prince. In just five years,
Canaan has grown to be the country’s fourth largest city (McFadden 2015), mostly
populated by displaced Haitians who had arrived here to seek refuge after the 2010
earthquake. The settlement was catalyzed by Corail-Cesselesse—an adjacent model
IDP camp set up by Haiti’s Prime Minister René Prévail and Hollywood actor Sean
Penn—but as soon as the news broke out that the land was earmarked for rede-
velopment, the barren land surrounding the camp was quickly taken over by
squatters before the authorities could intervene. Rather than becoming a slum as
some aid agencies feared (Haiti Grassroots Watch 2013), Haitians have poured their
own money in the hundreds of millions into this new settlement to build schools,
shops, and churches. Encouraged by this positive direction, aid agencies such as the
International Organization for Migration (IOM) and World Vision have returned to
help retrofit houses against future earthquakes and to build much needed basic
infrastructure to support the new community.
Self-help rebuilding as demonstrated in Cannon proves that community-led
design can be successful at scale and is also a promising strategy for long-term
resilience. When the design process is open to the whole community rather than to
any one individual or dominant agent—as is often the case in donor or expert-led
building projects—it is possible to tap into both existing community resources and
experts to facilitate the recovery process. Furthermore, it suggests that the lack of
systems, building skills, and state regulations are not necessarily barriers to creating
a thriving new city. An authority’s early devolution of decision-making to those
whom the homes are built for can instill a robust sense of ownership and
empowerment in its subjects more effectively than if the operation was entirely left
to aid agencies or the government sector. In this way, working in partnership with
communities can be a desirable side effect of operationalizing wicked problems.
However, despite these positives, several challenges in implementing partici-
patory approach to rebuilding, such as: the tendency of community design projects
to get hijacked by preexisting, dominant forces within the community, such as it
there are local gangs present; the inherent difficulty of achieving equitable com-
munity representation in a place where democratic governance has not been suc-
cessful historically; challenges of consensus building within a community—
particularly if such a community is geographically determined—with wide cultural,
political, and economic disparities. Hannemann et al. (2014) determined that “when
all comes back to political will and money, the question arises if the Haitian
government will be a main promoter of this societal change,” and if so, whether “it
will be able to raise the necessary funds and long-term loans to build public-private
partnerships” (Hannemann et al. 2014). Despite the widely celebrated success of
Canaan, informal settlements in fragile states still face many unresolved issues that
can only be sustained in the long-term with the state government’s blessing and still
more INGO facilitation. In the mean time, the robust social infrastructure found in
such settlements remind us that there is hope and that no matter what the com-
munities will continue to thrive for years to come.
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Chapter 5
Katrina: Collective Resistance
Reconstruction of urban cities necessarily involves politics. This chapter evaluates

how various disaster recovery actors across different sectors negotiate disaster
politics. In the event of a disaster, government agencies typically solicit the help of
professionals who can supply policy makers with on-demand technical knowledge
on which to base urgent decisions, but the inherent subservience of professionals to
governing agencies can further polarize the stakeholder interests rather than unite
them. Even professionals can become entangled in local politics, disempowered
through their involvement with authorities, and lose control over how their tech-
nical knowledge is applied or used in policy decisions. While this is not to suggest
that such practices are rampant only within the urban disaster settings or to except
the possibility that professionals carry no political agendas of their own, it serves to
illustrate some of the challenges that professionals are presented with in the face of
wicked problems.
5.1 Politics of Planning
In late August 2005, Hurricane Katrina landed on the U.S. Gulf Coast during the
Atlantic hurricane season, tearing open the floodgates along the Mississippi River
Delta and deluging the low-lying neighborhoods in its path, displacing some
645,000 people in New Orleans alone. Although some 90 % of the population
successfully evacuated the area in time, the rest were left to face the forces of the
Category 5 hurricane. While New Orleans is no stranger to flash floods, the havoc
caused by Katrina amounted to some US$108 billion in property damage affecting
some 70 % of homes in its path, making it the costliest (Amaratunga and Haigh
2011) flood in the U.S. history to date. For the global humanitarian aid sector,
Hurricane Katrina was a chilling realization that major urban disasters were no

92 5 Katrina: Collective Resistance
longer limited to fragile states. Although it has been over a decade since the
disaster, the impact of Hurricane Katrina persists and will continue to be felt for the
foreseeable future.
Campanella (2008) made a key observation in that, ever since New Orleans was
founded, Americans have continued to fight the water instead of learning to live
with it, even though “flood actually saves lives by cleaning city and reducing death
rate” (2008). Kates et al. (Kates 2006) referred to Hurricane Katrina as a
human-induced disaster that had been almost 300 years in the making. In 1945,
geologist Gilbert F. White warned that “floods are acts of God, but flood losses are
largely acts of man. Human encroachment upon floodplains of rivers accounts for
the high annual total of flood losses” (Macdonald et al. 2012). New Orleans’
artificial flood embankments, or “levees”,1 whose failures during the storm is
responsible for much of the city’s physical damage were originally installed
throughout the Mississippi River to drain the natural marshlands to accommodate
the growing population of New Orleans. They also served as floodgates for occa-
sional riparian overflows. Yet in Hurricane Katrina, over half of the levees failed in
one way or other (Heerden 2007), though the natural embankments along the
Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain never did.
Even beyond the initial emergency phase of post-Katrina New Orleans,
top-down approaches dominated the public sector response to the city’s recovery.
Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. four years prior, the federal gov-
ernment had dramatically broadened the focus of emergency management to
include international military defense, which were largely speculative rather than
evidence-based (Alexander 2006). This has meant the downsizing of its emergency
management agency (FEMA) to establish the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS), the new anti-terrorist agency that focused on civil defense outside of the
U.S. rather than domestic dangers. But the most controversial among the state
response to Katrina is the multiple ways in which the federal government slowed
down the disaster recovery, to the detriment of the city’s survivors.
Miscommunication amongst intergovernmental agencies hampered emergency
rescue efforts, delaying critical aid to survivors which led to unnecessary incidents
of petty looting and break-ins to meet their basic needs. Rather than being seen as
social behaviors of last resort, media outlets and local authorities castigated such
desperate attempts at survival as criminal. Worst of all, the divisive leadership
amongst government agencies post-Katrina further eroded the public’s trust in
authorities, including well-meaning professionals and aid agencies.
What the people of the Gulf Coast needed was a leader, whom many of those
interviewed for this book referred to as a figurative “benevolent dictator” who could
go beyond the legal parameters of the government to serve the needs of the public.
1
Etymology of “levee”, meaning “raised” in French (levée, the past participle of verb se lever; to
rise), was coined by the first European settlers of New Orleans in reference to the natural ridges
above floodplains in the region.
5.1 Politics of Planning 93
5.1.1 Characteristics of Emergency Leadership
Disasters can often test the political leadership under pressure, and it can be difficult
to predict how politicians will behave because their role and accompanying
responsibilities are vastly different from the day-to-day operations. Disaster
scholars, Rodriguez et al. (2007) contended that while the political lifecycle runs on
election cycles, disasters are unpredictable and irregular; every disaster is often the
political official’s first.
I think disasters really… They polarize politics a lot… (The) disaster makes you raw in a
way and so you sort of see the person uncovered. So for politicians and for the public, I
think that that’s a shocking thing, because we typically interact with our politicians with
their cloaks on, and you don’t really see them under stress publicly, and the disaster really
does that. So it really exposes them…there are two parts of it. One is vision and the other
one is ability to act… What you might show as ethical might actually be a by-product of
those two issues being under stress. (Johnson, L., U.S. Planner, July 12, 2011, Personal
Communication)
While disasters can indeed polarize politics, the division is intrinsic rather than
extrinsic in the way that a disaster can expose the leadership capacity of political
leaders. New York mayor Giuliani and former U.S. President Clinton are examples
that Johnson gave of political leaders who thrived in disasters, while in her view
New Orleans mayor Nagin struggled to demonstrate ‘visionary’ leadership.
Stallings (1995) explained that since most of the information that are made avail-
able through mass media during a major crisis tend to be fragmented and are seldom
based on sufficient data, politicians tended to be reluctant to issue public
announcements and forewarnings for the fear of setting off false alarm. Nagin’s
inability to deal with the wicked problems of post-Katrina New Orleans not only
had serious political repercussions for Nagin, but for the city itself. According to
Campanella (2010) Nagin made no reservations about criticizing his own team at
BNOB when their plans for shrinking the footprint of New Orleans came under
public scrutiny, in order to be re-elected as a mayor despite his poor performance in
managing the emergency (Campanella 2010).
We find a contrasting example of disaster leadership in Art Agnos, the 39th
Mayor of San Francisco. Agnos presided over the municipal response following the
1989 Loma Pieta earthquake, and his actions, though controversial at the time,
helped to transform the city’s subsequent development. Agnos recalled that the
earthquake tested him as a leader. He explained that as a mayor, his political
credibility hung in the balance with each difficult decisions and wicked problems he
faced.
A politician has to have the confidence to use their political capital… in politics we don’t
use money, or capital; we use credibility. I had a vision and believed in it and was willing to
take the risk politically and paid for it in election, and lost, and it hurts. (Agnos, A., Former
Mayor, San Francisco, April 10, 2012, Personal Communication)
The worst damage from the 1989 earthquake was the partial collapse of the
Interstate 880 (I-880), a highway that connected San Francisco to the urban hubs in
the East Bay. Agnos saw this as an opportunity to reevaluate the city and rebuild in
a way that would “grow our city in a way that includes everyone with affordable
housing” (Agnos, A., Former Mayor, San Francisco, April 10, 2012, Personal
Communication). As a mayor, Agnos had the means within the municipal system to
coordinate and deploy the local emergency forces to meet the immediate needs of
the city, but what enabled Agnos to create and communicate a vision for rebuilding
the city beyond the emergency phase was the work he did with local architects.
In the case of earthquakes architects as professionals have a responsibility to educate the
people responsible for planning a city and the public at large about the best regulations…
for architects, part of their ethical role begins at the point of planning and introducing the
best kind of building codes for whatever they’re building or drawing plans for, but during a
disaster architects didn’t play a big role until it came to rebuilding… (Agnos, A., Former
Mayor, San Francisco, April 10, 2012, Personal Communication)
In this case, architecture facilitated conversations beyond that which was tech-
nically required for the basic restoration of infrastructure and city services. While
Agnos noted that architects “didn’t play a big role until it came to rebuilding”,
engaging the architectural profession during early days of the earthquake recovery
was pivotal since critical design decisions for rebuilding are made long before the
freshly mixed barrel of concrete first hits the ground. Rebuilding the I-880 took a
total of 9 years with extensive community consultation (Jackson 1998), and Agnos
acknowledged that architects were invaluable in the early visioning processes of
rebuilding the highway.
It was the architecture community that helped me develop the arguments that offset the
highway engineers whom wanted to rebuild the double decker freeway and the architects
gave me the arguments, the data to make the best decision for the city going forward.
(Agnos, A., Former Mayor, San Francisco, April 10, 2012, Personal Communication)
In politics, “risk” and “courage” are synonymous, and “credibility” is the bed-
rock on which leadership is tested, particularly when communities are under stress.
The leadership styles of mayors Agnos and Nagin, following a natural disaster in
the U.S. illustrate two divergent types of political relationship that architectural
professionals can encounter. When reflecting on the challenges of serving as a
mayor following the Loma Prieta earthquake, Agnos recalled, “a disaster is full of
challenges because you’re not really prepared for them when they happen”.
Although both mayors worked closely with architectural professionals—Nagin with
ULI and Agnos with a group of “design zealots”, the former chose the populist
path, while the latter chose to sacrifice his political credibility for the city’s
long-term social and economic benefit. Clark Manus, the San Francisco architect
who had worked with Agnos in the visioning process of the I-880 following the
1989 earthquake, explained his role as an architect in working with Agnos:
…you’re trying, in this role as a facilitator, not to take sides, and not to be so focused on “it
has to be my solution or none”, because that never works… So the notion is— of helping,
looking at the alternatives, figuring out the pros and cons of what those are in a quantitative
way and then moving the discussion to the point where you say: Where are the dollars?
When can we do it? What’s the public safety? What’s the visual tradeoff? …I-880 was
all about politics. (Manus, C., Former President, AIA, April 12, 2012, Personal
Communication)
Former U.S. Ambassador and Congressman Richard N. Swett, who is also an

architect, argued that leadership by design is necessary “to strengthen the foun-
dations of democratic society” (2005) by drawing upon the skills of creative pro-
fessionals to encourage participation by all members of society, yet “both the world
of architecture and the world of politics, though inextricably intertwined, were
suffering the effects of disengagement from each other in the decision-making
processes that affect both worlds” (2005). Agnos’ ‘vision’ for rebuilding San
Francisco went against the local business interest at the time and ultimately cost his
reelection, putting an abrupt end to his political career. But today, in place of the old
I-880 route stands the iconic Fisherman’s Wharf district, a thriving mecca of shops
and eateries overlooking the tranquil bays that has become the San Francisco’s
celebrated landmark.
5.1.2 Civil Protection or Civil Defense
Hurricane Katrina stands as a testament to a series of ill-considered policy decisions

in pre-disaster planning and management, which can exacerbate the effect that
disasters can have on society. Alexander (2002) contended that in the U.S. the
authoritarian attitudes of “civil defense” had seeped into “civil protection” opera-
tions. Such defensive attitude to crisis management sets out to control and manage
rather than protect the civilian population using combined forces of police and
military even when there is no widespread evidence of crime and violence
(Alexander 2002).
In New Orleans, the disaster amplified a number of preexisting societal issues:
from escalating racial tension in a city of African American ethnic majority, where
the post-disaster urban blight was noticeably divided along racially segregated
neighborhoods, to the sheer absence of both local, federal, and state level leadership
that led to overreactive paramilitary response rather than supporting the displaced
population. Studies report that socio-economic disparity in New Orleans grew even
further apart since the disaster (Larrance et al. 2007; Shehab et al. 2008). Majority
of those displaced from the floods were low-income residents who had lived in the
lowlands where the land was more affordable. Slow progress in rehabilitation of
displaced residents kept returnees living out of government-supplied FEMA trail-
ers. Unfortunately, this had serious health consequences. The humidity in the South
during its cyclone season triggered the deterioration of FEMA trailers, which were
not designed for such conditions, and exposed its occupants to dangerous level of
formaldehyde resin that wept through the trailer’s inner walls (Adams et al. 2009).
Leading up to the 2005 event, there is ample evidence of ill-considered deci-
sions. New Orleans’ artificial levees system–which had been the city’s first line of
defense against potential floods—were not only inadequate mechanism for
withstanding hurricanes of Katrina’s magnitude, their management system was also

severely underfunded and long overdue for maintenance. Klein (2007) noted that
just a year prior to the devastating event, FEMA had spent $500,000 to develop a
disaster plan for New Orleans, but the follow-up studies were not carried out due to
the lack of funding within FEMA. Greene (1990) also discovered that FEMA had
requested to develop a contingency plan for the state of Louisiana a year before
Hurricane Katrina hit, but the subordination of the agency under DHS prevented
this from being undertaken. Tierney (2007) argued that the DHS was established in
reaction to 9/11 terrorist attacks to increase the national military force, which
ultimately came at the cost of reducing the financial and authoritative capacity of
FEMA to respond to emergencies.
At the same time, the media continued to criticize the actions and inactions of
key administrators in the country who were either paralyzed “awaiting direction and
approvals” or nonchalantly hiding “in the upper floors of a luxury hotel and
unresponsive to the endless emergency needs for leadership” (Jurkiewicz 2007).
Pre-Katrina events that led to incapacitation of FEMA, delayed the levee upgrades,
and delayed evacuation orders on the Gulf Coast residents all contributed to
transforming Katrina into a “perfect storm”. Johnson explained that the key prob-
lem was the fact there was inefficient communication between stakeholders.
…both at the city level and even at the state level, people didn’t know what to ask for, so
they didn’t know what to request of FEMA. They just hadn’t had the training and they
didn’t have the expertise locally. And I think that that really then applies to the NGO
community (as well). (Johnson, L., US Planner, July 12, 2011, Personal Communication)
Laurie Johnson, who helped to coordinate the UNOP—which is the city-wide

planning initiative funded by the Rockerfeller Foundation when all other official
planning processes failed (Lukensmeyer 2007)—opined that this criticism was not
limited to just political administrators. The professional consultants involved in the
planning process, including architects and planners, generally ‘had good intentions’
but were unprepared for the scope of work that ensued in post-Katrina New
Orleans.
…when I look at FEMA, as a process… had very good intentions… What messed it up was
the political handling of the public input into the process… the architect may not neces-
sarily have as much experience with that… architects often go in and sell themselves as…
recreating the urban landscape, when really what they’ve had as experience is a single
building… than a post-disaster environment… (when) you need to be thinking about the
entire reconstruction of the community. (Johnson, L., U.S. Planner, July 12, 2011, Personal
Communication)
Here, Johnson is not arguing for the design professionals to take a back seat,
rather that the mindset (and motivation) for working in disasters is different to
normal day-to-day operations (though the strategies may be similar and their skills
transferable).
The bottom line for architectural professionals working in post-disaster envi-
ronment, it seemed, was to understand the extent to which the disaster changes the
dynamics of not just the physical environment, but also the systemic, social, and
political factors that ultimately shape it. Johnson explained the importance of
understanding the change in scale, and the way in which “the entire reconstruction
of the community” goes beyond the “experience” of a “single building”. Planning
as decision-making, linear to complex, multi-dimensional process.
…We don’t acknowledge the value and the importance of plans. But plans can be making
the business case. They can be a justification for allocation of funds. They can be a vision.
They can motivate investors. They serve a number of, I think, really valuable purposes.
(Johnson, L., U.S. Planner, July 12, 2011, Personal Communication)
Although Hurricane Katrina had initially reinforced and amplified the societal
tensions that preexisted the disaster, scholars (Jurkiewicz 2007; Irazabal and Neville
2007; Lukensmeyer 2007) agree that the experience ultimately strengthened the
community and their collective resilience. Johnson and Olshanksy (Olshansky and
Johnson 2010), who co-authored Clear as Mud to reflect on their experience as
planners and facilitators of UNOP initiative, dedicated their work to the “citizen
planners” of Louisiana: the everyday citizens who became planners in their own
right as a byproduct of many years of public consultation and planning review
process.
5.2 Starchitecture and Community Design
Hurricane Katrina had exposed weaknesses in the government leadership and

