In this chapter, the results of this study are presented. Since not all 66 analyzed examples can be presented, we describe three in detail in Sect. 3.1 to offer an impression of the examples and show how the descriptions got translated into criteria of the table. In 3.2 we describe the general principles of the example’s types. In 3.3 we present and describe the whole typology and in the last Sect.3.4, we place it in context with groupings of published literature.
Step 1: From the examples…
In the following, three examples are presented briefly to show the process from the example description and analysis in the table to the creation and further interpretation of the groups (types in this case). These three examples have been selected to show both similar examples (same type) as well as very differing examples (different formations). Criteria that can be traced in the tables (Table S1 and S2) are italicized.
Example staff accommodation in Balukhali II
This example describes the staff’s accommodation adjacent to a field hospital in Balukhali, Bangladesh in eary 2018, approximately six months after massive movements of people fleeing the Rohingya genocide started. The large number of people settling the area of Cox’s Bazar necessitated provision of additional health posts and humanitarian assistance, thus the field hospital was established. The base camp for expat health workers in this field hospital consists of individual unit tents (criteria in the section table (Table S1): frame construction with lightweight walls, supported by poles, accommodation without foundation) (Figs. 5 and 6). The settlement is equipped with a field kitchen, on-site sanitation, and off-grid water supply (field kitchen in another dwelling, on-site sanitation (pit latrine), water supply by water trucking and drinking water supply via bottles). Energy provision is provided by generators (emergency power generator). The camp is organized on different layers: the kitchen, sanitation, and laundry facilities are to be used by the residents together, energy provision, and waste collection have facilities on the neighborhood level (groups of tents), the appropriation of the open space surrounding the units happens individually.
Example UNHCR family tent in Zaatari refugee camp
This example describes a specific accommodation in Zaatari refugee camp, Jordan, in the first years of the camp. The camp opened to host people fleeing the ongoing violence in Syria (user group migrants, user group fled from violence). In the camp, there were detached units without foundation made out of polyester-cotton, a lightweight flexible material, supported by poles (Fig. 7). They were individual units on one plot without physical borders like fences, the units have private open space through appropriation (for cultivation, drying laundry, play, etc.). The technical and social infrastructure was organized by the camp (Fig. 8) and developed rapidly, just like the settlement. The situation today is rather different. In 2013 there were around 8,000 tents with either shared or private sanitation facilities. Clean water was trucked to the camp and wastewater was then removed by trucks again. The camp was connected to the electricity grid, units could be supplied with energy as well.
Example Home 21 in Vienna
This example includes two durable 4 (in some parts 5)-storied buildings in Vienna, Austria. Primary materials are concrete and steel (temporary housing environment (THE) made out of heavyweight, rigid materials). The buildings include around 250 apartments for people entitled to social housing and people with an increased need for support (first housing for homeless persons, single-mothers, etc.) (user group: locals, user group: people entitled to social housing, user group: homeless persons, among others). The ground floor includes wheelchair-accessible flats and commercial units (mixed use in THE). The apartments are fully equipped and connected to centralized technical infrastructure (connection to power grid, unit connected to centralized water supply, THE has sewage connection). The residents have private balconies (unit contains private open space (balcony)) (Fig. 9) and collectively used open space on the ground floor (Fig. 10). The buildings have been developed within a city’s subsidy program to alleviate housing shortage, encouraging the construction of temporary low-cost housing in areas that are eventually intended for other uses (subsidized living units/state-funded, mixed building land (zoning plan)). They are intended to be used for housing for 10 years and afterward for commercial uses. Since the example, like others, was evaluated via desktop research, limitations and errors can occur. As it could not be discerned on maps and plans, the exact location of the building’s entrances is unknown.
