symposium presentation

This link will take you to a video montage of the presentation given at the Urban Emergencies Symposium, that was held at TU Delft this last summer.

thank you all

URBAN EMERGENCIES _team indonesia would like to thank all for attending the symposium and exhibition this last week, and we would like to express our gratitude for the very usefull feedback you have been giving us. Thank you, we hope to see you again at the oncoming Urban Emergencies book presentation, presumably at the Rotterdam Architecture Biennale this coming september.

(TU Delft - Urban Emergencies exhibition - image: Els Mollen)

exhibition and symposium

Please let us invite you to attend the following two events in the Netherlands at the Architecture faculty of the Technical University Delft, where we will elaborate on our findings in Aceh. We hope to see you there!

harbor

_introduction
Pak Faisal Ridwan introduced us to another Acehnese engineer: Subhan Muhammad, who is currently developing strategies for a possible role for Aceh in the global shipping market, as his PhD research at a Malaysian university. This text attempts to summarize our interactions with Subhan.

(the Dutch harbor at Pulau Weh - image: http://www.group.abnamro.com/about/history/themes/history/sabang2.cfm)

_interview
When talking with Faisal about the regional planning and the possible future scenarios for Aceh, he asked us if he could introduce us to a friend of his; Subhan Muhammad. Subhan had asked him if we would be willing to be interviewed by him on the construction of an Acehnese big scale shipping harbor as a potential future scenario. We agreed to meet at the UNDP office in Banda, the 14th of May 2009. Subhan and Michiel sat down to talk for about an hour.

One of the main reasons Subhan requested this interview, was his desire to be able to test his lines of thought on the topic in an open discussion with foreign educated spatial planners, him feeling restrained by the feedback he receives from local (more politically restricted) conversation partners. Our team’s origin in the Netherlands, with Rotterdam harbor as part of its everyday knowledge, he considered a possible added value to the conversation.

Michiel explained the potential he recognizes in Aceh: “The province obviously has a rather poor populace, with a quite modest level of education, wages are low (minimum wage is around 1 million Indonesian Rupiah a month, say one hundred US $ a month) and the unemployment rate is rather high. Unemployment will even rise significantly the coming period with the departure of the many tsunami reconstruction agencies. Despite the grim circumstances this depicts, it also illustrates the presence of a large and growing potential; being a vast and cheap labor force. Exactly the thing you would need when constructing and operating a global scale shipping harbor. So both short term and long term livelihood possibilities will arise when developing a harbor.

(the SS Sumatra at Sabang harbor - image: http://www.group.abnamro.com/about/history/themes/history/sabang.cfm)

Secondly the city of Banda Aceh is historically seen one of the key geographical positions in the world, especially in shipping. Through the centuries it has functioned as the seafaring doorway (‘Banda’ literally meaning doorway) to the endless natural resources of Indonesia and the Malacca Strait leading to the destinations further to the East. Frequented by Arab, Chinese, Portuguese, British, Dutch, and Japanese traders and occupation forces, the many shipping routes passing by its doorstep led to great wealth in the city during the 17th century and the spread of Islam into Asia. Singapore nowadays owes its prosperity to its fairly similar setting. Earlier on in time the Dutch had recognized the strategic naval position of Banda Aceh, and because of it constructed a supply base and harbor on one of the small islands right off the coast of Banda Aceh early 20th century. Unfortunately the outbreak of World War II and the Japanese invasion of Indonesia brought massive destruction there and hindered any future larger scale shipping developments for Banda Aceh.

With this historical chain of events underlining the strategic naval potential of this location, a third argument speaking for the development of a harbor is that the timing for considering massive harbor developments might just be perfect. The tsunami redevelopment period has left Aceh’s governance in a rather strong financial position, allowing them to speculate on ambitious big scale interventions like the construction of a global shipping harbor. As an added bonus the tsunami recovery also brought peace to Aceh, and a high influx of foreign organizations. This enabled the world to develop a much more sophisticated look into Aceh, which through the previous decades of armed conflict had known virtually no foreign involvement. So now the door to the world is open, it should be much easier to get foreign parties interested in developing a global scale shipping harbor. Sumatra itself offers a range of natural resources, which might find their way to world markets much easier from its geographically well positioned most Northern tip.

