CASE STUDY 3: Ia Broai

The Ia Broai Commune is located in a mountainous area of the Gia Lai Province, Central Vietnam (Figure 4.15). The commune has an area of 23.3 km², with a

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population of 2,857 people¹⁵. The economic structure of this commune is mainly based on agriculture, covering nearly 73%, with the rate of poor and near poor households at 23% and 15%, respectively, as reported (through rough estimates) by a commune authority staff. This commune is highly exposed to storms and floods. Storm hazards here are not only from tropical cyclones but also from local whirlwinds that frequently happen in mountainous areas. Flood hazards in this commune are not similar to the plain or delta regions, with the appearance of flash floods and stronger flows of floodwater. These two types of hazards become the most serious threats to local housing in Ia Broai. As reported by the local

authority, this commune suffers from 10-12 storms, including whirlwinds, and 3-5 floods, per year.

Figure 4.15: Location of Ia Broai Commune, Ia Pa District, Gia Lai Province (Map:

www.gialai.gov.vn, accessed April 2014)

Gia Rai people, one of the ethnic minority groups in Vietnam, are the predominant population in this commune. Their life is mainly based on

15 Sourced at the official website of the District People’s Committee at http://iapa.gialai.gov.vn/chuyenmuc/Gioi-thieu.aspx, accessed Dec 2016.

Ia Broai

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agricultural produce (rice and cassava) in the areas far from their home, around one-hour walking distance. Some households, instead of agricultural farming, moved to working in tobacco factories nearby, which were established in recent years. However, both means of livelihoods (agriculture- and factory-based) are only just adequate for paying the daily basic needs of families (i.e. food or school fees for children) and cannot help them escape from poverty. If their houses are destroyed by natural disasters, it is extremely hard for them to mobilize sufficient resources (i.e. financial, human) for full repair or reconstruction.

Figure 4.16: Houses on stilts are commonly seen in Ia Broai, a special culture of mountainous people

In this commune, local houses currently contain strong vernacular characteristics in terms of building form, structure, and materials used. Almost all local houses are in the form of timber structures sitting on wooden posts or stilts, to

accommodate various living functions above and under the timber floor separated from the ground. The main living functions, such as sleeping, cooking and eating, commonly occur on this floor, whereas the sub-functions such as storages of livestock or farming tools are placed underneath (Figure 4.17). People here have a long tradition of living on stilts (separated from the ground) to avoid unhealthy air that comes from the ground and wild animals at night. All ten interviewed

households showed their strong desire to keep this way of living (on-stilts) and traditional on-stilt houses, despite the appearance of some on-ground modern houses in this area in recent times.

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On-floor activities Under-floor activities

Figure 4.17: Sub-function of livestock-raising is put under the floor of a surveyed house

The on-stilt structure makes housing of mountainous people different from the housing of plain people whose houses are dominated by the on-ground form.

Some agencies introduced new on-ground houses to this community, but people were not interested because they still preferred living in the on-stilt houses. As observed, most of the on-ground houses provided by agencies are currently used for keeping farming tools, seeds, animals, or food rather than for living purposes (Figures 4.18 and 4.19).

Figure 4.18: An on-ground house (left) recently built near an old on-stilt house (right)

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Figure 4.19: An on-ground house (left) recently built by a local donor near a local on-stilt house (right)

However, the increasing impact of recent storms and floods has made local traditional houses (on-stilts) more vulnerable and unstable than ever before. The Typhoon Ketsana in 2009 was one of the biggest natural disasters recorded in this community. Its strong winds and heavy rains resulted in critical damage and loss to local houses and people’s livelihoods (Figure 4.20). Local farming fields (rice, cassava) were seriously damaged and many houses were destroyed by this typhoon. The commune People’s Committee said that about 100 houses were totally destroyed and nearly 300 houses were partially damaged. Most of the destroyed houses belonged to poor households who had a limited financial resource to recover and rebuild their houses after the event.

Figure 4.20: An on-stilt house temporarily repaired by its owners after Typhoon Ketsana (2009)

Meanwhile, external assistance for housing improvements was limited, except for some NGO-funded reconstruction projects with a relatively modest number of beneficiary households. In 2010, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the Vietnam Red Cross (VNRC) funded the reconstruction of 20 houses in this commune after Typhoon Ketsana (2009), known as the donor-built houses examined by this study.

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The assistance included financial and technical support to provide safe houses for the families whose houses were severely destroyed by this typhoon. The

researcher was involved in this project as an architect of the DWF organization (contracted by IFRC as the professional consultant) to provide the design of these 20 houses and construction supervision. The key technical concept applied for these donor-built houses was fundamentally based on the ten principles of storm-resistant construction provided by DWF, as mentioned earlier. However, the researcher also conducted many discussions and consultations with beneficiary households and community members to identify the housing form, the size of the house, the materials used and the roof shape, as further discussed in the next section.

On the other hand, the number of houses that were reconstructed by people after this typhoon, known as the self-built houses, was not precisely captured by the local authority, around more than one hundred as estimated by a local staff.

