Knowledge | Architectural Recovery Team

The Workshop Week

Experts

Lectures

Firms

Concept designs

Students

Architectural Recovery Team started as a student initiative at Technical University of Delft in the weeks following the earthquakes of February 2023. Within the university, a large group of students and researchers felt a strong urgency to respond. Rather than organizing fundraisers or collecting goods, the team believed the most meaningful contribution lay in the knowledge, skills, and research capacity present at the university.

To bring this collective expertise together, ART initiated an intensive interdisciplinary workshop week from 20 till 24 March 2023. More than sixty international students, supported by lecturers, global experts, and professional partners, came together to share insights on architecture, engineering, social resilience, and post-disaster recovery. The workshop functioned as a moment of concentration: a space to listen, research, question existing approaches, and critically assess what could realistically be developed and implemented.

(Video made by AD – Redactie Delft / ANP 24-03-23, 18:12)

The Program

During the workshop, a large group of students, from different disciplines, were supported by a a great group of experts, specialists, and tutors. Together we worked on a possible architectural solution for the earthquake zone in Turkey and Syria.

We, as the Architectural Recovery Team, would like to thank all those who have helped us during the workshop week and guided our students to create and give these very inspiring projects to people in need.

A special thank you to Job Schroen, for setting up this initiative together with us and inspiring all your students, and being a part of this team.

Salah Hajismail, and Tulay Zivali for your invaluable contributions during the presentations on our first day.

Our deepest appreciation to Han Krijgsman and Jan-Carel Diehl from the TU Delft for your insights about how we can design.

We also thank USAR (Rescue Team), ACIL (Student Team Metu), and Ceren Tanrıdağlı Acardoğlu & Ekin Çıkır (Psychology) for informing us about the situation in the area from a different perspective.

The inspiring lectures on global housing by Nelson Mota, Felipe Lopez, and Muhammed Achour were great in guiding our students and enriching their projects.

Outcomes

Earthquake City Rehabilitation Strategy

Our proposal is a long-term strategy for rehabilitating an earthquake-struck city, in response to the place attachment and memory that would eventually lead displaced people to return “home”. The strategy was developed with Antakya, as a starting point for us to understand the complexities of what would be involved. However, by providing options and advocating for interaction between the Government, NGOs, local communities, and university students (among others), it is ultimately a general strategy that can be applied in various places.

Mustafa, Nada, Yasir, Yi

Community Squares

This project is based on two main ambitions. We want to facilitate the people/professionals that must get in contact with the survivors of the disaster. The second one is that we want to give something back to those people who lost everything. We want to do this is by planning a way of getting their community in a very short time period.

Esra Ipek, Martin Lejewaan, Alkiviadis Oikonomidis, Akashat Kazana

Roots

Our solution focuses on the recovery period after an earthquake, using traditional materials from the region incorporated with modern solutions to create a structure that can serve the survivors and allows for further innovation regarding the Himis. The time frame considers a short-term solution that could also be used as a long-term option to be used inside refugee camps and as a reinvented building method. The materials used are from the region, focusing on (black) pine wood to make the wooden trusses that can be filled with natural sones, reused bricks and mud bricks and binding them with lime mortar mud mortar, focusing on easy-to-reach fill-in materials. This building method also allows replacing materials when needed and adding insulation as a second step to make these shelters thermally comfortable.

Simon Sit, Saja Al Khamissi, Mucahid Tanrioven, Defne Tuga

Building the Future with the Past

“Building the Future with the Past” takes advantage of the opportunity to reuse the waste and demolished materials on site. Using these materials reduces the cost of waste of removal and landfill, the cost of buying new goods and materials, and minimizes the environmental impact of transportation. In addition, the identity and collective memory of the city could be preserved via reclaimed materials. We first identified frequently occurring components within the debris, for instance, concrete blocks, roof tiles, metal cladding, and wooden frames from doors and windows. The presence of hazardous elements such as asbestos in the debris remains a danger, and we propose guidelines for the safe handling of debris.