administrators but simultaneously it brought to surface the best practices of
grassroots-based design professionals.
New Orleanians demonstrated extraordinary level of resilience and ability to
mobilize when they realized that “their very survival, counting on state and private
sector pledges is not guarantee enough” (2007) and government agencies were not
providing the necessary leadership for reconstruction. In some ways, the leadership
and courage that emerged post-Katrina seemed more prevalent amongst individuals
rather than organizations and local authorities that were paralyzed by their own
post-disaster protocols. In Biloxi, Mississippi, Bill Stallworth, a local Councilman
mobilized his own community beyond his duty of care:
It was certainly not within his role of City Council that he started the coordination – in fact
it was almost in spite of that… He really represents his community with a kind of fear-
lessness. (Perkes, D., Director, GCCDS, March 29, 2012, Personal Communication)
Katrina mobilized a number of public, private, and community organizations,

which have formed in a knee-jerk response to an underperforming local authority.
D’agostino and Kloby argued that “public’s unprecedented engagement in the
rebuilding efforts was rooted in residents’ general lack of trust in government
leaders and deep discontent in government-driven planning” (D’agostino and Kloby
2011), which suggests that the increasing public participation in public forums may
in fact represent lowered level of trust in governing bodies. Conversely, sometimes
professionals actively seek out partnerships with local community organizations in
response to “failed planning efforts and their diminishing effect on citizen trust in
government” (2011).
5.2.1 Making It Right
The “Make It Right” campaign remains one of the most publicized rebuilding
efforts in post-Katrina New Orleans to date. Spearheaded by an illustrious
Hollywood actor, Brad Pitt, Make It Right Foundation (MIRF) led one of the most
visible architectural interventions in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. At
its launch, Pitt unveiled the foundation’s plans to rebuild in New Orleans by laying
out over a hundred house-sized pink tents over the vacant sites of the Lower Ninth
Ward as stand-ins for the number of ecologically sustainable homes that they
intended to rebuild (Feireiss and Pitt 2009). By leveraging his media clout, Pitt was
able to solicit the help of well-known “starchitect” practices from around the world
to contribute to the design and construction of innovative and sustainable housing.
MIRF focused their efforts on the Lower Ninth Ward, one of the worst hit neigh-
borhood that was also among the poorest areas in New Orleans prior to the disaster.
The message of Make It Right is to take this spot that was emblematic of such human failure
and to make it a human success story of how we can build in the future, how we can build
with equality, how we can build for families. – Brad Pitt, founder, Make It Right (2015)
MIRF solicited the help of some 21 architects from around the world to design
some 150 homes (MIRF 2013). On August 29th, 2015, at Katrina’s ten-year
anniversary, MIRF completed its 109th house in the area, and renewed its promise
to continue the work for as long as there is local need. The foundation works with
local beneficiaries who are first selected through a needs-based screening process,
and guide them through the re-housing process, from initial consultation, financing
through to construction. Each home is wildly different from one another in their
design and layout, and a distinguishing characteristic shared by every building is
that they meet the LEED Platinum certification, which is the highest and most
stringent sustainable building standard in the U.S. While this is a testament to the
founder’s ambition and the foundation’s ability to corral public support, there is
also criticism that because of the Lower Ninth’s low-socioeconomic profile these
signature homes can alienate its clients from their neighbors as well as the added
burdens of living with above-average house maintenance cost.
What, I think, has made Make It Right work is that they took an approach of making the
person’s life full again… But I think if you’re going to stay involved, it has to be much
more tied to the community. You need to be helping the community be sustainable long
term. (Johnson, L., US Planner, July 12, 2011, Personal Communication)
To level this discrepancy, MIRF introduced an innovative gap financing pro-

gram which provided a ‘hand-up’ rather than a ‘hand-out’, and ensured that its
beneficiaries were receiving sufficient aid to support their livelihoods in addition to
having a home to return to. MIRF’s philosophy went beyond simple distribution of
5.2 Starchitecture and Community Design 99
humanitarian handouts to creating “holistic” and “sustainable” infrastructure to

achieve long-term social and economic resilience.
(It’s) often very unfair to people, because… something will change, for everybody… I
think it sets up an unrealistic expectation that you can get back what you had. And I think it
also closes the opportunity for betterment. Then, on the other hand, if they go really
extreme and draw all these glorious pictures… that’s unrealistic, too. (Johnson, L., US
Planner, July 12, 2011, Personal Communication)
But for all the positive publicity that MIRF has received, it has also received its
fair share of criticism for the very element of its initial success: the “Hollywood”
factor. Scholars argue that Hollywood films perpetuate disaster myths which are
“widespread, deeply rooted, and dearly held” (Alexander 2006), where the line
between “reel life versus real life” became blurred (Mitchell et al. 2000). Following
Pitt’s lead, the Lower Ninth ward became a destination for disaster tourism.
Repainted by post-Katrina tour operators as a spectacle that transformed itself from
a destitute and violent no man’s land during the pre-Katrina era to an important
historic neighborhood (Thomas 2009), an unmarked white van pulls up to the
Lower Ninth’s street corner unloading an awkward group of domestic
holiday-goers who would snap a few photos listening to a bus driver’s commentary
then be moved on to the next block only to repeat the same exercise (Fig. 5.1).
Fig. 5.1 A tour group

surveys the new development
in the Upper Ninth Ward
Though such activities generate a means for livelihood to some tour operators
and some defend their position as being educational, sensitive, and even historically
accurate (Cossart 2015), there is no denying that such “tourism narratives” served to
perpetuate “racial exoticism” (2009), because many such post-Katrina tour opera-
tors portray “African Americans as victims awaiting the action and expertise of
whites to intervene on their behalf” by focusing on the “architectural innovations”
and failing to acknowledge the efforts by local community organizations for “racial,
economic, human rights, and environmental justice” (2009).
That said, urban disasters often engender what may seem like “ambulance
chasing” behaviors:
…you have a lot of people who really want to do well… and what I would call the
“ambulance chasers”… I think this is true of the architecture planning profession…
(In) New Orleans, we had “starchitects” converge and emerge onto New Orleans. And you
can actually see who’s had longevity and who’s been committed and stayed, and been
involved in the community, and those who came in and left. And I think that process can be
extremely valuable and it can also be extremely disruptive. (Johnson, L., U.S. Planner, July
While one can argue that those professionals who champion community-
centered approaches, demonstrate their commitment to working with local
communities long-term are preferable to the so-called ‘ambulance chasers’ and
‘starchitects’ as described above, who spend less time on the ground, Johnson
explained that both types of professionals add value to disaster recovery process:
…for the most part they’re saying: ‘People are so traumatized; they’ve lost so much; they’re
in shelters; they’re not ready to have that conversation’. In the other community, where they
are engaging people, they’re saying: ‘People need this conversation; it’s a way to cope; it a
way to heal; it’s a way to move on’. I think both are true. (Johnson, L., U.S. Planner, July
Starchitects, in addition to stimulating the locale’s publicity and fundraising

efforts, can provide creative input in the post-disaster process by partaking in the
“visioning process” that helps to ease the community’s transition from the state of
emotional devastation (wanting to build back), to that of hope and anticipation
(wanting to build better). On the other hand, community architects boost com-
munity morale through more personal, long-term engagement, providing the nec-
essary developmental scaffolding for the affected community to rebuild in ways that
are closely reflective of and aligned to their core values and needs. Biloxi’s Gulf
Coast Community Design Studio (GCCDS) is a case in point. Its founder, David
Perkes, explained that the disaster had shifted his world view and permanently
altered how he practiced architecture.
…you have to think, ‘Okay, if architecture is important enough that we can say, “yes, this is
something that really can make a difference in the world”, then we have to figure out how to
liberate it or loosen up from being so dependent upon clients who have money to go out and
hire an architect. (Perkes, D., Director, GCCDS, March 29, 2012, Personal
Communication)
GCCDS was initially financed through the Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) which helped the studio to break ground in the early days, but
subsequently the studio reached an agreement with the Federal agency to finance
the design services in ways that were independent of the funds allocated to recovery
and rebuilding funds. Indeed, this was a realization that was key to GCCDS’
success. Implicit within this agreement was an understanding that if design services
were funded from the same source as the recovery and rebuilding monies, design
component would have quickly been cost-engineered out of the budget. Many
architects have been decrying the exercise of cost-engineering as a major threat to
the profession for decades (Gutman 1988; Bernheim 1998; Fisher 2000; Till 2009).
Through creative financing and expanded scope of work that responded to the local
community’s needs, GCCDS has been able to thrive during the economic downturn
when many conventional design practices were closing down. From this experi-
ence, Grote suggested that the profession could benefit from revising its traditional
business model:
How does a practice like this begin to make itself worthy in an economically depressed
region, in an economically depressed country, on an economically depressed planet?
Showing our worth, being more entrepreneurial and helping partners access funding will be
our challenge. It’s something that regular architects don’t do very much or very well, which
is why we are suffering so bad in these times. (Grote, M., Architect, GCCDS, July 27, 2012,
E-mail Communication)
Perkes suggested that design process was also an integral part of the
decision-making process for the local community. Implicit within such an argument
is the recognition of the importance of Rittelian framework, and through such
thought processes, GCCDS was able to remain an integral part of the rebuilding
process by separating the financial cost of design from the material cost of
rebuilding.
…NGOs serve to fill gaps. They are emergent organizations, and so you can’t necessarily
judge the effectiveness until you understand the context in which they are working…
(Johnson, L., US Planner, July 12, 2011, Personal Communication)
Through entrepreneurship and multi-stakeholder partnership, design agency

GCCDS became a conduit between communities and the government, while at the
same time sparing design from being cost-engineered out of the project budget.
5.2.2 Rebuilding Trust Through Design
While civil societies are built on the foundation of trust in their government officials
and administrators having the necessary resources, knowledge, and skills to serve
and protect the public interest, the Katrina case study demonstrates that once
society’s trust in its leadership is lost, it is not easily regained. However, in her
analysis of the early planning processes that took place post-Katrina, Lukensmeyer
(2007) highlighted the fact that highly interactive, inclusive, and participatory
nature of the UNOP contributed to reinstating some of the trust that communities
had originally lost in the early stages of the disaster (2007). Lukensmeyer stated
that, “By design, both citizens and decision makers emerged from the Unified Plan
process as co-owners of a concrete action plan” (2007). The UNOP consolidated
the existing planning regulations, integrating the lessons and research outcomes of
previous post-Katrina planning initiatives (Fig. 5.2), which helped to birth the
“second generation” planning process (2007):
The Unified New Orleans Plan forged a cohesive voice out of chaos. In doing so, it
represents a “second generation” of public participation in governance, one that goes
beyond the decide-announce-defend model of one-way information flows…beyond the
usual-suspects approach of rounding up key stakeholders to figure things out behind closed
doors.
But even beyond integrating the various plans that failed to garner public sup-
port, UNOP also “[raised] questions about how to best design questions and pro-
vide facilitation that supports a variety of interactive styles” (Lukensmeyer 2007).
The second attempt at New Orlean’s community-led planning process became an
important lesson in the value of the Rittelian thinking.
Fig. 5.2 Mike Grote (L) and David Perkes (R) at GCCDS
(An) underlying problem that New Orleans had as well is… (that they) really didn’t trust
outsiders… It looked too quickly within itself to solve the problem, and it’s a really big
problem, and you need to have experts advising you. You need to be open to what they
have to say. (Johnson, L., US Planner, July 12, 2011, Personal Communication)
Although New Orleans residents were untrusting of professionals whom they

considered as “outsiders”, their limited means to rebuild on their own had left them
with no choice but to work with them, albeit with caution. Grote, a New Orleanian
architect who split his time between New Orleans and Biloxi, believed that
architectural design can be a burden on the community:
I live in New Orleans and I see what happens in the Ninth Ward and other places that we
equate design with help. It’s not… Oftentimes, it’s a burden. (Grote, M., Architect,
GCCDS, March 29, 2012, Personal Communication)
Professional support, when unmatched with adequate understanding of the local

needs, can leave its beneficiaries more strained than before. In this way, early
involvement of high-profile agents can be valuable but they can equally be dis-
ruptive, depending on the nature and the depth of their involvement with com-
munities on the ground. Literal execution of “building back better” requires the
physical recreation of the former city, but establishing such unrealistic expectation
for people whose livelihoods have changed in the course of living through such an
event can lead to disappointment. It hammers home the reality that even successful
architectural initiatives are not immune from the consequences of broader social
disaster and on its own they are an inadequate defense against underlying issues of
race, culture, and economics that remain unresolved to this day.
Scott Bernhard, who served as director of Tulane City Center—Tulane School of
Architecture’s community design initiative—shared his experience, illustrating the
extent of the history of racial and class inequalities that pervaded the city in the
post-disaster environment (Bernhard, S., Director, TCC, March 28, 2012, Personal
Communication):
Building trust in the community was a real challenge. This is a group of people largely in
New Orleans especially in a socio-ecologically, economically disadvantaged people that
they’ve been abused by authority figures all their lives and so to suddenly trust Tulane
University which many in the city see as a bunch of rich white people.. I mean we couldn’t
just walk in and do it.
Even for the New Orleanian locals, establishing trust in neighborhoods beyond
the “racial and class” barrier seemed to relegate them as outsiders to a community
that had become estranged from each other over time. Operating in an environment
where people had been “abused by authority figures all their lives” can obscure the
ability for professionals to contribute in any meaningful capacity and place addi-
tional burden on communities. Indeed, D’agostino and Kloby (2011) found that
where public participation levels in post-disaster decision-making was limited by
their distrust of government officials and administrators, professionals can bridge
this gap.
5.3 Design Equity
In Catastrophe in the Making, Freudenburg (2009) referred to Katrina as the most

“anticipated” natural disaster in the U.S. history. Power dynamics among disaster
stakeholders can significantly affect the outcome of disaster recovery. What makes
Hurricane Katrina more memorable compared to other recent natural disasters in the
U.S. is for the sheer extent of the human disaster that precipitated through perceived
“civil unrest and urban insurgency” (Williams 2008), “anarchy… looting… and
other crimes” (Camp 2007), and the retaliatory military actions that served to “keep
the peace” (Adams et al. 2009). Upon careful review, however, disaster scholars
found such perceptions as largely speculative, and had the consequence of rein-
forcing racial and gender stereotypes as well as perpetuating inequality in
mono-ethnic neighborhoods (Hunt et al. 2009). These same neighborhoods had
learned to distrust those in power in the many years preceding Katrina, as “people
acting alone or together outside the official channels they’ve learned not to count on
to help each other. It’s as ingrained in the character of Louisiana” (Jurkiewicz
2007). Because of this, professionals experienced difficulty in establishing trust
with members of the local community.
Under the time pressure of post-Katrina chaos, however, communities were
alienated from their own reconstruction process and subsequent policy development
to the point that Ed Blakely, the head of Louisiana Recovery Agency—the
municipal task force that managed the post-Katrina redevelopment process—was
nicknamed “the Recovery Czar”. LRA’s largest initiative, the Road Home program,
was the state’s multi-billion dollar reconstruction fund intended to enable the
uninsured and underinsured homeowners to rebuild or repair their own homes. At
the program’s 10 year anniversary, the officials touted that over 119,000 out of
some 130,000 households that received the grant were back in their homes
(OCD-DRU 2015), but for many, the grant was not enough to make them “whole”.
Throughout its history, the program had suffered from multiple policy changes that
delayed the process of rebuilding and made the livelihoods of target residents more
vulnerable, particularly for the low-income neighborhoods (Green and Olshansky
2012).
Once the public loses trust in those that were elected to serve and protect the
public interest, professional bodies also get lumped together with the government
agencies, and placed under the suspicion that professional argument is abused for
political leverage. When policy decisions are made behind closed doors, voices of
dissent grow stronger. The public held the United States Army Corps of Engineers
(USACE) responsible for the Lake Pontchartrain’s levee failures that deluged much
of the Greater New Orleans, for their historical neglect of routine maintenance and
“scientific” oversight in miscalculating the extent of the levees’ structural integrity.
When Mayor Nagin’s Bring New Orleans Back initiative failed to impress the
people of New Orleans, the planners that had worked on the project were alienated
for failing to engage the community and exploiting the urban data to bypass
democratic procedures.
5.3 Design Equity 105
Though there is no denying how multiple human errors contributed to Hurricane

