Alojamentos pré-fabricados em contextos pós-catástrofes

Abstract

The present study is developed concerning the role of architecture in contexts contrasting with its academic background, linked to the assumptions of an architecture inheriting the Vitruvian principles. From a slow evolution of the forms and built environment, we turn our attention to situations where the urgent need to shelter displaced people, as a result of natural disasters or social conflicts, puts the architecture in need of intervening quickly and in an ephemeral condition. In this context, the idea of what is essential is different from the one of our cultural environment. More than a shelter to the body, it is a way of living that is shaken, and here lies one of the main difficulties of the emergency architecture, in a quick response to shelter a body whose needs go beyond the physical and the cultural issues as well as social habits supported by their context. Being non profit an emergency response places the challenge of approaching the best solution at the lowest cost. In this context, the link between architecture and prefabrication is important by allowing effective responses, on one hand by the faster-acting due to its assemble and disassemble nature, on the other hand by the economic capacity resulting from material optimization - and consequently their transport, as well as their durability allowed by the mechanical and thermal properties of composite materials.