Paper

Direct Housing for Post-Disaster Recovery: Design and Logistics for Alternative Solutions

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Abstract

Considered a last resort in disaster recovery scenarios, direct-housing solutions are deployed only after other housing assistance options (such as rental assistance or temporary lodging) are exhausted. Their viability and effectiveness depend on a range of interrelated constraints, from unit costs to the logistics of storage, mobilization, and installation, and from their physical resilience to the seamlessness of their social integration. A particularly impactful constraint is the 18-month time limit placed on federal disaster housing assistance by the Stafford Act, which often results in abrupt and problematic transitions. In the United States, there is not a “one-size-fits-all" solution to post-disaster direct-housing systems, due to wide variations in disaster scenarios, logistical protocols, and the intent and timeline for the housing itself. Too often, the attributes that are desirable for direct temporary housing (speed and ease of delivery/setup, low labor and power requirements, etc.) are at odds with the durability, resiliency, energy performance, and even cultural expectations associated with permanent housing. Temporary MHUs of the past, such as those supplied by FEMA after Hurricane Katrina, are illustrative of these limitations. Alternative housing solutions that exhibit promising logistics attributes, such as rapid deployability, low cost, high modularity, etc., have potential to serve as adaptable solutions from temporary to permanent housing. This paper presents in-progress research relating to alternative architectural solutions and production/delivery paradigms for flexible and adaptable post-disaster housing, ranging from volumetric modular to panelization to rapidly-assembled kit-of-parts systems. The paper concludes with a look at the current phase of this project, in which the effectiveness of recovery housing solutions is investigated through an integrated modeling and analysis framework for logistics planning and operations. This framework analyzes disaster housing solutions from a systematic perspective while drawing on converging research from multiple disciplines: architectural design, natural hazard and fragility analysis, and relief logistics network design and operations planning.

Keywords: Disaster Recovery, Direct Housing, Adaptable

How to Cite:

Albright, D., Hall, E., Song, Y., Pang, W. & Stoner, M., (2023) “Direct Housing for Post-Disaster Recovery: Design and Logistics for Alternative Solutions”, Building Technology Educators’ Society 2023(1), 246-253. doi: https://doi.org/10.7275/btes.1959