the INCREMENTAL house

Seven weeks after the disaster, a number of recent news pieces have highlighted how now is the time to begin shifting people out of the tent camps and into different kinds of housing. This has many merits but inevitably raises lots of questions. One approach that has been advocated by some is trying to get people back into their communities/homesites as soon as possible. It can begin to ween people from the dependency of the foreign aid system. As we have already seen, such camps are not set up to deal with the onset of rains, etc. Additionally, by integrating people back into their communities, they can begin to re-establish social support structures that would likely provide greater resiliency. Of course, this can only happen once the rubble is removed, or the sites are deemed safe, which is a huge challenge. A number of groups are working on this very task, providing many Haitians with some much needed cash.

Some thoughts related to incremental housing vs. traditional approaches in the case of Haiti. 1) People could get homes built initially much more quickly because they are building less. However, there would probably need to be as much planning up front. But once, a system or framework is in place, the planning doesn't have to go on and on, it can be tweaked for each place or context....without creating cookie cutter mass produced stuff. That is what is beautiful about it....it can take on a life of its own, and have individuality, culture, context, and place embedded in it without the architects designing it in. Also, like many good projects, there will need to be deep community involvement. Incremental housing would allow such involvement to exist, but keep it more focused and take up less time, which is critical in this case.

In the midst of all the devastation in Haiti, it is hard to imagine thinking about next steps, when I feel like i haven't even been able to process the initial event. Regardless, in thinking about how to rebuild, many ideas and conversations I have been having come back to the idea of incrementality. I decided to utilize this blog again to see what discussion this may trigger. Also, please check out the good work going on at wired.com. They have a great discussion about issues in Haiti http://haitirewired.wired.com/ It seems that intentionally planning projects to be incomplete, offers many advantages over those that are designed to be built all at once, namely that of time and money. Additionally, because most people in places like Haiti are already building incrementally (pay as you go), this approach offers a more potentially culturally sensitive and contextual approach. Finally, incremental growth may offer the greatest opportunity to shift the large scale redevelopment ...