Learning from post-tsunami housing programme delivery, Thailand

Abstract

After the Tsunami aftermath in Thailand, many housing projects were instigated with partially or fully supporting the alleviation of communities’ accommodation and, indirectly, underpinned community-based housing design and planning concept. There have been two obvious approaches; the fully donation-based housing programme, delivered directed from the donors, and the social-based housing programme based on communal reciprocity with the assistance from local/national non-government development organisations (NGOs). Having taking part in a couple of change to the number of case studies, the author mirrors their processes and results in different settlement characteristics in terms of physical configuration, community-based organisation, and the social-relation of the community members. The paper presents three issues; 1) The patterns of housing programme delivery in post-Tsunami, Thailand; 2) a short comparison of how different housing programmes affect social relationships among the dwellers and how neighbourliness may be re-established; and 3) a discussion on positive and negative impacts of post-Tsunami housing programme delivery as well as on lessons to be learned.