An immediate threat to the functionality of a harbor in Aceh, is the infrastructural connection with the hinterland. Aceh has just a very basic road structure connecting it to the rest of Sumatra, leading straight through the city of Banda Aceh itself, and there are neither mayor waterways nor rail systems. So as is, there is no bulk goods transport possible from the land to the harbor and vice versa. Either the costly construction of such a specialized cargo infrastructure would have to be incorporated in the development of a harbor, or, the harbor should be able to sustain itself without actually exchanging cargo with Aceh. The latter implies making the harbor to just operate on cargo transfer and refueling, losing the economical benefit of export trade for Sumatra. When discussing where to position the harbor in Aceh, it might be beneficial to locate the harbor close to where the labor force is, so no large personnel movements, consuming time and energy, are needed. ‘Next to or in Banda Aceh’ would be the logical answer from this perspective.

Aside from the transportation over land, a second threat might be the accessibility of the waterways leading to Aceh. If there is no passage from West to East allowing the present day bulk cargo carriers, with their 20+ meters depth, to pass, it is rather likely they will seek different shipping routes, ignoring Aceh.

(the harbor area of Banda Aceh right after the 2004 tsunami - image: http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/banda_aceh_after.jpg)

With the 2004 tsunami still fresh in our minds, we realize Aceh might be heading for another mayor natural event, like an earthquake or even another tsunami. How likely is an event like that to reoccur in Aceh? How well can a newly developed harbor be protected from a future catastrophe, and how far will the investments needed for these measures leave the development of the harbor feasible?

Aside from accomplishing the complex development of a global scale harbor, its operational existence should also be looked at. Maintenance, staff, room for new investments in equipment, you name it. Shipping is an expensive business. How is the global bulk cargo shipping market evolving? Increasing? Decreasing? What are the future prognoses? Will Aceh harbor be able to pay its bills? Will Aceh even be able to compete with its nearby rivals like Medan, or shipping titans like Singapore? If Aceh in the end can offer its cargo services cheaper than the others in that market can, the answer to these last two questions may just be yes.”

aftermath

_introduction
While doing our research in Banda Aceh, we are kindly hosted by the UNDP Waste Management Group, under leadership of Nigel Landon. He has generously allowed us to use his office space during our stay in Indonesia. This is where we have met pak Faisal Ridwan, Program Officer (Equipment) within this UNDP unit, former Oxfam employee and native from Banda Aceh. He has been helping our research significantly, by providing us with several reports on the tsunami recovery process, photographs he made himself, and by joining us in conversations on this convoluted topic. This text attempts to summarize the insights coming from our interaction with Faisal.

(downtown Banda Aceh, 5 min. before tsunami - image by Faisal Ridwan)

_boxing day 04
Faisal described the commotion right after the massive earthquake preceding the December 26th tsunami in 2004. He at that moment happened to at home. Realizing many buildings must have collapsed he headed to downtown Banda Aceh on his motorbike, and had his photo camera with him. The pictures he took show many people in the streets, amazed by the force of the quake, looking at the 5 story hotel that turned 4 stories, and the 4 story supermarket that turned 3 stories. The bottom stories just seized to exist, and my guess is the same goes for the people that were in there. The rest of the buildings look battered and beaten, with cracked columns and cantilever shaders broken off. Within five minutes after the severe shock people came rushing by, yelling that “the water is coming”. Faisal got on his bike and raced inland, not knowing exactly what he was running from, trying to reach his family and get them to safety. Fortunately he, unlike many many others, succeeded.

