Temporary Permanent

A system for post-disaster shelter, staged permanent housing  and community infrastructure.

“The 2019-20 Australian bushfires destroyed over 5,900 buildings, including 2,779 homes, and killed at least 34 people. Based on the experience from the recent disasters such as the 2019-20 Australian bushfires and Black Saturday, suitable temporary accommodation options and timely reconstruction are crucial to helping communities recover and thrive. Unfortunately, the traditional model of re-building in Australia and other countries can be extremely slow and complex.” CRC#35 Prefab Housing Solutions for Bushfire and Disaster Relief - Mid Report

Temporary Permanent studio explores the notion that post disaster shelter can be delivered as part of a longer-term system for permanent housing, community infrastructure and regional recovery. Using principles establish in the CRC #35 research project, this studio reconsiders the idea of ‘home’ across a number of stages including immediate short-term shelter, progression towards recovery, ongoing permanent home and finally broader community and civic engagement. As part of their system, students will consider and design temporary accommodation, housing (owner occupier and rental options), community spaces as well as small scale infrastructure (decks / spaces / storage / water).

The studio will explore a building process that combines prefabricated construction with a role for owner builders, DIY’s and local contractors throughout various stages. More broadly, the studio will
investigate how bushfires have affected communities across a number of regional Victorian locations - mountainous, coastal and rural – and how local conditions, regulations, transportation, available labour and materials as well as social, economic, psychological and environmental factors influence the possibilities for construction and recovery.

The realization of these ideas will be achieved through multiple methods and scales including disaster reasearch, precedent analysis into a variety of building systems, site mapping and documentation as well as architectural iterations and resolutions involving drawings, details and physical models and imagery.