Katrina’s aftermath, an important lesson remains in recognizing the extent of
inequity in how information and skills are shared. Within the design sector, Michael
Grote contended that professionals hesitate leaving the early design
decision-making power to the public, because professionals hold the view that they
“know better” (Grote, M., Architect, GCCDS, March 29, 2012, Personal
Communication). John Cary, co-editor of The Power of Pro Bono, contended that
professional “fiefdom” can hinder collaboration between professionals and NGOs,
which is creating tensions within the architectural profession in the US:
…we have a whole licensing system that creates a market monopoly that basically says we
are the only ones who can do certain things. And I think as long as you say that, you have a
responsibility to make those things accessible to people that couldn’t otherwise afford them.
(Cary, J., Design Advocate, April 18, 2012, Personal Communication)
The attitude of professional elitism that dominates the post-disaster

decision-making can explain why top-down approaches maybe preferred even
in situations where such strategies are ineffective. Agnos, whose background is in
social work, proposed that professional associations be “replaced with unions”, so
as to shift the prevalent competitive mindset that professionals hold “to undercut
each other” (Agnos, A., Former Mayor, San Francisco, April 10, 2012, Personal
Communication).
5.3.1 Activist Community Designers
You can’t just be all grassroots. You can’t just have all alternative systems of practice and
alternative kinds of structures. If you want to make a bigger impact, then you have to work
your way up the food chain …and talk to the people who are working on the basic
fundamental decisions. (Patel, A., President, ADPSR, April 16, 2012, Personal
Communication)
In A Paradise Built in Hell, Rebecca Solnit recounts anecdotes about heroic

individuals that defy conventional perceptions about disaster survivors who are
thought to be fragile and helpless. These “emergent” community heroes are
everyday citizens who remain relatively invisible from the media spotlight, and
though individually their influence maybe marginal, collectively they are the bed-
rock of resilient communities. Gulf Coast Community Design Studio (GCCDS), an
architectural design NGO based in Biloxi, Mississippi, is a case in point. The reality
of how GCCDS operate subverts the observations by disaster researchers (Luft
2011);(D’agostino and Kloby 2011), who dismissed the impact of post-Katrina
grassroots organizations as inconsequential.
Such grassroots design agency’s appetite for empowering the local community
reflects a core value which GCCDS calls “design equity”. Perkes argued that
“technical progress” in reconstruction is a means to make “social progress” that
recognizes the value of setting aside any self-interest in favor of broader community
interests. According to Perkes, the design process was synonymous to inclusive
decision-making, as well as being a learning tool for all stakeholders, including the
designer, the community and the funder. Protecting the interests of the locals also
means that the design decisions are made in the best interest of those who will be
affected most by those decisions, as well as resisting the inclinations to cut costs
and reduce the quality of the project. On the whole, community-based organizations
such as GCCDS operate like for-profit private architectural firms, but were able to
thrive through the recent economic downturn for having established a strong
alignment with the vision of rebuilding the community, whose needs are constant
and are therefore less vulnerable to regional, national, and even international eco-
nomic volatilities.
As such, having a community-centered focus suggests that the design profession
can have impact on broader societal issues. But design equity is only the first step in
addressing broader systemic challenges. As the world population moves toward
being more urban and disasters increase in both frequency and magnitude, the lack
of progress in addressing the wicked problems of our society can lull us into a place
of complacency and ignorance. Johnson proposed that a large part of this com-
placency was a direct result of modern societies having “lost our sense of com-
munity at some level, [because] the modern society doesn’t feel as much of an
interconnectedness or responsibility for the whole” (Johnson, L., US Planner, July
12, 2011, Personal Communication).
Cultural awareness of risk is missing in modern societies, and puts many communities at
greatest risk, by neglecting signs - starting with the building code and the culture of not
admitting the ‘worst case scenario’… our building codes are not designed to… those higher
standards. So, the average building, it would be cost-prohibitive… information is a com-
modity no matter what. But I think in disasters, that’s one of the things we say in the
book… (“Clear as Mud”) there’s two currencies in disasters, one is money and the other is
information. (Johnson, L., US Planner, July 12, 2011, Personal Communication)
On the other hand, there is also a lot to gain from a community. While infor-
mation is highly valued by disaster recovery actors, many experts overlook those
that are embedded within individuals and communities. Knowledge gained through
experience and relationships built outside of formal channels can turn out to be
invaluable, yet the highly technical focus of activities in disaster recovery situations
makes this resource difficult to tap into. That said, such local knowledge is an
integral part of a community’s social capital that can be leveraged by its own
members, which can also be used to negotiate with local authorities and other
external powers who may be placing the community priorities second.
5.3.2 Post-Katrina Citizen Participation
Disasters amplify the extant characteristics of society through increased media

coverage as well as through systemic crisis induced through pressure either from
the top (the administrative bottlenecks) or from below (through civil resistance and
uprising). Much of the Greater New Orleans’ social, cultural, political, and
environmental challenges that emerged post-Katrina were indeed part of

pre-existing conditions that persist through the years after the event. And problems
that were developed over multiple decades may still require generations to be
undone. Katrina is remembered for crippling its survivors through physical and
psychological trauma as much as through misinformed rhetoric perpetuated by the
public press as well as the political mistreatment of the poor. Those who were
unable to flee the city under emergency evacuation orders were portrayed as
criminals rather than as survivors, and the media spared no empathy in vilifying
New Orleans as a savage place (Smith 2006; Brickhouse 2007; Camp 2007). And
this has come at significant social cost.
The lack of community participation in making future design decisions fol-
lowing urban disasters is symptomatic of unequal distribution of power within the
society. In her seminal work, A Ladder of Citizen Participation, Sherry Arnstein
argues that participation equals power. Power hierarchy within political and eco-
nomic processes of society is compared to the various rungs on a ladder, wherein
the degree of citizen participation is a determinant of appropriate distribution of
power (1969). Arnstein explained that the concept of “citizen participation” can
conceal “the gamut of confusing responses” from the “powers that be”, which can,
in turn, make many forms of community engagement what Arnstein has coined as
“tokenism”, in other words “an empty ritual of participation” (Fig. 5.3).
Fig. 5.3 Musicians’ Village by Habitat for Humanity in the Upper Ninth Ward
When reflecting on the post-Katrina recovery activities thus far discussed, pro-
jects with higher component of citizen empowerment were more successful with
higher likelihood of citizen support and elevated levels of resilience compared to
those projects where citizens were left out of the decision-making process. For the
most part, including the fragmented early planning initiatives such as the BNOB,
the public consultation projects fall on the rung of “tokenism” and thus had limited
success. From the perspective of emergency management scholars, the lack of
citizen control and participation in post-disaster context is inevitable given the
urgency of the situation. The autocratic response during the emergency phase of
disaster recovery may be appropriate as an official response strategy for the purpose
of centralizing multiple recovery agents, but the “first responder” designation does
not consider the understated fact that many first responders are also ordinary citi-
zens themselves (Tierney 2007), including professionals acting in the capacity of
citizens.
That said, implementing citizen empowerment in post-disaster settings is not an
easy task. Disaster survivors who are traumatized from the event are particularly
vulnerable to outside influence and may accept support in any shape or form
without considering its implications. A case in point is the government’s treatment
of internally displaced residents of the Gulf Coast. Within the first six-months of
Katrina, some 98,000 FEMA trailers were deployed to temporarily house returnees
to Gulf Coast, in camp-like conditions rife with violence (Verderber 2008), and
those who took up the trailer as their new residence developed respiratory problems
from the formaldehyde exposure (Shehab et al. 2008; Adams et al. 2009). While the
government was unaware of the detrimental health consequences of putting
formaldehyde-lined trailers in high humidity grounds for extended period of time,
the plight of those who became sick is remembered as an example of how
non-participation in such matters as temporary housing can relegate the level of
citizen participation at the state authority’s mercy (Smith 2006). Communities
affected by a disaster can view outsiders with suspicion because outsiders are seen
as opportunists who want to advance their own self-interest rather than helping as
advocates of the community, and this sentiment is only perpetuated through bad
prior experience.
…it’s not an opposition; it’s not resistance… they figure that… after a while you’ll leave
them alone—and that’s the way it is—we’ve done some work in Gulfport where still even
after I spend a lot of time over there… still the community just… puts up with us… It’s a
challenge. (Perkes, D., Director, GCCDS, March 29, 2012, Personal Communication)
Participation without distribution of power—in this case the broken promises

from the government agencies and prolonged absence of means to take control of
their own lives—can leave communities scarred from establishing trust in any
authority, professional or otherwise.
In light of this, Perkes from GCCDS formulated a wicked problem by asking:
“How do you make a practice where equity is one of your main driving forces…
What does that practice look like?” (Perkes, D., Director, GCCDS, March 29, 2012,
Personal Communication). Post-disaster politics can tarnish the trust within affected
communities, and Perkes discovered that design is an ultimate “equalizer” with
potential to empower communities that were struggling to restore their sense of
belonging and identity. One community leader has learned that “design gives us
choice” (M. Cox, Former City Councilor, Charlottesville, Virginia, March 13,
2012, Personal Communication). However, this sense of equity and empowerment
arrives after much hard work.
…what we’re trying to do has to do with creating projects and methods of doing work that
really strengthen stakeholder and community partners, and (to) develop a way of working
where the decision making process is shared by a lot of people. In fact, I tend to talk about
design as being a decision making process. (Perkes, D., Director, GCCDS, March 29, 2012,
Beyond employing design as a tool for building houses, Perkes emphasized the
importance of using design as the decision-making process to strengthen the
community by making them partners rather than as end-users. In this case, the
architect takes on the role of a technical conduit between the community and the
project, and a facilitator who cajoles people towards a “shared” “decision”. Design,
then, becomes a tool for communicating the needs and visions of the community for
future development, but also a mechanism for communities to evaluate their situ-
ation in architectural terms. Active citizen participation in the rebuilding processes
from early on is essential to integrating the needs of the community but more
importantly it can help to reinforce the community’s values such as distinct cus-
tomary social practices that could otherwise have been overlooked in rebuilding.
We’re interested in being a stop gap between owners not knowing what to do and hiring
professionals to do the work and inform and being that bridge to that place; valuing design,
championing design, saying that there’s a real purpose for it and here’s what it is. (Grote,
M., Architect, GCCDS, March 29, 2012, Personal Communication)
Because the true nature of citizen participation is difficult to gauge in practice,

Arnstein cautioned that “it is very important that the rhetoric not be confused with
intent” (1969). On one end of the spectrum, blind delegation of power can be
counterproductive, whereby citizens are handed too much decision-making power
under premature circumstances that can generate the very conditions that com-
munities are advocating against. While design can empower communities, it can
also balkanize small neighborhoods where people do not understand the value of
the services that professionals can provide. For designers, inadequate communi-
cation of intentions with stakeholders can lead to tarnishing the professional
credibility, and lead to misperceiving their role as disaster gougers and opportunists
who are out to “entertain themselves” at the public’s cost. On the other extreme,
token consultation can also leave the public feeling heard but not listened to. For
this reason, public consultation as a decision-making tool is seldom successful.
Such opportunities for civic engagement also runs the risk of being hijacked by the
vocal minority leading to decisions that are not representative of the broader
community, but when done properly and successfully, it can be a considerable feat.
5.4 Public Interest Design
The last two decades saw a rise in the number of architectural humanitarian
agencies in industrialized nations. In the U.S., non-profit entities offering archi-
tectural design services have inspired the concept of Public Interest Design (PID),
whereby skilled design practitioners make conscious shift away from the capital ‘A’
architecture to the small ‘a’ architecture to serve the interest of local communities
rather than the chosen few. Such practices are far from the mainstream practice of
architecture, and the design agents who spearhead humanitarian projects often
operate in political capacity. Among the proponents of such alternative design
practice, two schools of thoughts exist. One school of thought appeals to profes-
sional ethics, arguing that architects ought to more actively participate in
influencing policy, while others argue that architects ought to be political through
their practice. Even though such design non-profits are united in their altruistic
intentions, differences in how they approach and implement their goals create a
healthy tension that improves how they each practice. Bryan Bell, the founder of
Public Interest Design Institute,2 is a strong advocate of politicizing architecture.
Bell argues that architects have become too complacent in their practice and believe
that by monopolizing the professional licensure system that their role within society
was sacrosanct: “We thought, ‘We’ve got this monopoly. People have to deal with
us’, and we stopped thinking about what value they have” (Bell, B., Director, PID,
March 22, 2012, Personal Communication). By contrast, Cameron Sinclair, the
co-founder of AFH, seeks to broaden the definition of architecture by arguing that
architecture should be “open source”, and design processes ought to be more
transparent and accessible to the general public.
If Bell is focused on identifying what needs to be fixed within the social and
political system, Sinclair is interested in creating opportunities beyond the systemic
constraints. Sinclair argues that humanitarian design is synonymous with politics,
and that design can be used to deepen dialogues with the public on social issues.
When you’re the bank you can be the activist. We can be a little bit more ballsy because we
raised the money. If I’ve raised the money to build a project in a country where sexism is
rife I’m not beholden to just the community, I’m beholden to my investors, which are my
donors… The client is the community on the ground, but you also have some level of
responsibility to those who are funding the project. (Sinclair, C., CEO, AFH, July 27, 2011,
Sinclair maintained that being “the bank” was a key to getting projects built.
During its 16-year run from 1999 until 2015, AFH has extended the strategic
corporate and community partnerships to grow its operations from US$ 700 at its
launch to US$3 million at its height (Sinclair and Stohr 2012), as well as leveraging
its international profile to raise awareness of the power that architectural design can
2
Bell is also a co-founder of Social Economic Environmental Design (SEED), a national network
of U.S. designers and design advocates, which offers an alternative certification for architectural
projects on merits of social equity.
5.4 Public Interest Design 111
give its beneficiaries. Sinclair often ends his public talks with the motto: “Follow
your heart. Break the rules. Get it built”.
5.4.1 Systemizing Public Interest Design
In practice, however, the role of an architect requires a delicate approach when

involving clients in post-disaster situations. One dilemma that incendiary profes-
sional organizations like AFH often face is the need to satisfy the interests of donors
as well as that of the client. Navigating stakeholder relationships where each party
may hold competing or even conflicting interests to one another can be challenging.
Eric Cesal, the head of AFH Haiti, admitted that his team has had to circumvent a
lot of political red tape and improvise during project delivery, “which sometimes
means making a mistake because until you make a mistake you don’t really know
what is right” (Cesal, E., U.S. Architect, AFH Haiti, April 10, 2012, Personal
Communication). The perceived gap, whether in policy or in practice, is ultimately
a technical gap from a professional standpoint. But according to one seasoned field
expert, bridging this gap is not as daunting as many perceive.
The gap between the technical and the non-technical is actually smaller than you think…
you get into all sorts of discussions about relationships and social relationships within
families and how things are done. You talk about how things get built in some of these
places and that’s another interesting discussion. (Potangaroa, R., NZ Structural Engineer,
March 13, 2012, Personal Communication)
If there is one shortcoming, Potangaroa posited that architects are not major
players in disasters because they do not “show the connection between the design
and the output”. When lives are at stake, Potangaroa explained that the quality of
life measures are more persuasive, easier values to demonstrate and are thus easier
“sells” to potential funders than design propositions alone.
Thorpe (2012) and Cary (2012) describe PID as a grassroots architectural
movement in the U.S. that spawned in the last two decades (Thorpe 2012; Cary
2012), beginning in the late 90 s with the resurgence of the international human
rights movements and a greater focus on multi-disciplinary approach to global
environmental chaos in an increasingly connected world. However, architects are
still considered the last responders in disasters, chiefly due to the prevailing
assumption that ‘first responder’ is an honor reserved for uniformed personnel in
the U.S. (Tierney 2007). Cary argued that few architects have worked for or with
large humanitarian agencies that often oversee both short-term recovery and
long-term reconstruction processes.
Historically, architects have always tried to offer something—whether it’s relief housing or
some other contribution—but it’s been really difficult… architects have not figured out a
way to work with the big aid organizations that are literally the first responders. And they’re
not just first responders; they’re the short and mid-term, sometimes even long-term solution
and we have no relationship with them whatsoever. They have very few architects,
designers on staff. (Cary, J., Design Advocate, April 18, 2012, Personal Communication)
Although the general public perceive architects as the last responders in disasters
(Sanderson 2010), disasters are becoming increasingly urban and architectural
profession’s involvement in post-disaster contexts are on the rise. They broadly fall
into two categories. For some it was a product of circumstance—they were either
survivors of a disaster themselves or indirectly involved through personal con-
nection. For others it was ideological—they had “found a calling” by learning about
it through others or felt morally obligated to help the disenfranchised. In both cases,
architectural designers involved in post-disaster professional service expressed that
it was unethical to not respond, and felt a deep sense of personal responsibility to
which their professional contribution is an extension.
A decade on, several architectural organizations that launched their public
interest practice after the 2005 storm are still thriving. For many, the desire to
“make a difference in the world” had converged on a particular community where
they established a strong social connection. PID critics fear that working outside the
traditional limits of design practice can lead to proliferation of “bad design” due to
the absence of design peer review process and the lack of design standards on par
with the mainstream practice in the rest of the U.S., “because nobody objects”, and
“because nobody demands something greater” (Bell, B., Director, PID, March 22,
2012, Personal Communication). It suggests that PID maybe held to a lower s-
tandard when compared to conventional for-profit design projects, as they are
accountable to laypersons rather than other professionals. But Perkes argued that
the more pressing concern for the future of public interest practice in the U.S. was
the lack of commitment by those in the mainstream professional practice:
There certainly is not in that code of ethics …statement that says, “as architects, we believe
that design and being able to have a well-designed environment is a human right”. That’s
not in there at all. It never said anything like that and it could… take a position like that. It
could say that, “we, as a profession, feel that having a healthy, livable house in a healthy,
livable neighborhood… that is well-designed, and people then have a part in that design”,
and we feel that is something that is entitled to everybody and we’re going to work towards
that aim. (Perkes, D., Director, GCCDS, March 29, 2012, Personal Communication)
It is possible to argue that what qualifies as a ‘bad design’ in post-disaster

