Pre-Design of Transitional Rural Housing for Syria with Recycled Rubble from Destroyed Buildings

Abstract

The scale of destruction caused by seven years of on-going war in Syria has caused mass migration of the Syrian people within and outside of Syria. The situation calls for a means to provide the internally displaced persons (IDPs) within Syria with humane post-war affordable housing that can be quickly and easily built with few resources. Fossil fuel resources are not only scarce because of the war, but are also being used as a valuable commodity to finance the war economy, and thus, housing should minimize consumption of energy for heating and cooling because of the fossil fuel scarcity while providing high thermal comfort to the inhabitants. The housing parameters for the proposed solution are to integrate as much of the local building materials in the Aleppo region as possible using existing regional building traditions. Imported products such as building materials, machinery, equipment, as well as foreign labour and knowhow are to be kept to a minimum while incorporating recycled rubble from destroyed buildings. A comparative study of current disaster relief housing illustrates the appropriateness of each design solution in relation to the above-proposed housing parameters. A detailed analysis of the physical properties of an existing case study building in Dabiq, a town 40 km northeast of Aleppo, outlines the strengths and weaknesses of the building tradition to determine which aspects of the construction may be improved for better thermal comfort and resistance against earthquakes. The simulation results from WUFI Plus show the building behaviour of the case study house. This paper offers a concept for transitional single-family housing for IDPs based upon the adobe tradition in the rural areas of Aleppo. Reducing the heating and cooling loads can also drastically reduce fossil fuel requirements during the construction and operation phases of the single-family homes while maintaining a high level of indoor thermal comfort. Traditional construction techniques can potentially employ more craftspeople combined with manual labour instead of using automated systems. The relative safety of the rural areas can thus be increased, as storage and use of fossil fuels in the villages will be decreased allowing for quicker resettlement with less disruption from war.