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With many natural disasters such as earthquakes, cyclones, bushfires and tsunamis destroying human habitats around the world, post-disaster housing reconstruction has become a critical topic. The current practice of post-disaster reconstruction consists of various approaches that carry affected homeowners from temporary shelters to permanent housing. While temporary shelters may be provided within a matter of days as immediate disaster relief, permanent housing can take years to complete. However, time is critical, as affected communities will need to restore their livelihoods as soon as possible. Prefabricated modular construction has the potential to drastically improve the time taken to provide permanent housing. Due to this time-efficiency, which is an inherent characteristic of modular construction, it can be a desirable strategy for post-disaster housing reconstruction. This paper discusses how prefabricated modular structures can provide a more time-efficient solution by analysing several present-day examples taken from published post-disaster housing reconstruction processes that have been carried out in different parts of the world. It also evaluates how other features of modular construction, such as ease of decommissioning and reusability, can add value to post-disaster reconstruction processes and organisations that contribute to the planning, design and construction stages of the reconstruction process. The suitability of modular construction will also be discussed in the context of the guidelines and best practice guides for post-disaster housing reconstruction published by international organisations. Through this analysis and discussion, it is concluded that prefabricated modular structures are a highly desirable time-efficient solution to post-disaster housing reconstruction.

This study aims to reframe the common concept of post-disaster reconstruction “building back better”, especially in the context of post-disaster housing design.

An Aceh post-tsunami housing reconstruction project is used as a case study with qualitative methodology through in-depth interviews of selected respondents.

The study findings have shown that the term “building back better” is not a familiar term for housing recipients. Whichever different personal background post-disaster survivors come from, whether they are housewife, civil servant, fisherman, university student, businessman or a professional, none have ever heard this phrase. All found it hard to understand the term. This study argues that the “building back better” concept is good in policy but not working in practice. As a result, housing recipients not only were dissatisfied with their new houses but also found that the new housing configurations profoundly altered their traditional way of life. In light of these findings, the paper argues that the concept of “building back better” needs to be reframed to take account of the cultural individual and communal needs and wants of post-disaster survivors.

This study discusses only one aspect of post-disaster reconstruction that is the design of housing reconstruction.

Results from this study provide a practical contribution for reconstruction actors especially designers, architects and planners. It helps them to reconsider the common concepts they have used for post-disaster reconstruction processes particularly in designing housing reconstruction projects.

This study focuses on the question of how tsunami survivors in Aceh reacted to the design of their new post-tsunami houses and what they had done themselves to make their homes a better and nicer place to live within their own cultural needs. This study also sought to understand what motivated the opinions the respondents had about the design of housing reconstruction after the tsunami in Aceh generally. In addition, the study investigated whether survivors knew the phrase and the credo of “building back better” in a post-disaster context.

The intervention of many different organizations during the post-disaster housing reconstructions could also influence the sustainability of the overall socio-ecology of the affected areas. Different approaches in design, selection of building materials and construction technologies deployed in pursuit of disaster resiliency may cause undesirable adverse circumstances to the surroundings, which escalate its susceptibility to future calamities. Therefore, this paper aims to identify relevant key indicators which interpret construction sustainability in a post-disaster housing reconstruction context, and to further investigate the dynamic interactions of these indicators on the socio-ecological system to achieve holistic sustainable post-disaster housing reconstructions.

Methodology was divided into three main stages. The first stage involved content analysis of related research materials, whereas the second stage was allocated for empirical data collection from case study and interview sessions. Data obtained from the first and second stage were then used to develop a causal loop diagram in the third stage to identify dynamic interrelationships between the indicators and the variables within a post-disaster reconstruction system.

From our results, the nexus of sustainability and disaster resilience is apparent and it is imperative to comprehend their dynamic interactions. The impacts of post-disaster reconstructions on the socio-ecological system are significant. Therefore, the adaptation of integrated sustainable construction approach in the housing reconstruction practice through system thinking will foster a holistic approach in the decision-making process and could reduce environmental damage. This also strengthens the interrelated socio-ecological systems, thus reinforcing disaster resilience in the built environment.

This research looks into the adaptation of integrated sustainable construction approach in the housing reconstruction practice through systems thinking approach. This will foster a holistic approach in the decision-making process and could reduce environmental damage. This also strengthens the interrelated socio-ecological systems, thus reinforcing disaster resilience in the built environment. This paper also looks into identifying relevant key indicators that interpret construction sustainability, which incorporate environmental, social and economic factors pertaining to the context of post-disaster housing reconstruction in Kuala Krai, Kelantan. The dynamic interrelationships and causal impacts between the indicators with other variables within the system were also established.

A disaster is a serious disruption for the operation of a society, causing extensive life and property losses. Since construction activities are highly knowledge‐intensive, knowledge management (KM) practices will encourage continuous improvement, distribute best practices, quick response to beneficiaries, share valuable tacit knowledge, reduce rework, improve competitiveness and innovations, and reduce complexities in post‐disaster housing reconstruction. Therefore, this research aims to study and explore the degree to which KM is involved in post‐disaster housing reconstruction and the effect that KM has on post‐disaster housing reconstruction in the Sri Lankan context.