environment needs to be evaluated against different set of criteria to that which
would be considered a bad design in conventional sense. For instance, the main
culprit of bad design practice is the lack of adequate communication and partici-
pation with stakeholders. Problems arise from miscommunication between the
designer and the future building inhabitant, rather than from mismanagement of
resources, deadlines, design or technological competence.
When it comes to establishing client relations in post-disaster settings, remote
designers are a clear disadvantage. Design agencies that operate from remote
locations—such as those who were commissioned by the MIRF to develop LEED
platinum single family homes—may have overlooked the cultural appropriateness
of the house in order to achieve the green certification amid other priorities of the
design brief. In doing so, they may not have given as much attention to whether the
house adequately reflects the lifestyle of the inhabitants; the need to provide
generous outdoor gathering space for the Creole family that likes to spend most of
their time outdoors; the degree of socio-economic appropriateness of houses built
for occupants who may not be able to afford its subsequent upkeep, which can thus
lead to rapid deterioration and abandonment.
Another risk to consider in PID is the extent of aesthetic assimilation within the
locale. A radically different building design can stand out from the rest of the
community, provoking feelings of alienation and envy among neighbors between
those who received assistance and those who did not (Fig. 5.4).
Scott Bernhard, who, served as an Interim head of the School of Architecture at
Tulane following the storm, recalled building dozens of housing for the affected
communities with the school’s architecture students. Bernhard noticed that “stu-
dents always want to twist everything at funny angles and make lots of complicated
shapes”, and would often end up with a project that would stand out.
We were not welcome at the beginning. I thought we’d go into the community, build a
house and everyone would say, “Thank you, thank you”, (but) that’s not how it goes.
People were not eager to have do-gooders come in and tell them what they should do.
(Bernhard, S., Director, TCC, March 28, 2012, Personal Communication)
That said, design perception can also change over time. The residents of New
Orleans eventually warmed up to the work of TCC, and their success serves as a
testament to the value of staying committed to building trust and establishing strong
Fig. 5.4 Make It Right Homes in New Orleans

partnership with the local community. Bernhard described the tipping point of their
work as winning the hearts of the local residents, and seeing his students contribute
to lessening the perception of socio-economic disparities in the city.
People who live around this think we’re doing a great thing in their neighborhood not trying
to displace them and people who live here think we’re helping to rebuild their neighbor-
hood. (Bernhard, S., Director, TCC, March 28, 2012, Personal Communication)
What characterizes the successes of both TCC and GCCDS is their multidisci-
plinary model. TCC team has both professional builders and an ecologist who
ensures that their projects would be sustainable long term, while GCCDS employs
an economist in addition to general building professionals such as architects,
planners, landscape architects, and designers.
In spite of their success, however, Grote from GCCDS explained that building a
generation of “[do-gooder]” PID architects can take a toll on the organization due to
high turnover of its staff. While the work has been a noble undertaking for him and
others on his team, it placed additional strain on an already lean design practice.
Grote’s experience is reflective of many small-scale community non-profits staffed
by high volume of volunteers and student interns (Fig. 5.5).
Fig. 5.5 Tulane City

Center’s ‘Grow Dat Youth
Farm’ community gardens
project
It’s a drain on me, trying to teach them how to do drawings, teach them how to detail
buildings, teach them all those sort of things and then they leave and then I am back to
square one again… (Grote, M., Architect, GCCDS, March 29, 2012, Personal
Communication)
Overall, the PID-oriented practice is still in its infancy (Cary 2012). In the
absence of robust process for training designers who desire to make PID one’s
career, many practitioners perceive this as a burden due to the perceived difficulty
of committing to an area that has financial implications on an already lean business
model that most architectural firms operate on. But individuals like Perkes and
Grote, whose practice had scaled up in times of economic recession, proved that a
non-profit community design practice can be sustained. Moreover, Perkes con-
tended that GCCDS operates no differently to a traditional architectural practice,
and the only difference was the type of stakeholders. According to GCCDS, the
“mechanisms for how work happens” was essentially the same between a
non-disaster disaster practice and a post-disaster design practice.
Designing in the public interest also means a departure from traditional practice
in how design decisions are made as well as redefining the building client from a
“sponsor” to a building “occupant”. Post-Katrina architects emphasized the need to
establish trust through commitment. In a disaster, non-architectural decision-makers
tend to perceive architectural design element to be surplus to their needs, and sees
design as a commodity that can be culled early to save costs. But GCCDS was able
to retain its services by separating the architectural fees from the fees for con-
struction, and this was the beginning of many innovations that the practice brought
to Biloxi. The outlook of GCCDS extended beyond the initial mandate to focus on
housing development, to address community-wide issues that not only contribute to
the city but a broader contribution “to the larger conversation about where archi-
tecture is right now and design is” (Grote, M., Architect, GCCDS, March 29, 2012,
Personal Communication) (Fig. 5.6).
5.4.2 Alternative Roles
The sheer abundance of wicked problems in the Greater New Orleans post-Katrina
opens up questions about the broader ethical roles of architects and design pro-
fessionals in communities. In his book, In the Scheme of Things: Alternative
Thinking on the Practice of Architecture, Fisher provoked the architectural pro-
fession to rethink its core values:
To remain silent about the values represented in what we do, either out of mistaken believe
that professionals must remain ethically neutral or out of a romantic dismissal of all
normative values, is to eliminate one of the main reasons for the profession’s very exis-
tence. (Fisher 2000)
That all the architectural humanitarian agencies discussed in this book were far
from being ethically neutral is not a coincidence. To practice architecture in the
Fig. 5.6 GCCDS’ outreach initiative includes bayou ecology education
public interest, acting in a political capacity to some degree is necessary: MIRF

were successful in elevating the profile of New Orleans’ most vulnerable com-
munity in the Lower Ninth; TCC were able to restore the trust of neighborhoods
where they rebuilt; GCCDS demonstrated that community design practice need not
run at a loss and challenged the traditional roles of architects. Most of all,
humanitarian designer’s commitment to the local community was demonstrated

through action. As per Rittel, design is indeed synonymous with politics.
The perennial dilemma that plagued the architectural profession since its insti-
tutionalization in the 19th century has been to make architecture a financially viable
and independent enterprise without seceding from an economically oriented soci-
ety. GCCDS demonstrated that design can foster equity. Their fiscal resourcefulness
and audacious commitment to innovation threatens to make economic development
in Biloxi impactful and set an eye-opening example for other communities along
the Gulf Coast. MIRF proved that a new model for post-disaster reconstruction can
exist by providing gap financing. They gave the Lower Ninth residents a hand-up
rather than a hand-out, by restoring their livelihoods while ensuring their new
homes can withstand future hurricanes and be showcased alongside the world’s
best.
Yet despite the success of such design initiatives, their impact remains limited.3
Cary contends that impediments to scaling the impact of the PID are manifold, but
they mostly center on the issues of funding, capacity building, architectural edu-
cation, and the reality that successes of a “few small scale projects” are difficult to
replicate (Cary, J., Design Advocate, April 18, 2012, Personal Communication).
Fisher (2000) is more optimistic about the place of design in a world where “ev-
erything can be approached as a design problem, in which new solutions must be
sought to meet particular needs and specific contexts” (Fisher 2000), which is
reminiscent of Rittel’s definition of design as being something that everybody
engages in at least some of the time. Yet Fisher argues that earning the respect of
the public by proof of this concept remains a challenge for architects:
Professionals are defined by the setting up of boundaries… that set the knowledge and
skills of their members apart from the general public. However, in a world that elevates the
marketplace, value is defined, not by the degree or license one holds but by the effec-
tiveness of one’s actions and the outcomes. Professionals who pay little attention either to
the needs of clients, or to the consequences of their decisions, risk losing their professional
credibility. We see this in the hostility of some clients toward the design professions, as
they turn to outside… to implement the jobs (Fisher 2000).
Diversified income stream to finance architectural projects is an increasingly

valuable skill, as the PID project partners typically cannot finance their own pro-
jects. The range of pro bono service extends beyond that of design and docu-
mentation, to fundraising, facilitation of community consultation, referrals, and
even advocacy. GCCDS runs its office on a range of government and corporate
grants, fee-for-service contracts with partner agencies, and experimenting with fee
structures that separates design fees from construction fees as to obviate the
value-engineering design in projects with limited budget. Where GCCDS diverges
from the PID argument is its resolute alignment to the tradition of architectural
practice, rather than distinguishing itself from the mainstream practice.
3
In 2012, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) awarded a research grant to four architectural
scholars and practitioners to undertake further research on the phenomenon.
The value proposition advanced by architectural NGOs post-disaster is the

ethical responsibility to the public at large in addition to the communities and
families they serve, but not at the expense of overextending one’s skills.
…you need other people to do the wrap around services that someone needs when they are
victims or survivors of a disaster… It’s a lot of other things and we’re not trained for that…
and it’s a waste of our resources to do something that we’re not good at and allow other
partners to work on those …everybody pitches in and helps bring the community back.
(Grote, M., Architect, GCCDS, March 29, 2012, Personal Communication)
Defying the self-imposed archetypes that the profession tries to live up to—
which can be patronizing in both outlook and approach—Grote argued that
architects ought to listen rather than impose their ideas on the community they are
working with. The PID practice is built on the foundation of equity, and an
understanding that the shared knowledge, experience and skills of the collective
would leave the community in a better place than if designers were to dominate in
the decision-making process. Collaboration—that are multi-disciplinary but also
multi-sectoral—is a cornerstone of open source design process, and the growing
complexity of the urban societies mean that to a large degree the concept of an
expert is redundant.
Timely and appropriate participation of disaster’s stakeholders in urban
rebuilding remain a major challenge in disaster management as well as architectural
practices situated within the humanitarian context. Similarities in the engagement
process for civic participation make their effectiveness difficult to discern, and their
results typically do not materialize for many years down the track. Moreover,
community engagement is a resource-intensive activity, both monetarily and in terms
of time—the two resources that all post-disaster nations already lack and need most.
Solving problems according to the values of local communities, which may not
necessarily be the values of the profession or that of an individual, is an ethical
consideration for professionals engaged in disaster recovery projects, and also an
opportunity to challenge the existing mores of professional practice. While design
interventions are not a panacea for complex inter-cultural and multinational spatial
geographies observed in urban disasters, the broader implication of their con-
struction reinforce the need to suspend judgment in tackling the wicked problems of
our society. Design is an equalizer that has the potential to re-empower commu-
nities struggling to restore their sense of belonging and identity. As in the words of
John Ruskin, work of good architect is, “not a question of how much we are to do,
but of how it is to be done; it is not a question of doing more, but of doing better”
(Ruskin 1998).
As for the architectural expertise, the designer’s skills and knowledge need to be
evaluated against the existing social and contextual circumstances, as an application
of untested model in a stressed environment can exacerbate rather than alleviate
challenges in disaster zones. Taken to extremes, when professional knowledge is
politically instituted without public support, the credibility of the profession is
threatened because its skills are seen to be an instrument of political agendas of
those in a position to exercise them.
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Chapter 6
Christchurch: Going Grassroots
Historically, the architectural profession rose out of the impulse to distinguish the
learned master craftsman from ordinary builders, reserving their skills for the
exclusive use by the elite, design patrons. Put differently, the profession of archi-
tecture exists due to the culture of patronage. However, the definition of patronage
and what is considered elite are both challenged in disaster contexts. The scope of
recovery expands architectural patrons to include entire communities, and elitism is
subject to debate depending on where the power of decision-making lies. We have
already seen in the previous two chapters how architects have adapted to an
increasingly complex reality of urban disasters. In Haiti, architects assumed a role
of sociologists in the early days of recovery, building rapport as well as the tech-
nical capacity of unskilled locals. Following Katrina, architects in Biloxi began as
volunteer cartographers in a town where street signs were swept away in the storm.
This chapter focuses on Christchurch, New Zealand, documenting the recovery and
rebuilding processes following its most catastrophic natural disaster since the city’s
founding in 1850. Following the September 2010 earthquake, the local architects
served as curators, providing a medium for the local residents to imagine the city
with the view of the past, the present, and the future in an exhibition, “Before
After”. However, it is not just architects who assume nontraditional roles in dis-
asters. Though the city may never look the same, emergent leadership among its
residents as well as the local professional community reinforce the view that pro-
fessionals, too, are citizens first and foremost.
6.1 The Polarized City
Over 4300 earthquakes above magnitude 3.0 occurred in the Canterbury region in
the first three years since the September 2010 (GNS Science 2015), out of which 33
were recorded above magnitude 5.0 earthquakes and 4 were above magnitude 6.0.
As the second largest city in New Zealand after Auckland, Christchurch was home
122 6 Christchurch: Going Grassroots
to some 370,000 people, constituting about 8.7 % of the nation’s population at the
time of the disaster (Statistics New Zealand 2012). The Canterbury earthquake on
September 4, 2010, stymied the city’s growth, and over 10,000 people left since
(Bascand 2011). Vast majority of those who fled are from the lower socio-economic
background, leaving due to lack of support (Stylanous 2012).
The initial earthquake in September, 2010 is often portrayed in the media as a
practice drill compared to the extensive damage caused by the subsequent earth-
quake five months later. In some respects, the drill had helped the Cantabrians to
prepare in advance, and catalyzed wider community engagement. The systemized
local networks and communication channels that were set up in September had
prepared neighborhoods to mobilize quickly, mitigating an even greater damage
that could have transpired.
On the other hand, the same six-month period was not sufficient for government
agencies and professionals to act. Subsequent reports revealed that vital information
about impending earthquake was held back due to the government agency’s
resistance against scaremongering, perhaps in a similar manner to how the gov-
ernment had responded to the 1888 Wellington earthquake (Maskell 1889). The
need for repeated structural assessment of buildings after each moderate to large
aftershock and its inconsistencies meant that access to the industrial hub of the CBD
which was hit hard by the February quake was further restricted. While such
draconian measures may have eliminated further human fatalities, the local busi-
nesses were left to wither or to relocate to another location altogether. The gov-
ernment’s over-reliance on experts reduced the overall resilience of the government
agencies as well as its citizens (APNZ 2011b). Nigg and Mileti (2002) argued that
chronic threat from such hazards in the absence of appropriate management
strategies can “lull [people] into a false sense of security” by deflecting the
responsibility to the government.
What’s needed in a situation like Christchurch is bringing all of the very best brains of the
country together… but you’ve got people within the Council or the bureaucracy who have
never got anything built are yet now deciding how to build a whole city (Roberts, C.,
Director, Social Policy, Salvation Army, February 28, 2012, personal communication).
Within 10 days of the first earthquake in September, the Parliament passed a bill
that would allow the government an unprecedented authority over earthquake
recovery decisions in Christchurch that “cannot be challenged through the courts”
(Heather 2011). Such extreme legislative decision on the government’s part set the
tone for its subsequent actions, and rather than building the public’s confidence in
the government’s ability to handle the national state of emergency, it exposed the
leadership’s vulnerability for opting to undertake such a draconian measure for civil
protection. The problem compounded in February of the following year, when the
government established a recovery agency with a view to take over the management
of Christchurch’s local disaster recovery efforts in anticipation that the local city
council could not handle the emergency response for long (Fig. 6.1).
The national government’s abrupt takeover of disaster relief and recovery
operations through the establishment of its centralized recovery agency, Canterbury
6.1 The Polarized City 123
9/4– 9/20/2010 2/22– 6/25/2011 4/18/2011 8/2011

Local State of Local State of CERA establishes CCC release draft
Emergency declared Emergency declared Christchurch Central Christchurch Central
Development Unit Recovery plan (CCRP)
9/14/2010 2/23– 4/30/2011 (CCDU) to oversee
Canterbury National State of recovery plan (CCRP) 12/2010-2/2012
Earthquake Emergency declared Public consultation of
Response and 5/1/2011 CCRP
Recovery Act 3/14/2011 Recovery handed
(CERR Act) Royal Commission of over from CCC 2/3– 6/31/2012
enacted in Inquiry lodged to CERA CCDU produces the
parliament 6/13/2011 Blueprint Plan based
3/24/2011 Roger Sutton appointed on CCRP in 100 days
9/14/2010
Canterbury CEO of CERA
Canterbury
Earthquake
Earthquake 7/31/2012
Recovery
Recovery CCRP confirmed
Authority (CERA)
Committee
announced
established
CHRISTCHURCH EQ TIMELINE 2010-2013
Sept 4,’10 Feb 22,’11 June 13,’11

