ABSTRACT
Patama Roonrakwit studied architecture at Silpakorn University, Bangkok, and at the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice at Oxford Brookes University. Roonrakwit is currently the Managing Director of Community Architects for Shelter and Environment (CASE), which she founded in 1997. The group works with a humanitarian and anthropological approach to creating appropriate housing for the urban poor in informal settlements. CASE projects involve community members as participants in the process of improving their shelter and environment, a process including surveying and mapping communities, group meetings and workshops, and the completion of new homes. 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.
