Adding to the sum: the case for the nascent revival of universal shelter

<p dir="ltr">This research critically examines the role of architecture and construction technology in housing and explains how these have interacted with geo-political events over the last 150 years. It finds that the UN-Habitat’s Housing Policy Evolution can be seen as an indicator of neoliberal housing policies in donor countries, rather than a policy position derived from the real needs of people without adequate shelter. </p><p dir="ltr">The thesis challenges the assumptions about universal shelter underlying the UNDRO 1982 Shelter After Disaster guidelines which were confirmed by the 2015 revision of the same published by the OCHA and IFRC. In its place is proposed the Universal Shelter Concept which aims to extend the transitional and intermediate shelter concepts, to include pre-disaster responses to inadequate shelter so as to reduce vulnerabilities and improve life chances of those that most need it by helping to meet the Sustainable Development Goals and The New Urban Agenda.</p><p dir="ltr">Based on the development of special tools, some 250 historic and contemporary shelter designs have been analysed, revealing that universal characteristics have naturally evolved in historical shelters, and that they also occur at far higher levels of utility where the case studies were designed. The data from this analysis has then been used to inform a definition of universal shelter based on temporal deployment patterns, with a measure of universal utility being verifiable through the Standard DAT assessment technique. With a clear and verifiable definition of universal shelter established, a performance specification has been created for the Universal Shelter Concept which entails a certification process as a quality assurance mechanism for the local manufacture of shelter components around the world.</p><p dir="ltr">With verifiable quality, comes safety, and durability, making it possible to attach privileges such as property rights, disaster recovery insurance, micro credit and component purchase subsidy for those that build and extend their homes with certified shelter components. </p><p dir="ltr">By introducing greater circularity in the process of design, manufacture, procurement, use, adaptation and disposal of shelter (Hendriks, de Zwart, Compeer, & Dospodinova, 2024), greater participation in that process is proposed for the dignity and benefit of those who most need it extending behaviour patterns long since observed in migrants in their fight for survival (Davis, 1978), (Ashmore, et al., 2003). </p><p dir="ltr"><br></p>