7.1mw 6.3mw 6.3mw
Darfield EQ Canterbury aftershock
EQ
Dec 23,’11 9/2010-9/2012
5.8mw 4300 earthquakes over 3.0mw
aftershock 33 earthquakes over 5.0mw
Dec 26,’10 3 earthquakes over 6.0mw
4.9mw
Boxing Day
EQ
Fig. 6.1 Timeline of governance decisions from Sept 2010 to Sept 2012
Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA), promised a quick recovery to the public,

but the continuing aftershocks created technical setbacks that gave new meaning to
New Zealand’s democratic governance.
…more democratic way of operating in a crisis—by the time they’ve decided what they’re
going to do, it’s all over. The need’s passed and you’re onto something else.
—Roberts, C., Salvation Army (February 28, 2012, personal communication)
Building inspectors and engineers had assessed the safety of every building in
Christchurch following the September earthquake, issuing color coded inspection
notices to reflect the state of the building’s structural integrity, but this system
quickly became cumbersome as every building had to be reassessed each time there
was an aftershock above the magnitude of 5.0 on the Richter scale. However, the
sheer frequency of these aftershocks made the reassessments cost-prohibitive yet
unavoidable, which also meant that all planning decisions made or considered up to
that point had to be discarded and reset. The prolonged uncertainty of
Christchurch’s future frustrated everybody involved—the government, the private
sector, as well as the community. This also meant that the government had to
reevaluate their decisions based on each aftershock, which further delayed the
recovery period.
There was a commitment from the government to basically rebuild and to remediate land
and to get life back to normal. But with the series of ongoing events and with the enhanced
understanding of the nature of seismic risk… the whole dynamic around what’s going to
happen and what is the nature of recovery changed. (Glavovic, B., Planning Consultant,
EQC, March 2, 2012, personal communication)
However, Regan Potangaroa, a structural engineer who had worked in many

earthquake recovery assignments abroad, contended that urban disasters like the
Christchurch case needed more “fluid” strategy rather than follow the largely
outdated disaster response protocols1 since urban disasters do not follow the linear,
staged recovery processes as conventionally understood.
(Disaster) has a very fluid dynamic in changing situations (where) you also have to be
realistic… there’s this tension and dilemma between the need to make speedy decisions
with the need to think through and engage in a process of dialogue and deliberation and so
those are tensions that play out all the time.
—Potangaroa, R., NZ Structural Engineer (March 13, 2012, personal communication)
In an independent field study, Potangaroa measured a very high level of psy-

chological trauma among residents in Christchurch, which he claimed at the time as
being unsurpassed in any of the previous disasters that he had worked as
post-disaster consultant (Potangaroa and Kipa 2011). Further to this observation, in
rating the city’s disaster response performance on a global scale, Potangaroa con-
tended that social justice had “completely failed” to deliver in Christchurch.
We failed because we didn’t actually engage with the poorest of the community or the
neediest in the community: we didn’t go and check to see; we didn’t monitor; we didn’t
check our assumptions; we didn’t do any of the things that we would normally do in
humanitarian aid situations. (Potangaroa, R., NZ Structural Engineer, March 13, 2012,
personal communication)
Furthermore, Christchurch residents’ vulnerability reflect that many had only

been in “accidents”, not “disasters”. But disaster management communities gen-
erally rely heavily on established networks and relationships, which can fall apart in
unpredictable ways in a disaster.
Previous case studies had demonstrated that transparency of recovery
decision-making and clear communication among disaster’s stakeholders were vital
to maintaining trust, but the government had failed on both accounts. How the
1
Potangaroa added that “(most) of us have dealt with the rural problem in the sense that it does
follow the phases: the emergency response, the recovery, reconstruction …but in the urban what
we’re finding is that all phases happen at once. Because you get different levels of those that are
affected in the urban scale what you get is, you get both the emergency response where you’re
trying to dig people out and save them. At the same time you’re trying to do recovery. At the same
time you’re doing reconstruction.” (Potangaroa, R., NZ Structural Engineer, March 13, 2012,
personal communication).
national government communicated with Christchurch residents changed dramati-

cally from post-September to post-February periods, most symbolically reflected in
the decision to remove the contact page on the main recovery authority’s website.
Even where successful track records of community engagement were evident in the
aftermath of September 2010, the shift in power from local leaders to centralized
coordinators led to abrupt withdrawals in communication.
Post-February meetings were less personal, less accessible. Partly due to the fact that it was
not run by local community leaders… all the meetings were run by the Council and they
were run outside because people were worried about being in buildings… there were no
questions at the meetings. (Dalziel, L., Christchurch Politician, March 5, 2012, personal
communication)
The communication breakdown between the council and local residents since
CERA’s establishment created a rift between the citizens and local authorities that
became increasingly difficult to bridge. Lianne Dalziel, local politician—who
subsequently became elected as Christchurch’s mayor in 2013—explained that the
level of “uncertainty” had induced a strong sense of “dislocation” and “limbo”.
6.1.1 “Munted”: Militaristic Intervention
(The) police power role (in Christchurch) has been one of the most aggressive I’ve
ever heard of… the news of it has travelled around the world. You go on the internet and
you can see a mini-riot take place, and all the people who were gesticulating were
businessmen—they weren’t homeless Haitians; they were businessmen who were restricted
from going into the town, ostensibly to protect their lives. But there’s a balance that may
have not been found there…. There’s a very strong tendency in disaster management for
professionals to take the police power approach – to be the ‘Czar’.
—Langenbach, R. (July 6, 2011, personal communication)
Civil defense operation often lends itself to autocratic measures during the
national state of emergency period, but the extent to which the militaristic approach
in Christchurch drove “businessmen” into “mini-riots” took those looking in from
the outside by surprise. “Munted”, an expression coined by Christchurch’s Mayor
Bob Parker, became viral after his press conference and aptly captured the city’s
physical state as well as the collective response to the 2010 earthquake. The public
denigrated the various political tactics employed by the local authorities as
“[scapegoating]”, “hiding”, “excluding”, and “[not] communicating”, which
seemed to reflect the way in which the authorities have managed uncertainties and
recurrent aftershocks. The government’s inactions created barriers to Christchurch
residents’ ability to participate and contribute to decisions about the city’s future.
To make matters worse, professional tensions emerged between the city coun-
cil’s in-house planners and those who were general practitioners because they held
different views on the city’s rebuilding. The local council’s idolization of planning
ideas by foreign practitioners, and the mayor’s public endorsement of the nationally
appointed “architectural ambassador”, rather than stimulating inspiration, fueled the

discontent of communities who felt that decisions were being made “behind closed
doors”, and that better ideas could be developed from within. The rift between the
public and the recovery agencies fostered hostilities towards outside agencies rather
than cooperation.
6.1.2 Que CERA, CERA
When Japan’s Tohoku earthquake unfolded on March 11, 2011, just two weeks
after Christchurch’s February event, the global spotlight and much of the interna-
tional community’s support simultaneously dissolved. And without the world
media to hold the country’s recovery agencies accountable, progress for recovery
lagged even further behind.
(If) you just rely on the politicians… it doesn’t really work, because they’ve got to have
some go forward amongst the electorate to actually make some changes themselves.
They’re followers, not leaders… they don’t initiate… unless there’s a groundswell for it.
(Roberts, C., Director, Social Policy, Salvation Army, February 28, 2012, personal
communication)
Campbell Roberts, who was part of Salvation Army’s recovery force in

Christchurch, characterized CERA’s leadership as “followers, not leaders” in ref-
erence to the government’s sluggish decision-making despite having the statutory
ability (CERA 2012) to override any existing protocols or laws during the state of
emergency. To make matters worse, the Earthquake bill and Canterbury Earthquake
Response and Recovery Act (CERR Act), which were both instituted shortly after
the September quake accorded its managers with “unlimited” powers to bypass
existing national and local policies without any proviso for how they may be
executed (Brookie 2012).
I always used to think government agencies were about public service, and people were
there because they were committed to that goal… I just think that they’re… slow and
ponderous. (Buck, V., Former Mayor, Christchurch, March 5, 2012, personal
communication)
While the “good intentions” demonstrated through “meaningful partnerships”

and collaborations did not go unacknowledged by its citizens, the role of the
government in post-disaster response fell short of public expectations. Early delays
in action had stalled to become inactions, risking further stagnation and mistakes
that could have been avoided through early intervention. Buck argued that the
“slow and ponderous” governance was a product of stagnant progress in disaster
management which is predisposed to disorientation, where “anything [that] goes in
there just goes into a whirlpool and it does not have a plug” (V. Buck, personal
communications, March 5, 2012). That the establishment of CERA only had “the
appearance of community engagement but the reality of ministerial control”
(Brookie 2012) reflected a top-down method of communication.
The public don’t know this… it seems to me that the whole purpose of the announcement
process to the media has been about communicating how great the government has been
making decisions, getting offers out and how no other country in the world would deal with
this, you know, and this is unprecedented. (Dalziel, L., Christchurch Politician, March 5,
2012, personal communication)
CERA appointed some 38 members of local community from diverse cultural,

social and economic backgrounds, but collectively they were limited in their
influence and capacity to represent the views of the entire city. Lucas, a member of
Peterborough community surmised that “you’d probably get muzzled… You’re at a
table with 38 people and I don’t know how much say you’d get” (Lucas, D.,
Landscape Architect, February 22, 2012, personal communication).
6.1.3 Technical Incompetence
When the government began receiving criticism from the public about the role they
played in disaster management, some of the criticism was deflected on to profes-
sionals since it was their technical expertise that government agencies had based
their decisions. In few cases, however, professionals themselves also engaged in
unethical practice.
I’ve never seen in all the time in New Zealand having to… check fourteen meters down
with a bore for a house! You know, a single story house! And they were drilling each one
fourteen meters down and then charging for it! It’s just obscene… That’s just immoral…
(Potangaroa, R., NZ Structural Engineer, March 13, 2012, personal communication)
Paranoia over the stability of land following the discovery of liquified land
below the Canterbury Plains had Christchurch residents going to some extreme
lengths to assess the integrity of the subsoil conditions on which their houses sat.
Potangaroa called out on such “immoral” practices of geotechnical engineering
firms who capitalized on the public fear instead of trying to help the residents by
applying their expertise to address the larger environmental problems.
Such instance of post-disaster “gouging” aside, a larger controversy in
Christchurch post-disaster recovery centered on the system of tagging,2 which was
intended to evaluate the safety of buildings following a major earthquake.
The trouble is that they’ve used different colors for different meanings, so a lot of people
think that the land in the red zone is unsafe, but it’s not. It’s that it’s uneconomic to repair.
So there are challenging issues and most of is to do with communication; very poor
2
The colored tagging system was first introduced in San Francisco following the Loma Prieta
earthquake of 1989 shortly after the document, “Procedures for Postearthquake Safety Evaluation
of Buildings” (ATC-20) was used for rapid assessment of buildings damaged in earthquakes
(Cocke and Bonneville 1992). The implementation of tagging was inconsistent due to varying
standards of assessment used by structural engineers, Urban Search and Rescuers, and building
inspectors, according to Potangaroa (personal communication, 2012).
communication. (Dalziel, L., Christchurch Politician, March 5, 2012, personal

communication)
The February’s earthquake sparked a tension in the onlookers as well as amongst

the inspectors themselves, because the CTV building, where majority of the event’s
casualties occurred was found to have been improperly tagged, meaning that it was
already structurally unsafe for occupation at the time of the second earthquake.
(The tagging) means crap. It means somebody might have put their head inside of a
building. It doesn’t mean that they’ve been inside all the rooms. It doesn’t mean there’s
been any real engineering assessment and it doesn’t mean that the person who looked inside
the room knew anything about it, nor do they check on historical records. We’ve seen it
over and over again. (Buck, V., Former Mayor, Christchurch, March 5, 2012, personal
communication)
Worse still, the Royal Commission hearings investigating the Canterbury

earthquake revealed that experts from GNS Science, the government agency on
earthquake research, had held back predictions for the February quake for the fear
of “traumatizing the public” (APNZ 2011a). Similar behaviors were reported of
disaster recovery actors on the eve of Hurricane Katrina’s impending landfall in
New Orleans, where local politicians withheld critical information to deter possible
public overreaction.
…the poor performance of buildings and the way engineers have handled it …meant that
the politicians and the community in general, I suspect, are extremely skeptical about
professionals. (You) can get whatever answer you want depending on which professional
you hire and I think that’s the government’s attitude now and to some extent was the
government’s attitude before the earthquake but… it seems to have been reinforced by that.
Which is why so few of the disaster community that can really help have actually been
engaged to do any work down there. (Potangaroa, R., NZ Structural Engineer, March 13,
However, Bruce Glavovic from the Earthquake Commission maintained that the
work by government agencies were not all bad. “It’s not about blame. It’s not about
saying that this city’s leadership is not working hard and desperately wanting to see
a good outcome,” but he conceded that “in terms of how effective some of the work
is being done, there’s a long way to go” (Glavovic, B., Planning Consultant, EQC,
March 2, 2012, personal communication). Indeed, the prevalence of disaster
paranoia and media fear-mongering (Stallings 1995; Alexander 2006; Scanlon
2007) reflects the largely unscientific, populist perspective of disasters and the
extent of the public’s vulnerability to sensationalist viewpoints irrespective of
actual recovery progress.
6.1.4 Disaster Czar or Strawman
Nonetheless, society’s reluctance to acknowledge the social, cultural, political, and

environmental problems preceding disasters can be problematic. Authoritative,
top-down position of the New Zealand government has demonstrated that any
extreme position, however well considered, can overlook the opportunity for
addressing the wicked problems of dealing with disasters. A disengaged, isola-
tionist approach of government agency can lead to outcomes equally dangerous and
ignorant as the pre-emptive and unrealistic strategy often acted out in the ‘reel’ life
(Mitchell et al. 2000) of post-apocalyptic humanitarian heroes of Hollywood dis-
aster films.
When the Christchurch City Council (CCC) forfeited their lead on emergency
recovery to CERA (Brookie 2012), CCC’s focus had shifted to the long-term
development—which includes recovery, planning and reconstruction—of the cen-
tral business district (CBD).
That’s all the legislation tells them that they’re supposed to be leading on, but it actually isn’t
the only thing they should be doing. And they need to actually take ownership of the whole
city, which they actually are entitled to do under the legislation in my view and they need to
lead the way …legislation is part of the problem, the government control of CERA is part of
the problem, the Christchurch City Council incompetence is part of the problem and in the
middle are the people who feel that no one really cares about them at all. (Dalziel, L.,
Christchurch Politician, March 5, 2012, personal communication)
The resolution to cede all recovery-related responsibilities to a new govern-

mental agency had the effect of only replacing an independent body with no power
to execute and make decisions. Dalziel posited that CERA was a straw man agency,
“a powerful body without independence” (Dalziel 2011). While the city councilors
were no longer overextending their role, their quasi-tunnel vision focus on the CBD
neglected the fate of suburbs in the greater Christchurch region, including the
Eastern suburbs which had suffered the most damage in the earthquake. CCC’s
narrow focus on the business district raised little doubt as to whose interest the local
leadership set out to protect.
Amendments to the Civil Defense and Emergency Management Act of 2002
introduced some changes that prevent automatic discharge of the CDEM Groups—
which include local representatives and councilors, as to “[remove] the need for all
member local authorities to pass resolutions prior to triennial elections” (CDEM
2012). These amendments served to lesson the pressure of making premature
design decisions in a limited election cycle by ensuring leadership continuity and
separating the matters of emergency from the social, economic and political
agendas (Brookie 2012). Yet despite this legislative safeguard, the raw memory of
earlier government actions and their lack of, make the reality frightening despite its
ambition.
While no single recovery actor has all the solutions to wicked disaster problems,
deficiencies in the system can quickly polarize sectors instead of bringing them
together. An institutional focal point such as CERA is a double-edge sword: it is
mandated to galvanize the sectors through efficiency and timelines, its inefficiencies
can exclude the vulnerable and at-risk communities that it is intended to serve, but it
can also inspire those very community members to rise up to the leadership
challenges.
6.2 Emergent Community Leaders
The national state of emergency was declared3 for the first time in the history of
New Zealand following the February 2011 earthquake. The decentralized gover-
nance in the days following the event had fragmented the city’s leadership, leaving
the recovery efforts to be served by those whom the local newspaper ridiculed as
“the three bosses: one elected, one appointed, and one imposed” (Trotter 2011). But
as every cloud has a silver lining, the leadership crisis within the government
agency led the members of local communities to step up and fill this leadership
gap. Not surprisingly, such improvised community leadership phenomenon is a
core component of disaster recovery in disaster management literature (Potangaroa
and Kipa 2011; Kendra and Wachtendorf 2007; Drabek 2007).
In a disaster people get away with more decentralized decision making because if people
understand the urgency… or just the need to act… My dream is just to help people realize
the possibilities around what can be done with a few people who are keen to make
something happen. If more community groups could just get together and just start building
stuff that they need without the ten levels of oversight that stifle any action. (Bishop, T.,
Social Entrepreneur, February 11, 2012, personal communication)
Indeed, a positive outcome of Christchurch earthquake was the galvanizing

effect it had on communities, but the circumstances that led to a dramatic
improvement in the city’s overall social resilience was far from ideal. Following the
earthquake, opacity in leadership became problematic for the public as anxieties
grew over the uncertain future. Carr (2011), the Vice-Chancellor of the University
of Canterbury and an authority on risk management, observed that most
Christchurch organizations employed “business as usual” as de facto disaster
management strategy, although “business as usual is unusual”. Outside the business
community, the story was quite different. What emerged in the absence of unified
recovery efforts across Christchurch was the need to disaggregate the recovery
activities down to the level of individual communities that accounted for the dis-
parate needs and circumstances of the people constituting the urban environment.
(The) good things are stronger sense of community. I have seen people step up to the plate
that I would never kind of guessed… that’s been a great part of the story to see people
emerge as having all these leadership characteristics in the communities… people quite
often find their own answers too, because they’re sharing information with each other in a
much more direct way than they were before… Trusted relationships define a community
more than just about anything else… co-location of houses doesn’t make a community …
that’s a suburb. (Dalziel, L., Christchurch Politician, March 5, 2012, personal
communication)
Since any one-size-fits-all approach to disaster recovery can end in a disaster in