The study was conducted by systematically reviewing the literature in Knowledge and KM to highlight the basic principles. Data collection mode for the study was close‐end questionnaires and semi‐structured interviews. Data were collected from donor and consultancy organisations which are involved in post‐disaster housing reconstruction in Sri Lanka.

The results show that most of the donors and consultancy organisations carry out permanent disaster housing reconstruction for tsunami devastation. Further, the study reveals that organisations use competences and repositories as the main sources of knowledge internal and external to the organisation. Project reviews, task teams, face‐to‐face interactions, and electronic mail systems were greatly used to support KM. Even though the performance of the work was improved through KM, lack of compiling and synthesizing the accumulated data, information and knowledge, storing and organizing would be the main challenge faced by these organisations.

It is evident that a more concerted and formal approach will improve disaster housing reconstruction. Since knowledge gatekeepers have extensive tacit and explicit knowledge, the organisations have to use it as a significant source. Even though the majority of the donors and consulting organisations used competencies and repositories as main sources of K, the identification and exploitation of a variety of appropriate sources are of central importance. Further, organisations have to focus more on a variety of IT tools in order to store Knowledge for future use. Since there were challenges for KM, the organisations have to identify proper solutions in order to move towards and achieve the benefits of KM. Finally, the organisations have to provide an appropriate rewards system to encourage their employees in participating in KM.

The disaster housing reconstruction will not end on a certain point and it will be a continuous process. Formal KM systems will help to improve the present state and further provide proper Knowledge in the future. There should be a standardised practice in order to improve the performance and give good value for beneficiaries. The study makes it quite evident that proper KM will improve the status of post‐disaster housing reconstruction.

A set of guidelines widely agreed by the international humanitarian aid community, such as the Sphere Handbook, is currently lacking for permanent housing reconstruction in developing countries. The paper aims to address this gap by reviewing the field and presenting a set of selected examples that offer lessons for informing, developing and promoting wider good practice.

An extensive literature review on post‐disaster housing reconstruction in developing countries pointed to the significant impacts of disasters on housing in developing countries and the great challenges involved in the reconstruction process; it also allowed identifying efforts at framing good practice guidelines by humanitarian and other agencies.

The paper finds that, while the review largely indicated the major challenges and shortcomings in the field, it also allowed identifying some examples of good practice and the reasons for their effectiveness.

As argued here, there are a number of independent guidelines for post‐disaster reconstruction in developing countries, but hardly any which are widely endorsed and can be followed by humanitarian agencies. The paper therefore draws together the key issues and examples of good practice as a basis for informing the development of guidelines.

The purpose of this paper is to advance the understanding of “resilience” by disentangling the contentious interactions of various parameters that define and guide resilience trajectories, such as the physical infrastructure, socio-spatial inequalities, path dependencies, power relationships, competing discourses and human agency. This socio-political reconstruction of “resilience” is needed for two reasons: the concept of resilience becomes more responsive to the complex realities on the ground, and the discussion moves toward the promotion of more dynamic recovery governance models that can promote socially just allocated redundancy in housing actions, which could be seen as a key to incubating resilience.

This is a conceptual paper that mobilizes theories of urban political ecology, social innovation and housing with the aim to examine the tensions between various discourses that steer housing production during post-disaster recovery processes, and put a spotlight on the heterogeneity in the transformative capacity of the various actors, institutions and visions of housing systems that preexist or emerge in the post-disaster city. This heterogeneity of actors (i.e. growth coalitions, neighborhood associations and housing cooperatives) consequently leads the discussion toward the investigation of “new” roles of the state in formulating relevant disaster governance models and housing (re)construction systems.

The initial stress produced by a natural event is often extended because of long-term unmet housing needs. The repercussion of this prolonged stress is a loss of social progress partly due to the reiterated oppression of alternative housing production propositions. In this paper, the authors conclude that an asset-based community development approach to recovery can provide an antidote to the vicious cycles of social stress by opening up diverse housing options. This means that the recovery destiny is not predetermined according to pre-set ideas but is molded by the various bottom-up dynamics that democratically sketch the final socially desirable reconstruction outcome(s).

The contribution of this paper is twofold. By using theoretical insights from urban political ecology, housing studies and social innovation, the paper first builds up onto the current reconstruction of the notion of disaster resilience. Second, by identifying a heterogeneity of “social resilience cells”, the paper leads the discussion toward the investigation of the “new” role of the state in formulating relevant recovery governance models. In this respect, the paper builds a narrative of social justice in terms of the redistribution of resources and the cultivation of empowerment across the various housing providers who struggle for their right to the reconstruction experiment.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance of post-disaster housing reconstruction projects, propose the conceptual living-transforming disaster relief shelter (LTFDR-shelter) approach where temporary shelter is incrementally transformed into a more permanent dwelling by using living technologies and investigate its applicability to provide sustainable post-disaster housing following natural-hazard-induced disasters.