Step 2: …to principles and concepts of the syntaxa
The examples have specific characteristics that have to be abstracted and elevated to a level of principles to be compared with each other. Table S1 shows selected criteria of several analyzed examples, including the three presented examples in Balukhali, Zaatari, and Vienna (grey highlighted). The table shows that they have criteria in common with other examples, thus the first two were grouped by the systematic comparison to the alliance detached individual tents (A1) and further on to the type detached individual tents in camps (T2) and the latter into detached durable multi-unit buildings (A11) within urban fabric (T15). Table S1 shows that there are criteria that are typical for the alliances, for detached individual tents for example such as ‘unit accessed by footpath’ and that there are clear differences between the two types T1 and T2, such as ‘unit embedded in publicly accessible urban fabric’. But there are also gradients within the syntaxa: criteria that occur in one and the other demonstrating the transitions from one to the other. The differences regarding the various areas are diverse conditions of the spatial organization, set-up, and provision of infrastructure, property rights, use of open space, access to surroundings, etc. and ultimately mean different living conditions for the users.
Detached individual tents (A1)
The analysis of the systematic comparison (Table S2) and section table (Table S1) helped to attain general knowledge on detached individual tents (A1) and detached individual tents in camps (T2) based on the assessment of all examined tent examples. Tents consist of one room only and are single-storied. Materials and structure allow space-saving storage and transport, fast and easy assembly and dismantling, but present limited weather-resistance and durability, limiting the reuse potential. The examples of this alliance are generally provided with energy, sometimes the tents even have an electricity connection. In camps, cooking/dining and sanitation facilities are supplied by the camp and often located in separate dwellings. Among the examples, different levels of organization can be distinguished: on unit level residents possess direct, private access and appropriated open space surrounding the unit (see: spatial organization and environment in Table S1). Cooking, sanitation, and laundry facilities may be organized on unit, neighborhood (group of units), or camp level. In camps, the provision of tents, facilities, infrastructure, and services is generally centralized. Tents are mostly placed on unbuilt green land that is not formally parcelled out, and the residents do not own the land. When comparing this alliance with others in the table, the absences are apparent: the units are not lockable, which indicates for a lack privacy and security. Since the residents are not owners of the plot, and not always of the tent, they have (limited) entitlements. Figure 11 shows the physical concept of detached individual tents in camps (T2).
Detached durable multi-unit buildings (A11)
The buildings of this alliance are placed on durable foundations, an indication for being residential buildings planned to be permanently on-site. They are made out of heavyweight, rigid materials or shipping containers and all have thermal insulation. The buildings have various apartments per floor (Fig. 12) and are multi-storied. The housing environments may consist of more than one building and often comprise over 100 units in total. The buildings are connected to centralized infrastructure (unit has sewage connection, unit connected to centralized water supply, connection to central power grid, municipal waste collection). The units work as independent households (unit has private toilet, unit has private bathroom, private kitchen) but share some facilities (shared laundry room). The units are lockable, an important condition for privacy and security. Since the residents are renting they have (limited) entitlements.
Typology
The systematic comparison via tabulation created a table in which the examples were compared with each other according to differences and similarities in 369 criteria (Fig. 3). This structure led to a typology of urban temporary housing environments on five levels creating 2 formations, four classes, fourteen orders, twenty-two alliances, and twenty-six types (Table 1).
The first level of structuring is into two formations (Table 1): demountable housing environments of planned temporary presence (F1) and temporary housing environments in durable buildings (F2) that distinguish between the presence and kind of foundation. With the term ‘foundation’, we refer to buildings’ elements that transmit structural and externally applied loads to the building (wind, vibrations, seismic shocks, and tremors), directly to the ground (Jumikis 1984). Only elements that are anchored to the ground are considered foundations.Footnote 5 The assessed examples have either no, a demountable (removable without major impact to the ground) or durable (made out of concrete, removal by heavy machinery, the ground is impacted for longer) foundation. The absence or presence and kind of a foundation is an indication of the temporary nature/permanence of a housing environment and has an impact on its subsequent use or re-use.
Demountable housing environments of planned temporary presence (F1) encompass dwellings that are built for a limited presence on a particular site. We call them demountable because these structures are modular and/or easily dismantled. The examples of this group are further arranged in 2 classes: accommodations without foundations intended for residential use (C1) and buildings on demountable foundations intended for residential use (C2).
Accommodations without foundations intended for residential use (C1) were further structured into: tents (O1)–textile dwellings supported by poles, cabins (O2)–hard shell units (like a in Fig. 13), and mobile accommodationsFootnote 6 (O3)–dwellings that are moveable without lifting, which means that they include their mode of transportation already, (on wheels or floating on water such as b in Fig. 13).