Although the local authority staff could not specify an exact number of the self-built houses, they believed that the number of self-self-built houses was much higher than the donor-built ones. As one respondent said:

Hundreds of households who had their houses damaged by the typhoon (Ketsana) had collected timber from the forest to rebuild their houses by themselves. We are not sure how many but I think at least one hundred new houses were self-built after the disaster here.

(FGD 1)

Therefore, post-disaster housing provided by IFRC and VNRC (donor-built) and by people (self-built) after Typhoon Ketsana (2009) is examined in the present thesis to understand opportunities and challenges faced by each reconstruction approach, and the potential to develop disaster-resilient housing for this community.

The Difference between Donor-Built and Self-Built Post-Disaster Housing As mentioned, housing in Ia Broai was seriously damaged by storms and floods.

While storms and whirlwinds are the main threats to the house’s roof and walls, annual floods make the supporting wooden posts under the house deteriorate and rot quickly. The local authority reports that Typhoon Ketsana in 2009 triggered

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winds stronger than level 12 on the Beaufort scale, with two-metre-high flooding on average.

The difference between the donor-built and self-built houses is clearly seen in the load-bearing structure, where RC skeletons were used for the donor-built houses while timber ones were used for the self-built ones (Figure 4.21). As observed, the reinforced-concrete skeleton is technically stronger and has a longer lifespan than the timber one. In addition, differences between donor-built and self-built houses were also found in the length of roof overhangs, the quality of wooden planks used for walls, and the use of connections between roof elements. Accordingly, self-built housing shows more unsafe conditions than does donor-built housing, such as the common appearance of longer roof overhangs that tend to blow off in strong winds, low-quality wooden planks, and lack of connections between roof purlins and coverings (Figure 4.22).

Figure 4.21: A donor-built house with RC frame (right) beside a self-built house with wooden frame (left) (Source: Author)

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Figure 4.22: Different technical features between self-built and donor-built houses in Ia Broai Long roof

overhangs are easily blown off by strong wind.

Short roof overhangs reduce wind impacts.

Unsecured supporting timber frame due to

deterioration of wood.

Secured supporting concrete frame.

Inadequate strong connections between roof frames and roof cover.

Adequate strong connections of roof elements.

Self-built Housing Donor-built Housing

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The difference between donor-built and self-built housing is also seen in the construction process. Although the steps to build a house appeared to be similar between the two reconstruction approaches in the two main stages, (i) structure and roof construction and (ii) wall installation, time for completing a self-built house was often longer than for a donor-built one, frequently taking one to three years for finishing the construction of a self-built house. In addition, no design service was provided to the construction of self-built housing, while architects were involved in the provision of donor-built housing. For self-built housing, the first stage of construction is the installation of a structural skeleton by timber pillars and beams with a roof on top, before proceeding to the second stage of adding wooden planks for walls. The construction period of a self-built house varies and is dependent on the actual condition of each household, frequently lasting from three months to two years in accordance with their economic capacity and the availability of accumulated materials (Figure 4.23). For donor-built

houses, due to the time limit of the post-typhoon housing reconstruction project, the construction of these houses was completed within one month on average, in which the concrete skeleton and walls were built and installed at the same time.

Figure 4.23: Similar process of construction but different duration of construction and design service between donor-built and self-built post-disaster housing

STRUCTURE & ROOF construction

WALLS installation

Stage 1 Stage 2

Self-built Housing

Donor-built Housing

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The difference between donor-built and self-built houses in terms of the construction process and time of completion also relates to housing resilience:

namely in the longer time of building construction, as seen in the surveyed self-built houses, especially for the houses whose construction crossed two years due to lacking resources for completing the construction in a shorter time. These houses are more vulnerable when the stormy seasons come, because their

unfinished structures could be easily destroyed by storm wind. On the other side, the donor-built houses which were built within one month, usually in the dry season, were surely not susceptible to storm events because no storm visited them during the construction period. This reflects another side of vulnerability of self-built households whose economic constraints hindered them from mobilising sufficient resources for constructing their homes in one period. Socially, four out of the five donor-built households interviewed were satisfactory with their houses provided by the donor after Typhoon Ketsana in 2009.

Summary

The Ia Broai Commune is located in a mountainous area of Central Vietnam, where storms and floods are the biggest hazards to local housing. Most of the commune population belong to Gia Rai people, an ethnic minority group in Central Vietnam, who prefer living in on-stilt houses. The commune sees the presence of both donor-built and self-built houses reconstructed after Typhoon Ketsana in 2009, where similarities and differences between these two

reconstruction approaches could be found. Remarkably, the form of donor-built and self-built houses is alike, where the on-stilt building structure was applied by both approaches; while the difference between them is clearly seen in the use of construction materials: namels, that timber was used for the structural frame of the self-built houses whereas reinforced concrete was for the donor-built ones. There were several reasons associated with such similarity and difference, which are further discussed in the next chapters.