itself, localized response to local needs become necessary. Furthermore, fostering
3
The national state of emergency suspended “business as usual” from February 23 until April 30,
2011, until CERA took over the disaster management role from CDEM (Radio New Zealand
2011).
6.2 Emergent Community Leaders 131
community-based innovation, capacity building, and grassroots actions that draw

from the rich diversity of individuals within each community can also mean that
they are able to take on risks that government agencies cannot.
…the rules of engagement have changed. Sometimes roles can be an impediment. My
belief is that each one of us is immensely powerful. Sometimes we just don’t realize just
how powerful. I don’t think you need title, government agency… There’s a lovely quote
from the woman who founded Body Shop – Anita Roddick, which goes something like: “if
you think you’re too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito”. (Buck, V.,
Former Mayor, Christchurch, March 5, 2012, personal communication)
The “[emergent] community leaders” in neighborhoods have been a critical

component of emergency response, as has been self-reliant elements of commu-
nities “[finding] their own answers” and “sharing information” to mobilize towards
a “stronger sense of community”. The following examples demonstrate that suc-
cessful community development, collective response, and empowerment are a
product of trust.
6.2.1 Tactics: Suburban Community Response
Even though the earthquakes affected everyone in Christchurch, the extent of

physical damage was widely discrepant at suburban level. Some neighborhoods,
particularly those on the inland to the west of the CBD survived the disaster
relatively unscathed, while the CBD, the Port Hills area to the south of the epi-
center, and the Eastern suburbs at the city’s coastal edge bore the brunt of the
damage. Potangaroa observed that pre-existing economic hardship in certain
neighborhoods are made worse following a disaster:
Earthquakes aren’t equal opportunity employers. They pick who they are going to hurt, and
when they hit, it’s the most vulnerable, and in this case it was the Māori and Polynesian
community in the Eastern suburbs… Although looking at it now you’ve got to say that a lot
of the middle class families must also be as badly hurt. (Potangaroa, R., NZ Structural
Engineer, March 13, 2012, personal communication)
Indeed, the “three different worlds” of the city’s suburbs in the east, the west,
and the center are further polarized by the social, cultural, economic, political, and
environmental disparities that preexisted the disaster: environmentally, the different
subsoil conditions affected by earthquake forces created weak pockets prone to
liquefaction (IPENZ 2011); politically, the age of buildings and accompanying
materials and structures affecting the ability to carry earthquake forces (BRANZ
2009); economically, the community assets and their inherent resilience differed
according to socio-economic lines (Potangaroa and Kipa 2011); socially, the ATC
sticker system led to stigmatizing those who inhabited in houses with red stickers,
sometimes condemning entire neighborhoods (Bond and Moricz 2012) because
they were seen to be uninhabitable and were speculated as candidates for eviction at
short notice. Such vast disparities between suburbs made a singular, citywide
recovery strategy difficult to implement. The disaster had polarized parts of

Christchurch, but it also served as a catalyst for uniting certain communities.
Sumner and Lyttelton… two communities which were strongly affected, but before the
earthquake had a relatively balanced community in a geographical position of which was
understood by the people that lived there… before the earthquake it was a community
which could identify themselves at the face, and its really interesting to see those two
communities are getting on with their lives relatively quickly. (Athfield, I., NZ Architect,
February 10, 2012, personal communication)
The middle-class suburbs in the Port Hills, Sumner, and Lyttelton received little
support from the local recovery agencies, yet exhibited a strong sense of solidarity
and resilience following the February earthquake.
One of the things that any disaster shows is that the power of the community is incredibly
diffuse. Like, if you were in the suburbs, and you didn’t see anybody for three or four days,
from any of the authorities—the Red Cross or the St John’s—you just had to survive. So you
had to know your neighbors; you had to check on your neighbors, and do all of those things.
It’s actually a really powerful thing. (Buck, V., Former Mayor, Christchurch, March 5, 2012,
Disaster scholars generally acknowledge that communities with strong existing

networks can influence the ability of its members to seek out resources following
disasters (Hurlbert et al. 2000). The importance of such informal ties were
demonstrated in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina (Aldrich and Crook 2008),
where “higher levels of social capital facilitate recovery and help survivors coor-
dinate for more effective reconstruction” (Aldrich 2012). Knowing one’s neighbors,
Aldrich argued, exceeded the benefits of governmental support and economic
resources. And conversely, the government’s decision to “red zone” entire suburbs
in Christchurch can undermine the community’s confidence to stay and increase the
likelihood for displacement.
6.2.2 Improvisation: The Māori Recovery Network
The media coverage of post-disaster recovery in Christchurch was characterized by

a litany of local politics struggling for power, contentious handling of the disaster
by central government, and recurrent aftershocks yielding a parody of Mayor Bob
Parker’s reaction: “munted” (Brown 2011), but the disaster also gave rise to
grassroots community initiatives from emergent social entrepreneurs, local com-
munity leaders and non-profit organizations. In the two months following the
February quake, the NZ Landcare Research center documented 92 new
community-based activities in Christchurch with web presence geared toward
earthquake response (Fitt 2011). Some of the celebrated efforts by community
sector include the University of Canterbury Student Volunteer Army (UC SVA),
Canterbury Community Earthquake Recovery Network (CanCERN), and the Māori
Recovery Network (MRN).
The Māori community in Christchurch mobilized independently from the

operations of CDEM and local disaster recovery agencies in the immediate after-
math of the February earthquake. The Māori Recovery Network (MRN) was set up
to offer personalized assistance to both Māori and non-Māori communities in the
Eastern suburbs, in response to communication challenges with local agencies
following the September earthquake. MRN monitored the needs of individual
households by ensuring that no one was left behind.
[It’s] about advocating for the weakest, for the poorest, for the ugliest, for the least likely to
earn some bread. And sometimes when you’re working with that…You’re working from
the bottom of the barrel. People don’t want to work with these people because they’ve tried
to and [it’s] too hard. For us, that’s our bread and butter…it’s about: “we know you; we
probably know your uncles and aunties, and we’re interested in how they are and you and
we’re interested in how the rest of your whānau [family] is working and how we can get in
there and help support that”… the experience of the health workers/nurses perhaps
underlines that there will be sections of the community that disaster professionals seek to
assist but may not be able to because of …“the gap” (Potangaroa and Kipa 2011).
At the core of the MRN operations was the Māori Wardens Association, the
group of voluntary mediators in the Māori community set up under the 1945 Act of
Parliament to facilitate communication with the local ethnic community. Despite
the voluntary aspect of the group, the Wardens “represent formal agents of social
control whose authority is conferred and legitimated by the power of the State”
(Fleras 1981), and the group’s operational powers closely resemble the Police. The
Wardens operate on principles of “rangimarie” (peace), “aroha” (compassion), and
“korero” (persuasion). This set the Wardens apart from other disaster management
approaches, particularly the militaristic nature of the local Police response, by being
more personable, community-based, and accessible. The Wardens engaged in daily
door-knocking exercise on each affected household, while serving as a conduit to
the government agencies to communicate the community’s progress and needs
(Potangaroa and Kipa 2011). This case exemplifies how traditional wisdom, and
strong cultural identity, coupled with sensible approaches to both community-based
outreach and top-down communication can empower and ensure that communities
can respond to natural disasters in a timely manner.
Potangaroa and Kipa (2011), who are both of Māori descent, acknowledged that
the Māori had had to establish their own system of post-disaster response and
recovery initiatives in ways that accommodated the cultural norms and behaviors
that could not be adequately addressed through existing social services (Potangaroa
and Kipa 2011). This was evident during the post-disaster evacuation phase where
residents had to be taken out of buildings for their own safety, but were not given
enough time to grieve the loss of their house let alone the chance to retrieve their
personal belongings.
…one of our big findings was to with the tagging, that the tagging of houses was all wrong
and a lot of Māori were particularly upset because they wouldn’t let them go back in and
get their photographs of their ancestors. (Potangaroa, R., NZ Structural Engineer, March
13, 2012, personal communication)
According to Potangaroa and Kipa, this presented significant ethical challenges

for both the law enforcers and the residents since within the Māori tradition their
houses have a cultural significance that stands at odds with disaster recovery pro-
tocols. The Māori, believe that their ancestors continue to live through stories,
photographs, and through architecture of ancestral significance, such as a Marae, an
iwi-specific meeting house. As for the latter, the Māori accord the same respect and
care to these living buildings as they would a living kaumatua, the tribal elder.
6.2.3 Strategies: CanCERN
Canterbury Communities’ Earthquake Recovery Network (CanCERN) is another

community-based initiative that complemented the recovery efforts. The group
consists of neighborhood leaders in each community that advocates on behalf of its
residents as a unified voice. While the organization operates similarly to political
lobbyists, its motivations are not adversarial to the government agencies, and it seeks
instead to operate in partnership with authorities (CanCERN 2011). CanCERN
utilizes a model for citizen engagement based on Arnstein’s ladder of citizen par-
ticipation (Arnstein 1969), reinterpreted from the perspective of Christchurch resi-
dents. CanCERN’s engagement ladder as outlined in Fig. 6.2 below describes active
participation through behaviors of “leading”, “owning”, and “contributing” as being
effective means to be more “responsible”, “engaged”, and “empowered”, while
arguing that passive observation methods such as “endorsing”, “following”, and
“observing” can result in passive or apathetic outcomes similar to “tokenistic
Fig. 6.2 CanCERN’s ladder

of community engagement in
Christchurch
consultation”, where communities are “disengaged” and “disempowered”. In the

original framework, Arnstein explained that citizen participation can be seen from
varying degrees of perceived and actual power, but the semantic used in the rungs of
the ladder in Arnstein’s model emphasizes disempowered hierarchy rather than
empowerment. CanCERN’s argument suggests the self-fulfilling nature of
community-based advocacy, where the semantic tone of how communities operate
can influence the outcome.
Such examples of the community sector success, however, do not preclude the
need to engage businesses and government agencies. Both the private and the
public sectors still play essential roles in midwifing the recovery processes, and foot
the bill for restoring the city’s economy and essential services.
They need to work together in a way that is complementary—the private sector will only
get involved if there is some profit, the public sector must be able to meet the costs of
capital and infrastructure, and ultimately there needs to be an overall approach, from where
the strategies can be developed and met by the different sectors collectively. (Roberts, C.,
Director, Social Policy, Salvation Army, February 28, 2012, personal communication)
Government policies need to reflect the consideration that decentralization of

responsibilities and ownership of post-disaster activities would have limited success
without having citizens participate at all levels of future design decision-making.
But implementing citizen participation at all levels of decision-making is difficult.
The extent to which communities engage in the consultation process depends on, at
the very least, the perception of equity.
6.3 A People’s Republic of Christchurch
It would’ve been good to have a bit more support from Civil Defense and the Council …
they got better, but they didn’t know what they were doing themselves …we expected them
to know everything …but the reality is no-one had dealt with such a disaster before.
(Johnson, S., Community Leader, January 26, 2011, personal communication)
Sam Johnson, co-founder of the University of Canterbury Student Volunteer

Army (UCSVA), mobilized the first mass grassroots-led cleanup of liquefaction in
Christchurch homes in response to the “painfully slow” recovery progress of the
official first responders. Alongside such examples of grassroots-based social acti-
vism there are as many tales of local resistance to outside interventions that are seen
as unwelcome encroachments by the ‘other’. The locals explain this behavior as a
residual characteristic of homogenous and conservative groups within Christchurch,
forged long before the February earthquake. However, the post-earthquake
Christchurch community movements such as that of Johnson’s defy the xenopho-
bic sentiments of the few.
…the best thing is to get people from diverse political thinking into the same room… That’s
true of all community development. You should have as many naysayers in the room as
people of the same world view and it’s out of that forced diversity having to come to grips
with each other that real innovation can get established… It requires a different variety of
leadership. (Hutchinson, V., Social Entrepreneur, February 19, 2012, personal
communication)
Mobilization of entire neighborhoods, whose common identity is forged through

shared purpose or through geographic proximity demonstrate that people in fact
embrace heterogeneous world views, revealing a resilient yet radical culture of
citizens forged against the threats of privatization and neoliberal governance, giving
rise to its often used moniker: a People’s Republic of Christchurch.
6.3.1 Radicalism as Resilience
The growing tension between the local authorities and the residents post-earthquake
surmounted in a series of public demonstrations: residents gathered outside the
gates of CCC protesting the excessive pay rise for Tony Marryatt, the CCC’s new
chief executive (Sachdeva 2012); they gathered again in large numbers to halt the
demolition of the iconic Christchurch Cathedral (Cairns 2012b); parents and
teachers rallied against forced mergers and even closures of many schools in
depopulated suburbs of Christchurch (Mann 2012). The former Christchurch mayor
Vicki Buck—who made a successful return to politics in 2013 as a Deputy Mayor
to Lianne Dalziel—described the 2011 earthquake as an opportunity seized by the
government to privatize the city, which is all too familiar in the living memories of
those who fought against the privatization of the business sector in the 1980s.
…the move in local government was, throughout the country, to privatize the
community-owned assets, so the power lines, your court, your airport, you know… sell it
all, sell it all, sell it all… because (the assumption was that) the private sector does a much
better job than the public sector… Christchurch got disparagingly cruel: the People’s
Republic of Christchurch in a way; a communist entity, because we wouldn’t sell it. There
was just no way, and so you knew that people would actually take pride in that…
(We) were People’s Republic of Christchurch. (Buck, V., Former Mayor, Christchurch,
March 5, 2012, personal communication)
State-owned asset sales as a default economic strategy by the national govern-

ment reinforces familiar tactics of disaster capitalism as seen previously in New
Orleans and in Haiti. While some economists argue that government-led asset sales
is a valid route of recovery strategy from lost economic productivity (Stevenson
et al. 2011), its oppositions argue that New Zealand has historically been opposed
to free-market capitalism (Farrell 2011). The free-market policy is intended to foster
innovation, but the lack of design controls and establishment of standards would
mean that the overall quality of development is lowered rather than pushed up.
(Most) people when you talk to them out on the streets about who do you think makes the
decision about zoning? —they think it’s CERA, based on geo-technical advice which is
why there’s all this pressure to release this geo-technical advice. The geo-technical advice is
only one part of the equation that just tells you what you have to do, what the damage has
been to the land, and what you have to do to secure it, but the analysis is actually done by
6.3 A People’s Republic of Christchurch 137
the government and it’s a cost analysis. (Dalziel, L., Christchurch Politician, March 5,
From day one, the delegation of roles by the central government to professional
agencies were not clearly delineated (IPENZ 2012). Widespread public criticism of
the Earthquake Commission is another case in point (Wright 2012). Following a
brief honeymoon period of optimism during the first few months of September
2010, where up to 90 % of those surveyed reported to being “not dissatisfied” with
insurance arrangements (Kachali et al. 2010), the post-February communication
bottleneck resulted in the commission withdrawing its contact details from the
agency’s website altogether (R. Potangaroa, personal communication, April 28,
2012), redirecting the pleas of Christchurch homeowners to anonymous call centers
in Australia (Wright 2012). Over-reliance on professional expertise (APNZ 2011a)
as well as its under-reliance (Brabhaharan et al. 2005) in the absence of directed
leadership led to underserving the communities who depend on such expertise.
6.3.2 Overcoming Distrust
When the residents remained divided over the fate of the Christchurch Cathedral—
in spite of the building owners already having settled on its demolition—Shigeru
Ban’s temporary “Cardboard Cathedral” of an adjacent church tended the wounds
of citizens reeling from the loss of their 150 year-old landmark (Moore 2012). Ban,
a Japanese architect who was awarded the 2013 Pritzker Architecture prize for his
global humanitarian design contribution, began practicing disaster relief architec-
ture in the mid-90s out of desire to use his architectural knowledge and design skills
for the general public, and as a personal reprieve from being engrossed in producing
monumental architecture for the rich (Ban 2011). Ban directly challenged the
delineation between the permanent and temporary architecture. He contended that if
a building is loved by its occupants it will outlast those built for short-term profit,
regardless of the material it is made from (Ban 2012). He recognized the importance
of community buy-in.
Architecture… will gradually become impermanent… the frequency of architecture is
becoming shorter… architecture does not have to exist permanently anymore.
Environments are changing around us; we can work anywhere… In such an age, there is no
difference between temporary and permanent architecture… something temporary can have
a permanent existence, as when the Paper Church in Kobe was taken down and moved to
Tao-Mi Village, the mountainous disaster-affected area in the middle of Taiwan. In that
sense, whether something becomes permanent or not isn’t decided by architectural mate-
rials. Whether people come to love it or not determines if it can become permanent or
remains merely temporary (Ban 2010).
Ban recalled the first paper church he had ever designed and built following an
earthquake in Japan, in which his local church had burnt down to the ground from a
fire. When Ban finished the construction, the church’s pastor, Hiroshi Kanda, was
remembered to have memorably said to Ban, “I feel like we have become a real
church now, only after we lost the physical building”, because the “church is not a
building but rather wherever people gathered to pray in unity” (Hiroshi Kanda, as
cited in Ban 2010). In a similar vein, the potential absence of the Christchurch
Cathedral proved to be much more poignant for the Cantabrians compared to other
churches in Christchurch which faced a similar fate, and the CERA’s announcement
of the Cathedral’s official deconsecration served as a major turning point in how the
locals related to the city. It would remain a Christchurch before and after the
Cathedral.
6.3.3 Architecture for Democracy
Architecture is a language that should be universal to a much greater society but still is held
by few. (Athfield, I., NZ Architect, February 10, 2012, personal communication)
Of many unintended physical after-effects of the earthquake, severe housing