Buildings on demountable foundations intended for residential use (C2) were structured by the number and settings of their residential units. Individual unit buildings on demountable foundations (O4) have one unit per entrance, multi-unit buildings on demountable foundations (O5) (such as c in Fig. 13) contain various units per entrance, and halls on demountable foundations (O6) a large room with one (or several) entrance(s) containing a large number of sleeping niches or bunks instead of units.Footnote 7
The other formation, temporary housing environments in durable buildings (F2) include all buildings on durable foundations (coinciding often with heavyweight materials).Footnote 8 Accommodations of this formation are intended to stay on-site for a long time (‘permanently’). They may have been built for temporary residential use or another purpose and are (temporarily or permanently) used for temporary accommodation.
Two classes are differentiated: Buildings on durable foundations intended for residential use (C3) include buildings that were constructed with the intent to accommodate people, whereas non-residential buildings on durable foundations (C4) include buildings that were constructed for other purposes. Buildings on durable foundations intended for residential use (C3) have in common that they are built for accommodation purposes, so their facilities enable habitation without major structural modifications. They are structured into multi-unit buildings on durable foundations (O7), reused social facility buildings (O8) (like d in Fig. 13), and reused hotel buildings (O9). In the latter two cases, the buildings are utilized for other uses than what was initially intended (social facility and touristic stays).
Since the utilization of non-residential buildings on durable foundations (C4) as accommodation for people represents a repurposing, also referred to as adaptive reuse, it entails that they have to be (structurally) adapted or complemented. We assessed repurposed administrative buildings (O10), repurposed office buildings (O11), repurposed retail buildings (O12), repurposed industrial buildings (O13), and repurposed educational buildings (O14).
The orders were further organized into alliances according to the urban layout (detached, semi-detached and attached accommodations describe if the dwellings share walls with neighboring dwellings or not) and types according to the settlement properties (in a campFootnote 9 or within the urban fabric of a city).
Typology in the context of published literature
In published literature, various groupings of temporary housing environments can be found. The approaches are determined by the particular research questions or applications. NGOs and public administrations, for instance, often consider different forms of assistance (such as the distribution of material, financial support, etc.) in addition to accommodation options (Sphere Project 2018; UNHCR s.a.), and scientists create typologies according to their specific field of study. Our research question was informed by an interdisciplinary project pursuing a general approach. Table 2 shows the structure and concepts of four grouping approaches (Quarantelli (1982), Kronenburg (2014), Johnson (2010), and UNHCR (2018)) and an overview of our typology. The four approaches were selected since they focus on temporary housing solutions, mainly excluding other types of aid (financial support, food supply, etc.).
Quarantelli’s (1982) approach structures housing environments that are used in post-disaster housing according to the planned duration and time of application. Kronenburg (2014) applied a grouping of “mobile and temporary building systems” according to their number of components, as well as the time and effort needed to assemble the buildings on-site. Similar to other authors (e.g. Onay 2018), Johnson (2010) differentiates post-disaster housing into two main groups: types that need new constructionFootnote 10 and types that do not. Additionally, she diversifies according to organizational, built, structural-spatial, and social-economic aspects. Compared to Johnson’s approach, in our typology the structural-spatial conditions of housing environments feature prominently in contrast to the social-economic aspects. UNHCR’s (2018) typology of shelter types for refugees is solely based on structural characteristics of the housing environments.Footnote 11 It appears that after the first grouping into three divisions (similar to ours), known building types are applied to designate the diverse structures.
A common feature of the approaches by Johnson, UNHCR and ours is that they differ at various (two or five) levels, on each level additional information is provided and different concepts can be detected. Since instructions on their derivation have not been published, questions regarding the applied methods for comparison remain open. Furthermore, we screened publications of various authors that compared temporary housing examples (Seike et al. 2018; Toma 2018) or case studies (Kelman et al. 2011) with each other, but did not find descriptions of how classifications were derived. It is a unique feature of our typology that we present the typology including its derivation.