A questionnaire survey with 120 household recipients of three Sri Lankan post-disaster housing projects was employed to explore how the post-disaster housing projects have performed against the occupants' expectations. Furthermore, the new proposed LTFDR-shelter conceptual approach's applicability to address the existing issues found in the study was investigated.

The paper evaluates and identifies the physical and technical, and socio-economic performance issues of post-disaster housing and discusses the applicability of the proposed LTFDR-shelter conceptual approach as an efficient tool to adequately improve the identified factors integrating three phases of relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction employing living technology.

Although the study's scope was limited to the occupant view of the performance of post-disaster housing in Sri Lanka, the findings and conceptual LTFDR-shelter approach could be of particular relevance to other developing countries affected by similar disasters. Further research is recommended to investigate and develop this concept in depth.

This study lays the conceptual foundation for a new theoretical approach in post-disaster housing, which encourages more interdisciplinary collaborations and empirical investigations that potentially enhance post-disaster housing performance and facilitates the application of living technology in the built environment.

Focusing on Rudak, a village destroyed in the Buin-Zahra earthquake of 1962 in Qazvin, Iran, this paper aims to evaluate the reconstruction of this village in terms of sustainability. Rudak reconstruction has left long-term consequences on the physical structure of the village, as some of the people refused the constructed houses and built their own ones. Hence, after more than 50 years, this village is now consisted of two physically different neighborhoods. Examining the long-term consequences of this reconstruction through comparing housing and physical structure of the two different neighborhoods contains valuable lessons in terms of sustainability because sustainable reconstruction results unveil in long term.

Using sustainable reconstruction theory as the conceptual framework, this research investigates social, economic and environmental sustainability of Rudak housing reconstruction and that leads to comprehensive lessons. The study has a qualitative method and is based on fieldwork allowing for dynamic interviews with the community. Furthermore, data are analyzed through descriptive and comparative approaches.

The research concluded that sustainability related implications of post-disaster reconstruction policies are not restricted to the time of reconstruction or a limited interval after that. Lack of livelihood considerations, providing all people with similar houses and nontransparent decisions, resulted in unsustainable consequences such as building vulnerable extensions by people, social segregation and people unwillingness for participation. However, this experience was sustainable in terms of some other factors. For example, using local materials for building the structures of the new houses, putting the houses on the natural bedrock and building public services for people were sustainable measurements.

This paper is a rare example of research focusing on impacts of post-disaster reconstruction after more than 50 years. It contains valuable lessons for planners and architects.

Earthquakes strike without warning, even though they are known to recur. It is nonetheless difficult to mobilize resources to plan for them in advance, despite the high social and economic costs that can be anticipated, and despite the humanitarian obligation to provide quality and safe housing.

This research examines two post-earthquake housing reconstruction projects in rural areas of Turkey, where different procurement strategies were used. A top-down strategy was adopted in Dinar after the October 1995 earthquake; and a bottom-up strategy, was adopted in the Orta district in Cankiri after the June 2000 earthquake in the region.

Based on information obtained from government agencies, building contractors and the projects beneficiaries, a comparison has been made between the two procurement methods. While no generalized conclusions can be drawn – as the projects were conducted in the particular circumstances that prevail in rural areas of Turkey – it is possible to highlight key factors that can properly influence future housing procurement processes.

There is a need to understand resourcing issues when reconstructing the built environment in a post‐disaster situation. The purpose of this paper is to determine the resourcing difficulties that are likely to face the international practitioners in post‐disaster reconstruction by identifying and comparing the factors that affected resource availability following natural disasters in Indonesia and China respectively.

The research methodology included field‐based questionnaire surveys, semi‐structured interviews and observations. A comparative analysis was used to extract similarities and differences with regard to resourcing approaches in Indonesia and China.

Despite the different resourcing approaches adopted in Indonesia and China in their recovery from large‐scale disasters, there are common issues facing post‐disaster reconstruction stakeholders, including competence of the implementing agencies, capacity of transportation, governance and legislation, and market conditions. Specifically, community‐related housing features played a dominant role in donor‐driven resourcing practice in post‐Indian Ocean tsunami reconstruction in Indonesia, whereas factors related to project control and management primarily contributed to resourcing performance of Chinese reconstruction specialists following the Wenchuan earthquake.

To solve resourcing problems, countries need to create an enabling environment and build institutional capacity. The cross‐cultural comparative analysis encourages policy makers and practitioners to exchange experiences from recent recovery operations.

The paper illustrates the infrastructural and institutional weaknesses that hindered effective resource procurement during post‐disaster reconstruction in Indonesia and China. The research findings show common areas in need of improvement in other disaster prone countries, along with the issues to be addressed in the donor‐led or contractor‐led resourcing practice in the two studied countries.