Handbook on Good Building Design and Construction: Aceh and Nias Islands

Published by the UNDP Regional Center in Bangkok and The Secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction available at TAO Resource Center or download at UNISDR

This handbook is a simple guide on proper design and construction of houses that provides basic but important information on how to make a disaster resilient house. The best thing about this handbook is that photos were given as examples of good and bad building design and construction methods. All the photographs that were used for this handbook were taken during the reconstruction of Aceh and Nias Islands. These islands were greatly devastated by the great tsunami and earthquake of December 2006.

The content of the handbook can easily be understood by home owners, designers, and builders. It is divided into two parts namely, the design principles and construction and materials principles. This handbook is short and contains more photos than text so readers will not get bored reading it. It even has a house building checklist that the readers can use to assess their house. Over-all, this handbook is very useful to people with no technical background but would like to know more about good building design and construction which they can apply at their own houses.

What to consider in developing seaside settlements

Architects, engineers and planners should take scientific data and practical information on water-related natural phenomena (tides, wave action, typhoons, storm surges, tsunamis) into consideration when developing settlement areas, according to Dr. Laura David, Deputy Director for Instruction of the University of the Philippines Marine Science Institute. She emphasizes that the Philippines is an island country where land is not limitless and 67 percent of Filipinos live close to the seas and ocean, and that consequently, these have implications on how we develop our built environment. Dr. David presents the following practical guidelines for designers, planners and developers:

• Tides are actually related to earth’s distance from the sun and moon. This means that when doing site assessment, the best time to visit a site is during a full moon in the period between the late December to early January because the tides are at its highest level.(January is the month when the sun is closest to the earth.) One can see the effects of tide especially in coastal areas at full moon.
• Wave action creates areas of embayment and protrusion in coastal land forms. It is considered better to locate a building site at the area of protrusion since embayment areas are constantly eroded by wave action.

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About one million hectares of the Delta is inundated by more than a meter of water every year. Learn how the Vietnamese government has tried to manage this natural phenomenon

By Arlene Christy Lusterio

“Same same but different,” is the common Vietnamese phrase that means similar but not the same. In many aspects, the Mekong Delta of Vietnam looks similar to rural Philippines: the wide expanse of rice fields, raw dirt roads, and friendly faces of rural folks that greet strangers like me. My quest to understand and search for meaning and justification to the ever expanding informal settlements along waterways in the urban centers of the Philippines brought me to this neighbor in Asia, a country with a long history and a surviving culture of living with water, Vietnam. Read more »