Tag: foreign aid

In the aftermath of the December 2004 tsunami, an unprecedented natural disaster that disproportionately affected the impoverished and conflict-ridden eastern coast of Sri Lanka, the outpouring of disaster relief and support for housing reconstruction was primarily led by international aid organizations for the erection of capital-intensive dwellings to allow for immediate habitation. Three case studies representative of significant housing typologies deployed since the tsunami are investigated: two global prototypes sponsored by foreign aid, and one informal, vernacular construction. We argue that in Sri Lanka the aid-housing-as-commodity paradigm - which in its specificity and immutability disregards the robust tradition of integration between natural and built environments and between individual and community - represents an increasingly and unsustainably risky expenditure of capital resources due to the likelihood of more frequent disasters in coastal zones. We argue for a shift toward spatial frameworks, not static prototypes, which take into account that the longer temporal dimension of rebuilding community and housing after a natural disaster is not necessarily synonymous with expensive, structurally robust building practice.