Magnolia Communities

The 2023 Türkiye-Syria earthquake was the most deadly and destructive in the region’s modern history. In response to the resultant population displacement, Magnolia seeks to restore individual dignity through community-centric urban planning. By offering hope during these crises, people can flourish when planted in new circumstances.

Mandana Bergman, Younes Chergui, Hasan Hashas, Anass Karaiouh, Jonathan Kaye, Raneem Musallab, Meriam Sehimi

Rebuilding Antakya

With this project we have attempted to conjure an idea for the imminent crisis happening in the south-east of Turkey and north of Syria in regards to the earthquakes removing many families from their homes. Taking the heavy-hit city of Antakya as a contextual case study, we have investigated an option of a long-term temporary neighbourhood. This would be organized in a destroyed or al- ready empty plot within the city. A smart designed modular unit would by itself function as a home, but put together can be expanded to the many functions desired, as would in an actual functioning neighbourhood. The different functions with their different sizes can be then clustered to generate the necessary privacy or brings together people which are left by themselves after the earthqua- kes took away their family. The proposed clustering plan is carefully set up to accommodate for this, while mirroring the existing street layout of the inner city of Antakya.

Tijs van der Eng, Lise Sarda, Farrah Jacobs, Takehito Yuki, Rens van Poppel

(Shelter) Town

Shelters are usually only intended as temporary solutions, whereas the reality is that they can become long-term homes. Changing the perception of shelters from temporary to long-term dwellings can provide hope, purpose and opportunities, such as developing a self-sufficient town from the shelter. The process of developing a self-sufficient town starts with building a communal centre that serves as a hub for seeking and offering help while the transformation is supervised. By involving the community from the beginning and viewing the transformation as a collaborative effort, trust can be restored in the construction process. As temporary shelters expand into multi-story earthquake-proof houses, the number of temporary shelters can gradually decrease. Installing infrastructure such as electricity, water pipes, and sewage systems can help complete the transition to a fully functional town. By working together with the local community and supervising the development, shelters can become permanent homes.

Bart Koppejan, Eveline Scheffel, Vanessa Heider, Iman Mustafa, Dost Sahingoz

PARTICIPATION INTERACTION RECOVERY

In light of this tragedy, we would like to propose a step-by-step design approach that can help rebuild the area and support the people of the region. The concept‚ ‘PARTICIPATION INTERACTION RECOVERY‘‘ involves working with the people in the affected region to create com- munities that can rebuild their own homes using their own re- sources and materials from the region. Our plan is focused on a medium to long term timeframe that is adaptable to the region‘s conditions, earthquake resistant, based on com- munity needs and ultimately cost effective and sustainable.
For our approach, we have developed a reconstruction pro- gramme that consists of two tracks that develop in parallel: 1. community development 2. development of the built environment.

Jacky Lai Olivia Nguyen Anas Abbasi Annika MayeR

Place-making to vitalize existing camps

Lots of locals have to live in refugee camp due to immediate lost of houses after the earthquake. They have to stay in the refugee camp for months to years, until their houses are recovered or new housing options are provided for them. However, the condition of exisitng refugee camps is very poor. Refugees suffer from physical and mental health due to the poor living environment. Moreover, the changing circumstances, such as movement of refugees and need of houses, can make a top-down planning in the camp unrealistic. Instead of applying new architectur- al visions and solutions which take time to develop, this idea aims to provide immediate support to refugee camp through place-making. This is done by adopting a workshop and storage space to provide local, recycled and donated materials, and to create programme and activities by producing flexible., reusable and quick-assembled struc- ture. The key of this scheme is to observe the different changing left-over spaces generated within the camp, and to provide facilities to the spaces accordingly.

SitChiManSimon

Monument

The awareness around the devastating earthquake is slowly fading away. To let the people think about what has happened will tis ‘House of One’ serve as a monument in the area. The area that has been affected is known for the diversity of people. Different back- grounds and religions live all together. In a world that is more and more polarizing, what if there is an architectural building that brings the 3 biggest monotheistic religions together and actively encourages dialogue?

Ahmed Emin Batman

** These projects are intended for inspirational purposes only and may not be shared, distributed, or used by third parties without our prior written consent. Any unauthorized use, reproduction, or disclosure may result in legal action.