Accueil > CRAterre > ANR - REparH (english version)
10/12/2010
ANR - REparH project
building back safer in Haiti
(earthquakes / cyclones)
A scientific collaboration between CRAterre, the National School of Architecture of Grenoble (ENSAG) and the Joseph Fourier University (UJF) supported by the French National Research Agency (ANR) to provide scientific support to Haiti (July 2010 – January 2014).
The REparH project is developed in the framework of the post disaster situation that has arisen after the dramatic earthquake that occurred on January 12, 2010. This earthquake has had terrible impact on a great part of the southern side of the country. A widely shared statement is that the traditional houses built with wooden structures have much better resisted and moreover have not killed, when this method of construction has gradually been abandoned since the beginning of the second part of the XXth century. Taking stock of that, both the government authorities and population of Haiti have expressed the wish to take the opportunity of the proposed reconstruction programmes to re establish a national capacity to build with wood (wood building sector). An other advantage being that wooden frame structures can allow relevant uses of locally available building materials like stones, earth, and palm sticks.
In this framework, the GADRU, Groupe d’appuis au développement rural (rural development support group), is willing to launch a huge reconstruction programme that involves the construction of 5.000 basic houses (that can be enlarged at a later stage). To that end it has received a financial support of Misereor who has asked CRAterre to help, using its past experience. There are also other initiatives in preparation by CARITAS and FICR (Red Cross), two organisations with whom CRAterre has a partnership agreement. REparH is gathering together CRAterre, the AECC research Unit of the School of Architecture of Grenoble, and the 3S-R research laboratory of the University Joseph Fourier in Grenoble.
This project is to provide the demanding local (Haiti) and international institutions with scientific expertise that would cover both technical aspects (resistance to earthquakes and cyclones) and social aspects (living mode, organisation of the production, know how, etc.). This is to be achieved through an inventory of the local practices, the formulation of hypothesis, simulations and studies, the construction of prototypes (including full scale basic houses in Haiti, in partnership with GADRU), following an iterative methodology. The results of this research will be put at the disposal of the partners to the project (scientific and operational) and to the international community. A very important perspective is that of a partnership with the ENAM, Ecole Normale d’Art et Métiers (National School of Engineering), who has been given the mandate by the Institut National de Formation Professionnelle Haïtien (Haiti National Institute for Professional Training) to develop a strategy for the training of trainers for the building sector. This project has been selected as part of the ANR Flash Call for Haiti.
Amongst other things, through this project, the ANR supports 2 thesis on the issues related to the project under the supervision of the AE&CC research unit at ENSAG and the 3SR research laboratory of the Joseph Fourier University (Grenoble).
ENSAG 2010 | Crédits et mentions légales | création a2sc design