Post-disaster housing: Translating socio-cultural findings into usable design technical inputs

On December 26, 2004 a 9.1 Richter scale earthquake followed by a high tsunami struck Indonesia's Aceh province. It was one of the largest natural disasters in Aceh's history and had a tremendous effect on the housing and settlement sector. Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province, was one of the hardest hit spots along with Aceh Jaya and Aceh Barat. Some 500,000 survivors lost their homes, rendering 20% of the Acehnese population homeless (Bappenas 2005). Up to 140,000 homes were destroyed or severely damaged. The tsunami disaster triggered international attention. Billions of foreign aid dollars for reconstruction were offered. Many international agencies and NGOs pitch in to help Aceh with Indonesian governmental agencies. In addition to the rehabilitation of the economy, livelihood, environment, infrastructure, health services and schools, the reconstruction of houses is the major activity of post-disaster response. The combined national and international aid resulted in large scale post-disaster housing reconstruction projects. The rehabilitation and reconstruction phase was completed in 2009. After reconstruction, 147,000 houses were built for survivors (BRR 2009), a significant achievement.