Six hours after the tsunami hit, Faisal and his wife return to their home, hoping they would find milk and diapers for their nine month old daughter, forgetting about their own needs. They find all their doors knocked out of the walls, their furniture trashed, knee-deep mud throughout the house and visible on all walls a waterline at 1.5 meter high. Faisal and his family were spared, but now faced new threats. They had attempted to clean up for a couple of hours when they realized they could not stay in the city, where disease and lack of supplies would soon reign. Their house flooded, their devastated city rapidly turning into a biohazardous menace, with thousands of dead people lying around. They had to leave this place, so headed to the house of a relative. Many others had done the same, meeting there.

(downtown Banda Aceh after tsunami - image by Faisal Ridwan)

_the days after
There are no words to describe the images Faisal showed me that he took in Banda Aceh the days right after the tsunami. I’ve looked at them almost a month and a half ago, and now writing about it makes me nauseous, shaken up and baffled all over again. The Krueng Aceh river that flows through downtown, stashed up with an endless ten meters high pile of blackened dead people, mangled up in building debris and fishing boats. Streets filled with mud, debris, toppled cars and more dead people. Buildings bashed into rubble. Black water everywhere. Indescribable. Unforgettable.

Banda Aceh rapidly turned into a ghost town, with more than a third of its inhabitants killed, and the rest of them on the run from the approaching epidemic in the traumatized cityscape. The Indonesian national army rushed in to stop the people from the surrounding villages pillaging the abandoned houses and stores. Surprisingly the same was done by their sworn enemies from the Acehnese separatist army GAM, who left their hideouts in the mountains to come and help. Apparently the incomprehensible dimensions of this disaster made the combatants forget to fight for the first time in over thirty years.

Aside from the numerous dead, there were many injured, often severe, but there was no medical care available. Faisal told me he went driving around the city with an injured lady on the back of his motorbike, searching in vain. Two days later she was dead. He and his family decide to use the last bit of gasoline left in their car to get them to safety with relatives in the city of Sigli, 120 kilometers east of Banda.

_upwards
Faisal and his brother wanted to help, realizing they were not the only ones looking for baby supplies in Banda. While the armies made a start with clearing the city, Faisal’s brother started transporting fuel and instant foods to Banda and Faisal focused on bringing baby and feminine supplies. He came in contact with more and more people wanting to apply the money they had into helping the population, making his initiative almost develop into a NGO. Banda Aceh by now had been noticed internationally, and pushed by the overwhelming amount of money raised globally to help the tsunami victims, the city was gradually invaded by almost five hundred help organizations. This made Faisal meet with Oxfam, and he started working for them to extend his aid work, supplying the city with new water and sanitation systems, and later with shelter. After quite some time with Oxfam he transfers to UNDP, where he still works today.

Now, after almost four and a half years of working in tsunami relief, he is thinking maybe this year will be the last. He will have to go back to his original profession in building construction. But before that, he has the wish to further study engineering. He has noticed the need for proper engineering skills to help develop Aceh and make use of the growth potential with all the natural resources Aceh has. Hopefully his savings and some luck will take him to one of the colleges in Malaysia, Australia or even Delft at some point.

(Lhok Nga after tsunami - image by Faisal Ridwan)

_in general
It took just a few days before the international community realized the full extent of the destruction in Aceh, but to the survivors those days seemed ages. No drinkable water, no food, no shelter, no sanitation, circumstances grown ups can deal with for a day or two, but babies, elderly, handicapped and the ill are seriously threatened by. Especially these more vulnerable people require immediate attention, otherwise the chance of them perishing in the aftermath of a disaster is considerable.

Looking back at the recovery process from the tsunami, it is obvious that the physical transport of goods into a disaster area anywhere in the world is time consuming, and the first aid attempts will have to be undertaken on a small scale by the locals. The same lengthiness goes for gathering sufficient funds and organizations available for the recovery and reconstruction. Because money and effort is gradually coming in from all over the world, the web of aid agencies in Banda Aceh got very very complicated. Then the coordination agency established by the Indonesian government a good four months after the disaster (BRR) encountered the impossible task of unraveling this complex knot. Because of this needless complexity of the aid structure, a lot of aid effort has gone to waste to senseless initiatives.

