Conversas já giram em torno da reconstrução do Haiti. Architecture for Humanity [1] (Arquitetura para a Humanidade, en), uma empresa “não-lucrativa” de serviços de projetos que é especializada em reconstrução pós-desastres, lançou algumas notas gerais conceituais. Escrevendo no site da empresa [2], Cameron Sinclair, um arquiteto e o fundador do grupo, refere-se às controvérsias após o furacão Katrina nos Estados Unidos:
I remember vividly well-known news personalities standing on the rubble of homes in the lower ninth [New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, a neighborhood] proclaiming that ‘this time next year we will see families back home.’ Some well-meaning NGOs, who usually have little building experience, are even worse — ‘we'll have 25,000 Haitians back home if you donate today.’ In reality, here is what it really looks like:
- Pré-avaliações de Planejamento e Análise de Danos (em andamento, terá a duração de um ano)
- Estabelecer o Centro Comunitário de Recursos e Reconstrução de Studio (6 semanas a 3 meses)
- Seleção de terrenos na propriedade e posse de construção (6 meses a 5 anos)
- Transição de Abrigos, Clínicas de Saúde da Comunidade e Estruturas (6 meses a 2 anos)
- Escolas, Hospitais e Estruturas Civis (9 meses a 3 anos)
- Residência permanente (1 a 5 anos)
Os primeiros relatórios sobre os danos apontaram principalmente para as normas de construção negligentes no Haiti. No blog State of the Planet [3] [Estado do Planeta, en] do Earth Institute (Instituto da Terra), o foco estava na má construção:
Much of the rubble seen in the terrible videos we are now appallingly used to is composed of chunks of cement – and just cement. This is the style so typical of poorer parts of the world. Just cement is not enough; columns and walls should be built with high quality cement, with the right amount of sand, and sewn through with steel reinforcing bars – rebar. That’s what gives them strength. Next time you look at a video or a still image of damaged buildings in Haiti, look for rebar. I haven’t seen any yet.
Mas Adolphe Saint Louis, uma sobrevivente do tremor de 49 anos de idade entrevistada em Porto Príncipe pela New American Media [4] [en], descreve algo mais complicado do que o concreto duvidoso. Sua casa foi construída como uma série de adições, – e com vergalhões, diz ela – para manter uma família sob o mesmo teto, e compartilhar os custos da construção em família. Tornar o edifício expansível serviu a uma função importante, mas que se revelou catastrófica quando a estrutura falhou.
Maybe your child marries and they need a place to be for them and their husband. You can build just a room on the roof of your house and put a tin roof on it. Then when you have more money you can add more rooms or finish the entire floor and create a new roof for the building. That is what we did at my house. We added some rooms and a new roof to our house. There was a place for my nephew to live in the front and a large room for my daughter and her husband in the back. The way we had done it, it was so pleasant. We put many plants and flowers in pots around the side of the staircase outside because my daughter loves nature very much. She was so happy when she saw the place that we made for her. But when the earthquake came, we lost everything….The floors of the houses fell, one on top of the other.
Ela afirmou que o sistema de expansão incluia um reforço:
In Haiti, when you want to add to your home, you build on top of the roof, which is concrete held up by pillars or strong walls on the floor below. A mason builds new walls of concrete blocks to make a room or to enclose the entire area to add a new floor to the house. Some blocks have holes to allow the air to circulate and if the mason is talented he will use the blocks to make a pretty pattern or type of decorative window. The weight-bearing blocks are always solid and they have metal rebar running through the middle to support the structure of the house. When the addition is finished, the mason will leave the rebar exposed so that another floor can be added later if it is needed.
Uma nutricionista canadense vivendo no Haiti, Ellen in Haiti [5] [Ellen no Haiti, en], descreve sua entrada na casa de um amigo – identificado apenas como M – que acabara de comprar a casa construída com pedra em vez de concreto. O projeto antigo também falhara:
This house is made of rocks filled in with mud/clay and covered with something like cement or plaster, the way they were made before concrete blocks took hold in Haiti. The rocks in one wall all tumbled out, leaving the house uninhabitable. The family is living in their cooking lean-to, which has never had the luxury of four walls. Their possessions are all bundled up under the thatch roof, where they will be susceptible to rain and bad weather.