Housing reconstruction in Aceh: Relationships between house type and environmental sustainability

In the aftermath of the December 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, housing reconstruction agencies typically engaged specialist contractors to build multiple houses using mass produced construction materials. The dominant house type built by reconstruction agencies followed the ubiquitous 'bungalow' model and was constructed with industrialised materials. Other types were hybrid models that used the industrialised materials but traditional 'house on stilts' typologies. In Aceh, Indonesia, the adoption of these types extended existing trends away from vernacular traditions and materials such as timber and bamboo. While it can be argued that this mass housing introduced efficiencies of procurement, scale and cost, the long-term sustainability of these houses must not be overlooked if this type is to be portrayed as a suitable response to this type of humanitarian disaster - particularly as these types will define the future housing culture. This research questions the sustainability of three houses built by reconstruction agencies in Aceh and makes comparisons with a typical timber vernacular house. As a measure of sustainability it quantifies two forms of life-cycle costing - the greenhouse gas (CO2) emissions and the ecological footprint of each of the selected house types. Results demonstrate that reconstruction houses are linked with levels of greenhouse gas emissions up to fifty times higher than traditional types and triple the ecological footprint of traditional types. This increase is primarily due to the overwhelming use of externally procured and imported construction technologies and mass-produced materials