With the limited means and people available in a disaster struck area right after the disaster has hit, it is very difficult to develop a clear image of what type of help is needed, and, equally important, of what type of help is available locally. It might therefore be a good idea to always have an international specialist team on standby, ready to be flown in anywhere in the world where instantaneous aid coordination is needed. Their task would be nothing but mapping the local supply and demand of aid, and communicating this picture clearly to anyone involved. Apparently the same development can be recognized in the aid work as we have seen in the way armies work; to be able to win battles the emphasis gradually shifts towards intelligence.

vacant reconstruction houses

_looking into vacant reconstruction housing in Banda Aceh: Striking is the high number of unused houses in Banda Aceh and Aceh Besar. These houses have been constructed within the last five years, as part of the 2004 tsunami recovery process. We realize they represent a massive physical and financial investment, largely done by the international aid communities, and that investment is not serving its cause as is. The city and villages have received a form of new capital, but aren’t able to make use of it. We’d like to find out what is causing the high vacancy rate and define possible solutions to have Aceh actually benefitting from these riches.


(Image by Stephanie van Rappard)

_possible scenarios leading to vacant housing: There are three main themes that can be distinguished when talking with the locals and reading the many reports on the recovery process:

- housing of poor quality (structurally, appearance, size, uncompleted construction, functionality, not suiting the needs of the targeted users, …)

- housing produced in vain (multiple NGO’s attempting to do the same job, no actual existing inhabitants, miscalculation or misinformation, …)

- dysfunctional urban structures (lack of livelihood, lack of facilities like schools and healthcare and shops, lack of utilities like water and electricity, poor infrastructure, poor spatial layout, …)


_quotes from ‘the acehnese gampong – three years on’, a report by acarp: This very useful report from December 2007, written by Bryan Rochelle and Craig Thorburn, in a collaboration of the Australian Government, BRR, UNDP, Oxfam, Muslim Aid, CRS, World Bank and Syiah Kuala University, called ACARP (Aceh Community Assistance Research Project) gives a clear image of the mechanisms within the tsunami recovery of Aceh, and also points towards possible reasons for unutilized reconstruction real estate.

page 161
“To reiterate the most significant findings relating to social capital identified in the survey villages, frequent and regular village meetings help build trust in the community, and engender increased trust of local government leaders as well. The availability of conductive facilities for community meetings and deliberation is an important early priority for communities recovering from disaster. Other venues for gathering and association, including markets, sporting fields, mosques, musholla and meunasah, are also vital to communities’ successful recovery.”

“Village communities that were able to reunite physically and spatially during the early phases of the recovery have tended to recover more quickly than those whose members were dispersed among several emergency settlements. Those that were able to return to barracks or temporary housing in their own villages, or in the case of relocation villages, move quickly to their new location, have recovered more rapidly than those that could not, both in terms of physical progress and the re-establishment of social structures and networks.”

page 165
“A fundamental flaw characterizing much livelihood aid in Aceh has been lack of imagination – exemplified by the preponderance of sewing, baking and embroidery programs for women, and by donors’ infatuation with micro-credit and revolving fund programs. This sort of supply-side economic development programming is largely taking place without any analysis of markets or of new economic opportunities that are being created by changes taking place in the region. Acehnese villagers have demonstrated considerable savvy in identifying and exploiting opportunities created by recovery aid and its multipliers – demonstrated by their rational choice to maximize household incomes through construction and contracting work, rather than return to agriculture. Donor-supported livelihood programs could benefit from a similarly adept reading of Aceh’s changing economic landscape.”

page 166
“Housing provision has proven to be the most problematic facet of the entire tsunami recovery effort in Aceh. In the ACARP survey villages, the most common complaint has been over delays in construction, followed by issues of quality and design, often exacerbated by poor communication between the housing recipients. (…) Other problems that presented in the survey were a small number of cases of individuals receiving more than one house…”

page 167
“There are a number of important findings that fall more within the scope of this research project. The first of these is that early provision of temporary housing at village sites provided an important impetus to the recovery of those communities. Not all communities have shown a preference for leaving the convenience and amenities of the barracks to return to their village – particularly if the village still lacks electricity and/or clean water – but those that have, are moving ahead into recovery more rapidly than the communities with large numbers of people still living in barracks. A second finding is that (temporary or permanent) housing construction programs that engaged local community members in planning and construction proceeded more quickly and experienced fewer complications than projects taking a ‘turn-key’ approach.”

