ABSTRACT
From Australia, Haiti, India, Japan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand and the USA, this chapter narrates the immense opportunities, challenges and frustrations of working in an emergency mode of humanitarian practice framed by uncertainty and ill-defined or non-existent project briefs. In 2010, approximately 42 million people were forced to leave their homes due to natural disasters across the globe, nearly twice the number of displacements during 2009. The architects are a small sample of built-environment professionals working globally after disaster. Architects working more broadly within the development sector form a larger cohort again. One of the key figures in developing a more interdisciplinary approach to disaster management was Texan engineer Fred Cuny. Cuny worked in Iraq, Bosnia and Somalia in the 1970s and 1980s before tragically disappearing in Chechnya in 1995. The interviews and supporting essays also look inwards at the design profession to understand the transformative processes necessary for establishing an alternative architectural discourse and praxis.
