ABSTRACT
Maggie Stephenson is currently the Senior Technical Advisor for Haiti at UN-Habitat. For the previous twenty years, in Europe, Asia and Africa, she has worked in architecture and planning education, urban government, housing and development, and post-disaster reconstruction for governments, the United Nations, non-profits and in the private sector. From 2005 to 2011 she worked with UN-Habitat and the National Disaster Management Authority in Pakistan, using people-centred approaches to help the millions of people affected by natural disaster and conflict. The interviews and supporting essays show built environment professionals collaborating with post-disaster communities as facilitators, collaborators and negotiators of land, space and shelter, rather than as 'save the world' modernists, as often portrayed in the design media. The goal is social and physical reconstruction, as a collaborative process involving a damaged community and its local culture, environment and economy; not just shelter 'projects' that 'build' houses but leave no economic footprint or longer-term community infrastructure.