“Many of the survey villages were provided Village Spatial Plans. This is an extremely laborious and expensive process, but one that has proven to be extremely useful in the villages where these plans have been followed. After the effort invested, and the level of community involvement in producing these plans, it seems counterintuitive (and counterproductive) that these important planning documents have subsequently been disregarded in the majority of survey villages. This includes cases where BRR has elected not to build according to Village Spatial Plans that it commissioned and paid for.”

page 168
“Also, small scale infrastructure projects that support resumption of productive and commercial activities – access roads connecting communities to fields and groves, fish landing and boat maintenance and production facilities, market places – show much greater cost effectiveness than many other forms of livelihood and economic development support.”



_follow-up: Now we are able to understand the processes giving shape to the tsunami recovery period a lot better, we are ready to connect those insights to the spatial dimension. The next thing on our agenda is going into the field, mapping the actual vacant houses, and along with that talk with the local people, trying to sharpen the hypotheses on possible scenarios leading to housing vacancies coming from the text above. More results coming soon.

Banda Aceh map

This map will serve as a basis for our analysis of the urban networks within the city of Banda Aceh.

Lhoknga tsunami damage

This diagram shows examples of visible tsunami damage in the village of Lhoknga (Aceh Besar) 4 years after the tsunami. Photo's of a new bridge and the tsunami-alarm have been included.
In several places the floors and foundations of wiped out dwellings leave undefined public spaces.

Lampuuk tsunami damage

Space Syntax

This is our first axial analysis of Banda Aceh.
The thin colored lines represent all streets, from narrow sandy ones to the main roads of the city. The red (dark orange) lines show the streets with the highest integration values, while the blue ones are the most segregated axes. These values have been calculated by the software of Depthmap.
In a layer on top of this axial map, the thick red and pink lines show which parts of the city have been hit by the tsunami.



The pre-tsunami axial map is identical to the post-tsunami one. We think this is due to the following:

- The flat infrastructure hasn’t been damaged much by the big horizontal forces of the tsunami.
- Because of their slight elevation (constructed in that manner for drainage to the open sewer system and rice paddies) roads became one of the first visible remaining structures when the water (and debris) pulled back.
- New houses were built on locations according to land tenure. This gave no room for radical new planning of infrastructure.

While the axial structure of Banda Aceh hasn’t changed after the tsunami, the built up area has. We have seen several parts of the city that show foundations and tiled floors of destroyed houses, creating new ‘undefined’ voids in the urban structure.

March 19th

A lot has happened the last days, on multiple levels related to our presence here in Banda Aceh.

On the basic level of operational requirements, we’ve been able to almost completely finish our ‘to-do’ list. First of all we finally changed our vastly overpriced hotel for a much more affordable house, located on the border of Banda Aceh and the Aceh Besar outskirts, located closely to the road to Meulaboh. The house is on a gated complex of six houses overlooking the rice paddies, inhabited by Acehnese families. We’re still in the process of getting internet established in the house, but as with anything in Indonesia, the mechanism of ‘rubber time’ applies, so no idea when we’ll have it. But overall one could say we’ve finally settled in. Photo by Michiel Mollen

Secondly we’ve arranged another 125cc motorcycle, a simple task that turned out to be not so easy, in a city without any motorbike rental companies. Even though none of us has a motorcycle driving license, the two motorbikes are the most safe, efficient and economic way of getting around the city. The ‘becak’ rides with three passengers (a motorcycle with side cart taxi) are to be called far from comfortable; its drivers never seem to know a single address in Banda Aceh. This also goes for the largest part of the regular cabdrivers, who additionally will try to charge the same cab fares as in Holland. Motorbikes it is.

