Designing a Communication Practice to Build Community Capacity for Safer Housing
Publication: Construction Research Congress 2022
ABSTRACT
Communities in hazard-prone regions worldwide are navigating adverse impacts from increasing disasters, leaving many in a constant state of recovery and preparedness. In particular, in regions with weak regulatory enforcement of construction, such as Puerto Rico, housing is often built informally, that is, builders without formal training construct housing that may not adhere to formal building codes or other regulations. The safety of this informally constructed housing directly influences disaster impacts and a community’s recovery. In this study, we administer and analyze surveys on perceptions of safe building in Puerto Rico’s informal construction sector and compare this to engineering performance assessments of typical shelter designs in earthquake and hurricane events—two hazards to which Puerto Rico is exposed—to reveal design or construction practices that may be misaligned. We describe one of these misalignments, the preference for infill over confined masonry construction in seismic regions. We then propose an initial framework for the creation of a communication design practice that targets perceptions that do not align with engineering assessments of housing safety, applying communication theory to intervene in housing construction practices and reduce disaster risk.
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Construction Research Congress 2022
Pages: 229 - 239
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Published online: Mar 7, 2022
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