shortages created an overinflated rental market (Dally 2012b), construction material
inflation due to limited supplies (Wood 2012b), and the lack of licensed builders
who could restore and rebuild at short notice (Dally 2012a). On the other hand,
post-earthquake Christchurch has given rise to a number of ambitious proposals:
mixed-tenure affordable homes (Mcdonald 2012); international design competition
(Cairns 2012a); plans to build 20,000 homes over five years (Wood 2012a)—which
suggest that Christchurch citizens are embracing design opportunities to build back
better (Fig. 6.3).
Those in favor of democratizing architectural design do not believe that it will
diminish the quality of the collective building stock nor adversely affect their job
security—the two concerns shared by the wider profession.
Our responsibility to the community is to make the best buildings we can to meet the
community’s needs. If as a profession we reach a platform of well made things, the art of
architecture will flourish. On that base it is not strictly our responsibility as a profession to
tell the community what it ought to build. We participate in that debate as any other
informed member of the community with more to offer than most. - Sir Warren (1973)
Commentaries by Sir Miles Warren (“Sir Miles”) and Athfield position the
architect as an agent of social change, in which architecture is used as a spatial tool
for enabling democracy in Christchurch. Because architecture can exert influence
through ownership, orientation, and environmental impact, it can also include or
exclude those for whom the building is designed or for whom it is designed
without. Athfield also suggested that architectural practice in current form was
unsustainable.
Architecture in New Zealand takes an elitist position. It stems from the respect of the master
mason type situation and so traditionally you were the top of the tree… Now we have,
I suppose, a building industry who… relate things to fashion or to trends… So people are
very confused as to what architecture is and I think there is a general distrust amongst
society for architecture, and a general misunderstanding; distrust because they see
Fig. 6.3 Athfield addressing the public at NZIA’s Before After exhibition opening
[architects] saying quite a lot of things that they don’t quite understand, and… not even
understanding what their needs were… Christchurch earthquake polarized people.
(Athfield, I., NZ Architect, February 10, 2012, personal communication)
Athfield grounds his observation on the role of architects as having devolved

from positions of influence and respect to being part of a distrustful building
industry that is misaligned with the practical needs and values of society. The
public distrust of the profession resulted from misunderstanding rather than through
inflicting harm.
The system is not open; it’s geared around people making money… it’s geared around
power; it’s geared around disabling people… because governance is seen, at the moment, as
a hierarchical model… Our worst possible thing at the moment is… we assume the world is
an economic question… and that means poor quality architecture. (Watkins, T.,
Co-Director, Sustainability Work Programme, UIA, January 11, 2012, personal
communication)
Tony Watkins, who has been advocating for architectural peace and sustain-
ability since the early 1990s, argued that the hierarchy of governments systemically
limit democratic access to “quality”, and suggested that making architecture more
accessible to local communities can be first steps towards increasing societal
resilience. Watkins also argued that a project’s quality will significantly improve
when there is a meaningful engagement with the people, but many designers
confuse democratization of design with surrendering of designer’s intellectual

property. Sinclair made a similar argument in defense of the developmental work of
AFH.
We also get pushed back when people are saying we’re helping engage a lot more people in
the profession who are not professionalized… There is this fine line where we’re engaging
the profession but we’re also engaging non-professionals and trying to get them to be more
architecturally minded, but we’re not giving them degrees or we’re not licensing them.
We’re just, giving them a kind-of ‘architecture lite’ experience. (Sinclair, C., CEO, AFH,
July 27, 2011, personal communication)
This debate is not new for the architectural profession in New Zealand.
Democratic design, to some extent, has always been part of New Zealand’s
self-sufficiency culture until recently. Historic records of the New Zealand Institute
of Architects journals show that in 1969, architects identified a need to “re-examine
the nature of architects’ services to the community”, prescribing ethical conduct that
privileges the community first, the client second, and the architect third
(Hoogerbrug 1969). In the same year, the duty of architects was defined as “an
implied contract to serve society over and beyond all special duty to client or
employer” (Bishop 1969). In 1973, Sir Miles acknowledged that “New Zealand
must be one of the few countries where most people can make what they damn well
like to live in… [which] does not make for architectural order” but simply that
which “makes for a happy community” (Warren 1973). In the wake of the 2011
earthquake, Sir Miles lamented that architects are nowhere to be seen:
One of the extraordinary things in the post-earthquake Christchurch is that the architects
aren’t there. (They) have not been asked to the table, have not been consulted… Now,
buildings are built by developers and leased to tenants. The process… affects how architects
can contribute in the post-disaster context. It needs to be reframed and the right skills
applied appropriately, rather than proposing that architects simply take over from other
experts on the field. Find a gap and a niche, rather than replace or challenge the status quo.
It is not a diversification of roles, but reapplication of the same role in a different context.
(Warren, M., as cited in McGowan et al. 2011)
Sir Miles’ remarks, though almost 40 years apart, testify his enduring support for
democratizing architecture.
Of all the professions and the arts surely we are the most public performers. We stand in full
view with our architectural pants up or down. A musician’s poor performance is soon
forgotten… but our successes and disasters are there for a lifetime… It is absurd to
complain that the public do not know what we do, they know only too damn well. - Sir
Warren (1973)
What Christchurch needs is the courage to face up to the reality “in full view
with our architectural pants up or down”, because architects are “the most public
performers” whose “successes” or “disasters” are both immortalized in history.
True democracy is not just about empowering the public, but also about taking
“responsibility” for design decisions made.
If you’ve got true democracy, it actually is unstructured. And by democracy, by the way,
I don’t mean a vote. I mean people taking responsibility for their own lives… every
decision should be taken at the lowest possible level at which it can be taken. (Watkins, T.,
Co-Director of Sustainability Work Programme, January 11, 2012, personal
communication)
While rebuilding the post-earthquake Christchurch will undoubtedly take many

years, the 2012 “Blueprint” development plan for Christchurch took the inspiration
from the city’s 1850 plan for utopian “garden city” (Bowring 2015). The main
lesson that Christchurch has contributed to the discussion on the wicked problems
of rebuilding after a disaster is the courage to un-build the vulnerable present and to
build back better by looking into the past.
6.4 Architecture of Tomorrow
(Christchurch) is a complex environment in the true meaning of the word “complex” and
the problem is wicked in its fundamental sense. It is not amenable to a technical solution or
to a simple panacea. (Glavovic, B., Planning Consultant, EQC, March 2, 2012, personal
communication)
The devastation in Christchurch is more vividly associated with its aftershock in

February 2011, which took some 185 lives. Bruce Glavovic, a planner at the
national government’s Earthquake Commission (EQC), explained that post-disaster
periods are in a state of constant flux, noting that the focus of disaster recovery
agents following the September earthquake had shifted completely in the February
aftershock. Buck argued that the high profile activities of the engineers in the early
days of the earthquake had increased the public confidence to such a level that it
became detrimental to the profession.
Engineers after September were in huge demand and regarded sort of as gods. The engi-
neers had very high reputations… in Christchurch, for a really long time… (But) the fact
that the process of red stickering, green stickering engineering checks were so haphazard
and so bad – bad from the City Council, bad from the engineers… we just don’t trust them
(anymore)… (Buck, V., Former Mayor, Christchurch, March 5, 2012, personal
communication)
Buck also suggested that the skills that had brought engineers into the spotlight
in the first place also became a reason for their downfall. Maire Kipa, a local
community leader, explained the need for the profession to be heard, because the
way professionals are treated by the local authorities is indicative of how other
members of community would also be treated:
They knew about the swamp and this land being soft… (yet) they were willing to risk it…
the developers won a case against the council who was objecting to the developments…
everybody understands and wish we hadn’t made that decision. (Kipa, M., Community
Leader, March 5, 2012, personal communication)
The role of New Zealand architects in Christchurch earthquake was complicated

by the preexisting urban condition of the city. The wicked design problems of
rebuilding Christchurch were overshadowed in many ways by politics of
un-building, as the stigma of Christchurch’s historic past resurfaced in the earth-

quake’s wake. A case in point is the social impact of the earthquake on the city’s
minority population. According to Newell, migration expert, Christchurch experi-
enced an exodus of young minority population over the past year, most likely from
the lack of adequate social services to help those who generally lack in resources,
resilience, and incentives to stay (Newell 2012; Stylanous 2012). Newell also
observed that school-aged Māori and Samoan children left at a rate three times more
than that of Pakeha (non-Māori) chidren.4
Geographically, the Eastern Suburbs of Christchurch were the focus of media
contention as New Orleans had been after Katrina. Potangaroa and Kipa (2011)
argued that “the notion of being poor and that poverty exists in New Zealand and
that it could be a factor in any disaster preparedness and response is lost on New
Zealand”, which was in reference to how government authorities neglected to
acknowledge the correlation between socio-economic state of a community and
their vulnerability to urban disasters.
Despite its young colonial history, Christchurch also suffered from poor plan-
ning decisions that both Port-au-Prince and New Orleans experienced. A case in
point is the controversial 1856 “Black Map” of Christchurch, which was widely
circulated following the earthquake to illustrate the risks of overdevelopment.
When overlaid on top of the 2011 map of liquefaction areas, the 1856 Map traced
the paths of former riverbeds and swamps that were since built over and partially
reshaped to allow for irrigation of farmlands.
How do you really look at the city… you actually have to look at where your mistakes were
beforehand; what it was like - immediately before the earthquake. How do you compensate
for the decisions you made on all those suburban shopping malls which are now thriving?
(Athfield, I., NZ Architect, February 10, 2012, personal communication)
Athfield contended that Christchurch’s urban problems had started “five decades
before these earthquakes and as a result the city was governed by dysfunctional
end-use policies” (Athfield 2011), and compensating for past decisions would mean
that decision-making processes for the city’s future also needed to be reevaluated.
6.4.1 Societal Value of Architects
The extent of local architects’ involvement following the February 2011

Christchurch earthquake was minimal, which had a negative impact on their
4
But Newell’s observation overlooks two factors that potentially explains this coincidence: one is
that the Māori and Pacific Island (including Samoan) population has a much younger age structure
than the total population due to higher Māori birth rates and larger family sizes. By 2016, Māori
ethnicity is projected to have a median age of 24.9, while for the total population it is 39.9 years
(CCC 2005). The second factor, which is related to the younger age structure of the Māori
population, is that they are more mobile and transient than the Christchurch population, as a result
of lesser housing affordability and job insecurity (CCC 2003).
6.4 Architecture of Tomorrow 143
Fig. 6.4 Before After

exhibition poster
confidence. In the early days, many architects hid their frustrations in their inability
to “get heard” by local authorities yet remained optimistic about contributing their
professional services to build back better (Fig. 6.4).
But many also suffered from the symptoms of ‘disaster fatigue’, exacerbated by
their personal circumstances as well as from the reduced amount of work: “We’re
starting to run out of steam and the ability to do things voluntarily” (Van der
Lingen, J., Architect, January 26, 2011, personal communication). What had further
demised the morale of the local architects in Christchurch is the fact that the local
council employed the services of foreign architects in lieu of engaging the services
of local architects:
The notion that you parachute someone in from far away and redesign the city… and you
can come up with nice pictures and nice visions, but turning that into reality is a product of
the choices that individual business owners and individual citizens will be making on a
day-to-day basis… Challenge is to find ways of embedding and integrating design pro-
fessionals and others into collaborative partnerships that rebuild in geographically specific
localities. (Glavovic, B., Planning Consultant, EQC, March 2, 2012, personal
communication)
From outside the architectural profession, the inability to have input into deci-
sions about Christchurch also seemed problematic:
A lot of people assumed that they will come and then they’ll rebuild towards the end. But
by then all the decisions and by-laws would have already been made. (Buck, V., Former
Mayor, Christchurch, March 5, 2012, personal communication)
Buck suggested that the profession at large needed to be involved in early design
decision-making processes with the authorities, but that they were not being
engaged. Jasper Van der Lingen, a local architect who also serves as the council’s
urban design council explained that prioritizing select business interests5 may be to
blame for why the local authorities place local designer engagements second:
They don’t tend to consult much because there’s some commercial sensitivities, like if it
comes out to the public saying that they’re changing the zoning of an area and it was
publicly announced, the ones who own the property or the ones who want to buy into that
might take an advantage. So that’s why it tends to often be in-house. (Van der Lingen, J.,
Architect, January 26, 2011, personal communication)
But attitudes about the roles that architectural profession and the wider building
profession could play in post-earthquake Christchurch seemed contentious even
within the profession itself. Some viewed that being a building expert was a
privileged position which accompanied great responsibility to “shape the future”
(C. Sinclair), while others believed that the profession “relate things to fashion
[and] trends” which has lead to “distrust” within wider society “because they see
[the building industry] as… not meeting… [nor] even understanding what their
needs were” (I. Athfield). Such attitudes are complicated by the fact that the gov-
ernance system in New Zealand remains “hierarchical” and the power structure is
not equally distributed (T. Watkins). This has led to local authorities showing
“inappropriate preference” to engage external building experts and frustrating local
design professionals (B. Glavovic). In light of such developments, Roberts sug-
gested that it is important to have a broad understanding of the needs within society
beyond one’s professional expertise.
…you’ve got to not only be involved in the innovation, but you’ve got to also be involved
in the sort of greater structure around it… (Roberts, C., Social Entrepreneur, February 28,
Roberts contended that any innovation on the ground, whether architectural or

otherwise, needed to be supported by broader engagement with the larger
ecosystem within which the innovation to the problem exists. Speaking from his
first-hand experience of trying to address societal issues such as housing shortages
and unemployment, Roberts had identified a larger systemic gap that produced
these problems in the first place.
The building industry itself is a very conservative industry… it’s very difficult for them to
move out of very standard ways of operating… you can have the design right, (but) you’ve
got to be able to win people over… the lesson to learn from that is… we concentrate on
5
Indeed, the Christchurch City Council had come under public scrutiny for spending $17 m to bail
out a local developer Dave Henderson in 2008, and subsequently for prioritizing business interests
in post-earthquake redevelopment plans via strategic anchor projects (Bennet et al. 2014).
getting the design right, but haven’t really changed the culture. (Roberts, C., Social
Entrepreneur, February 28, 2012, personal communication)
Di Lucas, a local community leader with training in Landscape Architecture in

Christchurch, warned that there are risks in both having too much control and not
having enough, but a way for professionals to continue working with power-weary
clients was to check their expertise at the door:
When I ask people to come, I say it’s just a community initiative… people did respond
(but) they would have reacted differently if it had been an official thing, and I think some of
the experts wouldn’t have been so frank and humble and communicative with the com-
munity if it had been an official thing rather than a bottom up thing. (Lucas, D., Landscape
Architect, February 22, 2012, personal communication)
Delayed decisions can increase the likelihood for failures just as much as pre-
emptive actions can. In such a climate, professionals can decrease the communi-
cation barrier on both sides by engaging in active listening, resisting the urge to
offer unsolicited advice, increasing information transparency to level the playing
field for consensus building, and facilitate democratic decision-making. While
theses skills are not new, implementing them takes effort as wicked problems
require what Tim Brown, an authority on design, calls “T-shaped people” (Brown
2005): an empathetic specialist whose deep expertise in one field form the vertical
leg of the T, who is equally adept at working with insights from multiple per-
spectives. In post-disaster scenarios and elsewhere where designers are faced with
abundant wicked problems, this means that the point at which the ‘vertical’ meets
the ‘horizontal’, or the ability to transfer relevant specialist skills—whether it is
creativity, ability to facilitate workshops, or translate the needs of multiple stake-
holders—to the broad, continuously evolving circumstances.
6.4.2 Architecture and Society
Amidst the drama, local architects continued to offer pro bono services to the city
and its residents in their own time, inspecting damaged properties and advising
tenants as well as landlords. At the same time, independent community-based
design initiatives also proliferated, reinvigorating the city. Local designers’ efforts
such as the Peterborough Village Initiative and the Sumner Urban Design Master
Plan led the charge on neighborhood-specific community consultation that inspired
the city-wide implementation of community-based design process, and those of
more transient nature such as the Re:START container mall, and the Pallet Pavilion
raised the profile of Christchurch among the global travel community.6
6
Christchurch was New Zealand’s only city to feature in Lonely Planet’s top 10 cities to visit in
2012.
Post-September, a lot of the concern about the recovery process was, how do we secure and
retain the building heritage that characterized the physical culture of Christchurch? …
architects in Christchurch had very special prominence and voice around… but that issue
became much less significant in the aftermath of February 22nd when the nature of the
event changed completely. (Glavovic, B., Planning Consultant, EQC, March 2, 2012,
Even though the devastation of the February earthquake had set aside the dis-
cussions about building heritage at the early stages of disaster relief and recovery,
one building in particular became a point of public contention: the Christchurch
Cathedral. The Cathedral had been the most prominent landmark in the city since its
inception, but suffered significant structural damage from the initial earthquake in
September and the subsequent aftershocks that followed. On November 4th, 2011,
CERA issued an ultimatum to the Cathedral, recommending a “full deconstruction”
(CERA 2012), which was met with public protests and debate over the significance
of the Cathedral as a symbolic identity for Christchurch.
The Cathedral became a contentious topic among those whom, on the one hand,
wanted to move on, and those whom, on the other, wanted to see it reinstated to its
former glory. Architecture became both a battleground for earthquake-battered
Christchurch citizens who wanted to reclaim its “right to the city”, and a tool for
democracy and resilience in the absence of certainty and transparency. The
Cathedral was the media’s poster child for the earthquake, and also a symbol of the
public identity:
Buildings are also part of our own personal histories, so they’re not just bout the history of
the city, they’re about our own personal stories… there are so many people who got
married at the Cathedral, there are so many funerals we went to there, so many special
occasions… that Cathedral in the Square does speak about our identity as a city… it’s
where our city got its status as a city from. We have, in order to become a city we had to
have a cathedral. The Cathedral was built so we could be a city… the Cathedral really
belongs to the people. (Dalziel, L., Christchurch Politician, March 5, 2012, personal
communication)
The people of Christchurch had forged a relationship with the building, not as a
religious monument, a destination or some symbol of power—which buildings of
such monumental scale are ordinarily perceived to be (Iloniemi 2004; Saint 1983)
—but rather as a reference point of one’s own identity, and a repository of one’s
memories established over time through life-changing events, such as marriages
and funerals.
From the perspectives of the Māori, the Cathedral was a symbolic edifice of a
150-year old colonial history. By extension, then, the deconstruction of the
Cathedral, whether in part or whole, signifies for the indigenous community an end
of a legacy, which is that of Canterbury’s colonial past, and also a chance to ‘build
back better’ by properly recognizing and honoring7 the city’s ancestral history and
7
In the latter stages of Christchurch’s recovery, CERA ensured that the historic narratives of Te
Runanga o Ngai Tahu, the local Māori iwi, to be an integral part of Christchurch’s future blueprint
(CCDU 2012).
its multicultural present to reflect the collective stories of Tangata Whenua.8