More directly related to our research we’ve been able to set up office with the UNDP at the office of the Governor of Aceh, thanks to Raji Oji’s contact within UNDP. Nigel Landon kindly took us on board, allowing us access to many UNDP facilities, including their mapping department. The official address of the office is:

U N D P
3rd floor, Gedung ex-Biro Keuangan
Kantor Gubernur NAD
Jalan T. Nyak Arief No. 219
Lampineng - Banda Aceh
Indonesia


@ UNDP

Meanwhile we’ve also opened our research track by initiating direct contact with local parties, who already have been able to grant us access to many of the needed data and maps. We managed to meet in person with the Chief Operating Officer of the agency responsible for the overall coordination of the redevelopment of Banda Aceh and Nias, the BRR (Badan Rehabilitasi dan Rekonstruksi), Eddy Purwanto. He explained during a two hour meeting how the BRR hopes to become an example to the rest of the world in dealing with post disaster redevelopment. Mr. Purwanto made clear that they’ve been able to break loose from an Indonesian history of inefficiency and corruption, gaining much more effect from the same dollar. They reduced overhead costs from over 20% down to just 4%, by just hiring staff on local salaries, in that way deminishing career opportunism and guaranteeing personal dedication. Over 60% of staff was hired locally, the rest coming from the numerous NGO’s. Project tendering was now completely open, allowing the BRR to escape from the earlier practice of illegal price agreements and reducing tendered sums with 20%. Being able to show to the donors that their money was spent wisely, generated enough goodwill and trust to enhance the willingness to help. A positive spiral was initiated. Another remarkable step taken by BRR was putting aside the blueprint Jakarta had developed for the Banda Aceh redevelopment. It turned out its objectives were lacking practical feasibility, developed from a top down perspective. Purwanto said “enough of this”. For instance the plan to move all coastal dwellers inland by three kilometers would have meant all fishermen ended up living high up in the mountains. BRR decided to develop alternate strategies in close collaboration with the tsunami survivors and the present NGO’s. Instead of looking for specific goals to accomplish and trying to find the means to accomplish them, BRR took a much more successful reverse approach by making an inventory of available resources, manpower and knowledge and constructing ad hoc solutions from it. Another fact recognized by BRR was the necessity to safeguard the trust of the population, preventing to be sent away from the aid process. Despite the criticism the UE Indonesia team has heard on BRR, the team embraces the intentions and efforts made by this agency, aware of the fact that anywhere where work is being done, errors are being made.

In the meantime we’re constantly being introduced to new people, either from UNDP or local officials. We have free access to the database of the SIM-centre of Banda Aceh. They are situated in the building next to our office and can provide us with all available kinds of demographical and geographical data. The coming days we’ll sieve through the most of it, and see what is of actual use in our mapping process. We’ve already made a good start with analyzing the city with Space Syntax. The results of this we’ll publish fairly soon.

great expectations

I imagined...
Long rows of brand new single family houses, all the same colour, all the same size. A pristine, freshly constructed 'vinex'-like atmosphere. A diversity of economical identities. No significant participation of women in the society.

I see...
All these different houses scattered around town. I know they're brand new, but damaged by dirt and humidity, some of them look over 50 years old. I try not to slip in the mud and avoid the holes in the pavement exposing the sewer system. I smell spices, rotten fish and poo. The sounds of traffic and prayers coming from the mosques are all I can hear. Dirty skinny cats with broken tails roam the streets of Banda Aceh. Little Nokia shop, noodle place, little Nokia shop, noodle place, little fruit shop, noodle place. Half of the election billboards are showing female candidates.

In the end of May 2009 I will see...
Differences in the age of houses. I can easily seperate the post- from the predisaster dwellings. I think it's going to rain today. I notice this lady not wearing a headscarf. Did they build a new house at this corner? And where is that little red cat? Hey, CARE has left. Until when will the UNDP be around? Stephanie, hurry up, afternoon prayer will start in a few minutes.

