Natural disasters: how can we improve?
Panel discussion with Martin Bell OBE, Dame Barbara Stocking (Oxfam GB) & Cameron Sinclair (Architecture for Humanity)
May 25, 2010
Royal Geographic Society, 1 Kensington Gore, London

A mixed and studious crowd gathered at the Royal Geographic Society last week, exuding a slightly nervous goodwill as we waited for latter-day saints Cameron Sinclair, of Architecture for Humanity, and Dame Barbara Stocking, of Oxfam GB, to be introduced.

Natural disasters have long and often been the cause of major political reform, international cooperation and the coming together of intellect and humanity. However, with events occurring at a larger scale and greater frequency than previously witnessed, the need to galvanize and channel our energies seems more urgent than ever.

Panel chair, fêted journalist and erstwhile MP Martin Bell OBE first met Cameron Sinclair while reporting on the violence in Kosovo in the early ’90s. Set up in 1999, AfH engages in building activities, supplied pro-bono by volunteers, in communities of need – defined not only by crises but also including those beleaguered by endemic or sustained poverty. A genuine fairytale of an organization, garnering adoration and disdain in (not quite) equal measure, AfH nonetheless prides itself on somewhere near 5,600 volunteers from over 83 cities, and cynicism notwithstanding, does some amazing reconstruction work.

Behind the cuddly organization and camera-friendly baby face, Sinclair exhibits jaws of steel, using military terminology abundantly; volunteers undertake a “tour of duty,” services are measured “on the ground” and in terms of strategy and impact, and not simply as aid packages to be “air-dropped in.”

Tugboat vs. Ocean Liner
Not for the first time, Sinclair pulled out his analogy of tugboat vs. ocean liner, in his demonstration of the agility of a NGO operating as a small, nebulous and peripatetic network. Perhaps this mentality is best demonstrated by the TED-funded Open Architecture Network, which utilizes open-source innovation to develop and host designs; in three short years of activity, the OAN shares thousands of design projects under creative commons licensing, from the prosaic to the outlandish, across the globe.

The flipside is that whilst tugboat AfH may well be more nimble and efficacious at community level, ocean-liner Oxfam, due to its size and longstanding relationships with organizations such as the UN, weighs in at the criticial stages of advocacy and government policy. Though the effects of grassroots activity can filter up and effect change, such change must be established at the level of national governance to become sustainable rather than spontaneous or sporadic.

Dame Stocking emphasized that protective measures need to be embedded in local governments and societies as well as at the national level; a predictable but no-less urgent agenda for action included pushing for climate change goals to be met, particularly in the cutting of greenhouse gas emissions, as agricultural societies are placed in greater jeopardy than ever. Governance at the national level needs to become more porous and engaged with disaster management, taking responsibility for aid management and crisis protocol, activating local and social networks; foremost though, year-round disaster risk reduction needs to be acknowledged and given much higher priority both by governments and humanitarian organizations such as Oxfam, though urgent appeal in the event of disaster is oftentimes a more emotive “call-to-arms.”

Media
Indeed, what happens when the media leaves? Media attention naturally drives up donations of resources and time – which need to be spread out over longer periods, rather than arrive in inefficient, erratic spikes. There is also a seeming public appetite for failure, and this is in a sense on the shoulders of NGOs and the media; too often a realistic timescale is not projected, leading to a sense of expectancy and the proliferation of misinformation. The need for commercially saleable news often supercedes deeper investigative journalism; either this reliance on AP-wire reporting must be reversed, or citizen journalism could step up. In fact, such use of social networking has benefited crisis areas in Kenya, Haiti and South East Asia, utilizing GPS technology to create more accurate geospatial maps of activity and need.

Sinclair conceded that the media should be welcomed to critiquing NGO activity where relevant – but they could also hold similar fire to private sector stakeholders or participants, for example the oil companies in the wake of the recent Gulf spill, which was practically unreported in the US mainstream media.

Stocking noted that aid agencies can also be very defensive with the management of information. Increased honesty would create a more fruitful relationship between the media, agencies and the public.

In punk-rock style, Sinclair cited Fred Cuny, whistleblower and humanitarian martyr who’s been missing in action since 1995, as a major influence. And he reminds us that with the increase of social networking, one cannot hide. Instead, the use of storytelling, not to manufacture truth, can expose a greater complexity of aid work than has been attempted. Recognizing the need to share failures, he pondered why donors expect NGOs to demonstrate a 100% success rate when even politicians need just over 50% – a seemingly whimsical thought, but particularly biting in the light of the United Kingdom’s currently “hung” parliament.

Architecture
Architects, surveyors and planners are often at a loss in terms of how to gear their practice towards aid. Firstly, architects can’t expect to get involved straight away – it’s one for the long haul. AfH are often the “last ones out,” and Sinclair states their key activity takes place between four months and four years after crisis events. The key is in balancing immediate humanitarian concerns with the potential for economic stability and recovery, towards long term solutions. For example, a crisis in housing in Haiti must not benefit the manufacturers of prefabricated housing in Iowa, whilst creating no jobs and making no use of indigenous skills and materials in Haiti. Architects operating in a humanitarian sphere needs must accept greater liability, looking at his projects less like an artwork but more like a business model, much in the same way as a developer.

No final delivery is worse than no response at all, so architects cannot afford to be prima donnas about designs; a degree of humility must be learned. Yet beauty need not be discarded for functionalism; what needs to be produced is not just a beautiful building aesthetically, but also in terms of equity; “building in beauty” at this level becomes crucial because of the maintenance and subsequent equity. This is an example of an aesthetic concern being reconfigured in terms of development and sustainability in economic terms.

Sinclair and Stocking both underlined the importance of utilizing both indigenous and donor skill sets – squeezing not just money or even donations-in-kind but crucially, knowledge. Like the sunken-eyed Bob Geldof at LiveAid (go study pop history, those of you too young to remember), the perkier Sinclair exhibits a hunger for extracting the maximum from those who approach his organization, but unlike Geldof, they don’t just want you to “give us your f***ing money” – they want your mind too, which, in these times, is all to the good.

N.B.  Hat-tip to Cameron, the guys at AfH and particularly to Susi J Platt & Purnima McCutcheon, designers of the Yodakandiya Community Complex, briefly discussed during the RGS event, it was also shortlisted for the Aga Khan Award 2010 on the same day, and deservedly so.

Shumi Bose is an architectural writer and researcher. She lives in London.

As with all review and opinion pieces posted on Urban Omnibus, the views expressed are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York. Images via 21st Century Challenges.