Because at the end of the day, a resilient city is defined by its most valued asset:
He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
It is the people, it is the people, it is the people.
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Chapter 7
Conclusion
As society is becoming more urbanized, the risk of human exposure to disasters is

also rising. The nature of societal problems following an urban disaster involves
input by professionals from multiple fields—including economics, sociology,
medicine, and engineering—but the contribution from architecture has been mini-
mal to date. The main impetus for this book has been the assertion that most of the
decisions related to reconstruction are made in the early emergency recovery stages
where architects and other members of design profession are largely absent, but
their early contribution is vital to the long-term reconstruction of cities. In urban
environments, architecture reflects the state of society’s health: architectural dam-
age is the first visible sign of emergency, and reconstruction is the final response in
the extended period of disaster recovery.
I determined that an empirical assessment of architectural projects in
post-disaster situations can lead to a deeper understanding of urban societies as they
try to rebuild. To that end, Horst Rittel’s original characterization of wicked
problems and the second generation approach to complex design problems—which
this book calls ‘Rittelian framework’—proved to be useful in evaluating the
socio-aesthetic convergence of architecture as both an end-product and as a
decision-making process.
Alternative perspectives on urban disasters are presented through post-disaster
design tactics and strategies that successfully tackle wicked design problems that
conventional methods of disaster recovery are unable to solve. In doing so, I argue
that architecture can be an effective conduit between disaster’s stakeholders at all
levels of society and debunk the enduring public perception of architects as the last
responders of disasters. After all, disaster’s ‘wickedness’ is not inherent in the
phenomenon of disaster itself, but exists as a byproduct of the human response to
the disaster, and how our habitat is designed is a large part of it. Moreover,
humanitarian architecture is not an antithesis to traditional design practice but an
outlet for its designers to challenge the status quo and empower humanity in the
current environment of turbulence and increasing complexity. It serves to broaden

152 7 Conclusion
architecture’s public reach, in light of the recurrent threats to the profession’s core
values of firmness, beauty, and delight.
The Rittelian framework offers some points for further discussion. First, con-
tinuing need for improvisation by disaster agents on the ground stands at odds with
the systemic approach to disasters that aid agencies need for their very existence.
Decision-making processes in post-disaster environments have revealed multiple
‘pathologies’ that get in the way of successful reconstruction, some of which are
more difficult to unlearn than others. Recent strategic shift among humanitarian aid
agencies from an expert-centered ones to those that are more community-centered
suggest the changing nature of disaster relief from rural to urban settings where the
complexity of problems that arise cannot be solved by a linear systemic approach or
a single disaster recovery actor. Moreover, long-term benefits of community-
centered recovery strategies far outweigh the short-term gains of expert-centered
recovery, which calls into question the relevance of humanitarian agencies and
professionalization of the humanitarian sector in the 21st century.
Second is the fundamental challenges of community resilience advocacy. We
have seen how the widespread disaster recovery mantra of ‘build back better’ has
meant a near-impossible task of replicating a pre-disaster city in a post-disaster
context, as many survivors displaced by the event yearn to return and persist in
doing so despite its impracticability. The invitation ‘build back better’ may seem
like a free-for-all, especially directed at the prima donnas of the design world to
parachute down to the site of catastrophe to advance avant-garde concepts upon a
clean slate, but the social reality of post-disaster complexities condemn such
approaches as exploitative and opportunistic. Community-based design case studies
prove that it is not so much that people are resistant to change, but rather that they
fear change when the uncertainty of what they might lose outweighs the benefits of
change. The key issue becomes a matter of considering for whom rebuilding can be
considered better. Architectural interventions have limited success without strong
public buy-in and direct engagement with the community throughout the recovery
process, from inception through to completion.
Third, a disaster can be a catalyst for enhancing the overall resilience of affected
population equally as it can expose and amplify its vulnerability. Urban disasters
can engender an environment for emergent community leaders and grassroots
movements to thrive, which in turn can lead to an even stronger community than
before the disaster. Though community engagement is a resource-intensive activity
that requires considerable time and money—two resources that all post-disaster
nations already lack and need most—non-traditional, emergent community leaders
have proven to be invaluable. They are closest to the field of action and have a
vested interest in the successful reconstruction of their city. On the other hand, the
same environment that can nurture community leadership can also become subject
to disaster capitalism: the ‘state of emergency’ can be hijacked by hegemonic
political-interest groups advancing neoliberal ideals, and disaster capitalists can try
to implant radical changes using neoliberal tactics under the guise of asset sales,
urban development, and gentrification, all at the expense of disaster survivors. In
such cases, risk-aversion is common among government administrators and NGOs
7 Conclusion 153
with political influence because they are systemically constrained to act in the
interest of the few.
Fourth, disaster’s time compression only partially explains why, from the per-
spective of risk-averse government and humanitarian aid agencies, architectural
input—considered to be prohibitively expensive, risky, and extraneous—needs to
be deferred until the very last phase of disaster recovery. Those who do get
involved at critical, earlier stages do so under circumstances that test their creativity,
resilience, and leadership. What’s more, they share an acute ability to employ
Rittelian approaches to wicked design problems that demand improvisation. For
architects in particular, the professional training in architecture has implicitly pro-
vided them with skills that are essential but are currently in undersupply in urban
disasters. These include, (1) technical competency—the ability to balance the roles
of a specialist and a generalist, and what design advocates call a ‘T-shaped’ person;
(2) flexibility—the capacity to work on details while seeing the big picture;
(3) communication skills—the ability to work in interdisciplinary context with
experts from different fields; and finally, (4) empathy—the ability to maintain of
working closely with the clients and their needs while exercising responsible
stewardship over the environment, to list but a few. Disaster architects perform
work that is similar to those by their counterparts in non-disaster mainstream
practice, but the former group is differentiated by a stronger orientation towards
social justice and community engagement as the main modus operandi and
philosophy.
Today’s design profession is more integrated than ever across all sectors: the
public, the private, as well as the community sector. What this means, as has been
demonstrated in this book, is that there is an opportunity to embrace adaptive
leadership that can recognize when lessons from the past may not apply in the
present, and to enlist non-disaster professionals to contribute to the decision-making
process. But with that also comes greater responsibility and accountability to its
stakeholders, particularly the wider public.
Design equity is as much about making professional services available to
communities in need as it is about democratizing the recovery process by thinking
more critically about the impact of how buildings, systems, and decisions are
designed. A latin adage, nihil de nobis, sine nobis, which translates to, “nothing
about us, without us, is for us” often emerges as slogans in post-disaster community
organizations to reinforce an understanding that empowerment is obtained not by
having problems solved by others on their behalf, but by being supported to tackle
many of the challenges themselves. When it comes to leadership, an adaptive one
that is responsive to the needs of the community and also the needs of the time are
essential in disaster recovery, where both management style leadership and inspi-
rational leadership have a role in dealing with the physical chaos afoot and the
ability to mobilize the resilience that is largely dormant within affected commu-
nities. Solving problems according to the values of the affected communities—
which may not necessarily be the values of the profession—is an ethical consid-
eration for professionals engaged in disaster recovery projects, and also an
opportunity to challenge the existing mores of professional practice. Design is an
154 7 Conclusion
equalizer that has the potential to re-empower communities struggling to restore

their sense of belonging and identity, and an ultimate expression of empathy.
In conclusion, design leadership in the context of urban disasters and humani-
tarian endeavors often implies intervention through design, but highly successful
post-disaster interventions are more about building resilient communities through
equity in decision-making, discovering shared competencies, values, and visions
than they are about rebuilding architecture as a destination. This is an important
reminder for those who self-identify as humanitarian designers now and in the
future, given that the legacies of our work will likely outlive those of most other
disaster professionals involved in humanitarian endeavors.
While the Rittelian approach to the wicked problems is not a panacea for the
perils of modern urban disasters, it offers a constructive framework for evaluating
the critical design decisions within them. The framework also offers a theoretical
anchor to assess other, non-critical wicked problems of our shared world, not by
claiming to provide definitive solutions to its problems, but to suggest steps to
unproblematize the ongoing challenges of urban resilience development. Fostering
resilience is about harnessing opportunities to ask questions that can challenge the
mainstream thought process. By moving away from the linear nature of most
systems thinking that dominate disaster recovery community, it is possible to make
significant gains amid the time-resource deficit environment, to seek alternative
solutions by listening to what is happening on the ground, reconciling multiple
perspectives and improvise new ways to work together, empathically.
Index
A Communication, 16, 63, 96

AFH, 48, 71, 75, 86, 140 design as, 3
Alberti, 6, 7 mis-, 33, 45, 80, 92
Altruism, 29 rumors, 38, 40
Architects Community
as last responders, 14, 19, 52, 111 voice, 72. See also voice
idealism, 126 Community design movement. See social
marginalization of, 19, 22 movement
role of, 14, 31, 50, 94, 115, 144 Community movement, 88, 136
shortcoming, 111 Community participation. See participation
Architecture Competition, 37, 60, 67
alternative practice of, 29 design, 85
and beauty, 14, 20 Conflict, 47
and politics, 110 Culture, 73, 112
as conduit, 109
memories of, 5 D
monumental, 5 Decision-making, 11, 12, 51, 88, 101
politics of, 48 Dependence, 60
principles, 7 Design, 86
professionalization of, 15 as agency, 15
standards, 112 community-based, 145
Architecture for Humanity. See AFH consequences, 28
Arnstein, Sherry, 24, 107, 135 culturally sensible, 85
definition of, 21, 26
B democratizing, 28
Build back better, 10, 34, 138 empowerment, 50, 109, 137
interpretation of, 35 imperialism, 15
philosophies of, 5 leadership.See leadership
Builders Without Borders, 14 innovation, 85
Building back better, 10 role of, 16
Building code, 64, 82 Design failure. See failure
Design thinking, 20
C Disaster
Capacity building, 11 definition of, 5, 6
Cluster approach, 62, 63 fetishization of, 5
Collaboration, 118 gendered perspective of, 8
Commodification, 19 military response to, 43

for Security Applications, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-30641-4
156 Index
Disaster (cont.) L
myths, 29, 40 Land tenure, 87
naivete, 80 L’Aquila earthquake, 16
social perspective of, 8, 142 Leadership, 41, 42, 75, 93, 94, 96, 126, 129
Disaster fatigue, 84, 143
Disaster risk M
measuring, 49 Media, 37, 40, 58
Disasters Miscommunication
and architecture, 5 mis-. See communication
Disaster subculture, 39, 58, 71 Movement, 97
Donor-driven approach. See top-down design methods, 20
approach scaling, 77, 88
Dweller-controlled approach. See user-driven
approach P
Participation, 47, 58, 97
E design as, 24
Emergent community leaders, 131. See also tokenism. Seetokenism
leadership PID, 110. See also public interest design
Empathy, 25, 145 Planning, 44, 96
Entrepreneurship, 84, 132 Professionalism, 46, 78, 105
Equity, 11, 50, 73, 109, 135 work ethics, 70
design, 50 Professionals
Expert-centricism role of, 13
risks of. See professionalization Public architecture, 14
Expert centrism, 58 Public interest design, 28, 110
challenges, 114
F
Failure, 98 R
building, 6 Resilience, 8, 11, 13
community, 49
G Resilient. See resilience
Gujarat earthquake, 13 Rittel, Horst, 20, 21, 26, 29, 35, 41, 73, 117
Rumors, 92, 93
H
Haiti, 16 S
Human failures, 92, 125 San Francisco, 5
Humanitarian design, 27 Social capital, 12, 75, 106, 132
Humanitarianism, 10, 28 Systematic failures, 29
colonialism as, 10 systemic. See failure
fragmented, 82 Systems, 144
legacy, 64 social, 4
Human rights, 10, 14 Systems approach, 31, 66
architecture as, 27 community-based, 122, 133
Hurricane Katrina, 12, 16 first generation, 22, 30
second generation, 22, 73, 102
I Systems failures, 139
Idealism, 44 Systems thinking, 20
IFRC, 57. See also International Federation of
Red Cross T
Innovation, 98, 101, 131, 144 Tied aid, 78
International Union of Architects, 15. See also Time compression, 78
UIA Tokenism, 108
Index 157
Top-down approach, 105. See also Urban resilience. See resilience

donor-driven approach User-driven approach, 30. See also bottom-up
Transparency, 79, 86, 124 approach
Trauma, 107
Trust, 97, 124 V
dis-, 103, 104 Valley of death, 27
Voice, 134, 143
U Vulnerability, 49
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 16, 104.
See also USACE W
UN, 43, 49. See also United Nations Wicked problems, 36, 93, 106, 108, 117, 118,
Declaration of Human Rights. See human 141
rights characterization of, 22
High Commissioner for Refugees, 11 disaster as, 29
UN-HABITAT. See UN objectification, 23
UNHCR, 14 operationalizing, 26
Universal human right risks, 23
design as. See human right World Bank, 13
Urbanizaiton, 68

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Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications

– Recognition and identiﬁcation (including optical imaging, biometrics, authen-

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/5540

ISSN 1613-5113 ISSN 2363-9466 (electronic)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016932748

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature

January 2016 Jean-Pierre Protzen

Change is the only constant

(Disaster) brings about social change, though not necessarily

Resilience has become a ubiquitous buzzword in recent decades as the global

Agnos, A., 39th Mayor (1988–1992), San Francisco, USA

Lucas, D., Landscape Architect, Christchurch, NZ

Part I Understanding Resilience

3.2 Societal Pathologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Part II Resilient Tactics and Strategies

6.1.3 Technical Incompetence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

AFH Architecture for Humanity

NGO Non-governmental Organization

Fig. 2.1 Eight rungs on a ladder of citizen participation

Fig. 5.4 MIRF’s house in the Lower Ninth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... 113

Design is the ﬁrst human intention.

Design, within the context of architecture, is analogous with conceptualization of

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 3

is a manifestation of human intentions. We study them to learn more about society,

1.1 Architecture and Disasters

Natural disasters that we experience in the world around us—earthquakes, hurri-

Indeed, potentially valuable interdisciplinary connections and references to

When Woods studied post-disaster buildings, he observed two distinct patterns

misrepresentation and miscommunication. In a climate of uncertainty, speculative

1.1.1 Disasters as Social Change Catalyst

Wigley argued that a crisis is a threat to an existing system in which an emergency

1.1.2 Social Orientation of Disaster Research

Current research on disasters are largely conducted outside of architecture, hosted

1.2 Dilemmas of Disaster Urbanism

1.2.1 Politics of Humanitarianism

humanitarianism as effectively “sheltering Western states from the spillover effects

1.2.2 Lessons Learned

1.2.3 Resilience as a Measure of Success

Community-centered disaster recovery may have started out as a romanticized ideal

1.3 Bridging the Gap

1.3.1 Emergence of Humanitarian Architecture Movement

from suffering caused by major social disruption—whether it is caused by war or

1.3.2 Disaster’s Last Responders

reservations about the premise of humanitarian design and Thorpe’s observations

Design is an activity, which aims at the production of a plan,

How architects have come to be largely absent in disaster recovery activities

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 19

College of Design at the University of Minnesota, attributes the profession’s

2.1 Design as a Method

2.1.1 Democratic Decision Making for Wicked Problems

Although Horst Rittel, as both a designer and a mathematician, recognized the

2.1.2 Democratizing Design

Arnstein (1969) posited that citizen participation is unequivocal to attainment of

particularly valuable. Imbalanced power dynamics or over-reliance on professionals

2.2 Operationalizing Wicked Problems

One recurrent controversy surrounding the second generation design thinking is

2.2.1 Limits of Systems and Professionals

Introducing efﬁciencies in existing systems in and of themselves do not alleviate

stakeholders, establishing equity, and empowering those without voice. Maurice

2.2.2 Disaster as a Wicked Problem

Whereas human error may be minimized through successive systemic improve-

2.2.3 Beyond Rittel: Reasserting Design as Universal