Photo by Michiel Mollen

culture clash

This map we found on the internet while searching for already existing information on Aceh. It clearly illustrates the difficulties arising when vaste numbers of foreign aidworkers pour into a much different culture than their own.

itinerary: impressions of first 3 days (including Kuala Lumpur stop-over)

Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur - Petronas Towers
photo by Stephanie van Rappard

Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur
photo by Stephanie van Rappard

Indonesia - Banda Aceh - local architect Safwan Yusuf
photo by Stephanie van Rappard

Indonesia - Banda Aceh - power generator ship, left 4 km inland by tsunami
photo by Stephanie van Rappard

Indonesia - Banda Aceh - view from power generator ship
photo by Stephanie van Rappard

Indonesia - Banda Aceh - on top of power generator ship
photo by Stephanie van Rappard

Indonesia - Banda Aceh - Ulee Lheue - new japanese built ocean front protection
photo by Stephanie van Rappard

Indonesia - Banda Aceh - "selamat makan!" :)
photo by Celine Bent

Indonesia - Banda Aceh - traces of dutch presence
photo by Celine Bent

Indonesia - Banda Aceh - school uniforms
photo by Stephanie van Rappard

Indonesia - Banda Aceh - business is non-stop for local architect Safwan Yusuf
photo by Stephanie van Rappard

Indonesia - Banda Aceh - 'Kerckhof' cemetery reminding us all of Aceh's long war torn history
photo by Celine Bent

Indonesia - Banda Aceh - 'Kerckhof' cemetery reminding us all of Aceh's long war torn history
photo by Celine Bent

Indonesia - Banda Aceh - downtown after the rains
photo by Stephanie van Rappard

Indonesia - Banda Aceh - river 'Krueng Aceh' runs through downtown
photo by Stephanie van Rappard

Indonesia - Banda Aceh - continuous infrastructure construction works around the city
photo by Stephanie van Rappard

Indonesia - Banda Aceh - many coffee and tea bars around the city, where you can find your Tehbotol
photo by Celine Bent

Indonesia - Banda Aceh - a multi layered view on downtown: no highrises on the skyline _ central mosque _ run-down housing block _ undeveloped plot of land _ drainage construction works
photo by Stephanie van Rappard

Indonesia - Banda Aceh - downtown Mesjid Baiturrahman and Pasar Aceh
photo by Stephanie van Rappard

Indonesia - Banda Aceh - minarette of Baiturrahman mosque
photo by Stephanie van Rappard

Evolutionary Map

Video: Playing between elephants (UN)

Workplan |Draft|

Excercise with GPS in centre of Delft

Responsibilities within the team

Celine: GIS, Treasure, Contacts

Stephanie: Pictures, Weblog up to date, Literature up to date

Michiel: Space Syntax, Security, Supplies & Materials

Research Focal Point |DRAFT|

The last couple of weeks we've gained a huge amount of information through lectures, workshops, readings and research on related topics and more specifically on the disaster response in Banda Aceh. Based on these explorations we've generated some draft hypotheses and sub questions, these express our preliminary goals and fascinations.

We assume certain opportunities are created in an urban structure by (natural) disaster. Shelter response as it exists today, might not be utilizing these new prospects to their fullest. We choose to take a different approach in developing post disaster shelter, by starting to reason from the demand side, as opposed to reasoning from a supply perspective.

Hypothesis 1

The recovery process of Banda Aceh after the Boxing Day 2004 Tsunami has been accelerated by the survival of specific built structures.
Sub questions:

- Which specific built structures (electricity networks, water systems, dwellings, public buildings, bridges, infrastructure, etc.) have survived?
- What were the functions of these remaining built structures within the networks (social, economical, environmental and spatial) both before and after the Tsunami?

Hypothesis 2

The 2004 Tsunami has generated room for, and acceleration in the development of the functioning of certain urban systems in Banda Aceh.
Sub questions:
- Which voids in the urban fabric have been created by the 2004 Tsunami ?

- Which of these voids have enabled the evolution of urban systems?
- What urban systems have evolved in the voids left by the 2004 Tsunami?

Preliminary research on the island Nias tsunami

Map Banda Aceh

Grotere kaart weergeven