EMCJ Quanjel’s research while affiliated with Eindhoven University of Technology and other places

Disaster response after a natural disaster is especially challenging when a great number of victims is involved, like in highly dense urban areas. Especially low-income groups become internally displaced and are in need of design innovations that offer short-term and long-term relief. However, design research for post-disaster shelter and settlement, can present specific practical and ethical challenges. The purpose of this paper is to discuss these issues for the development of a support-tool. Besides, conclusions are drawn for a suitable research methodology. The discussed issues are related to the development of a knowledge-based support-tool for self-built processes as a strategy for post-disaster recovery. It is a tool to teach survivors how to build their own hurricane or flood resistant shelter. Especially in the case of recurring disasters, the use of self-built processes provides an opportunity for humanitarian organisations to create a sustainable recovery process and prevent relief cost in the future. Preparing experiments is challenging because of the unpredictability of disaster occurrence but needed to convince humanitarian organisations of the functioning of the new support tool. A literature review, case study comparison and expert consultation enable preparing for experiments. A suitable research framework is found in the Design Research Methodology. Based on the ethical and practical considerations, the paper suggests for design research to for all research activity how to balance the critical need for research in and after the disaster, with the ethical responsibility to protect the vulnerable survivors serving as research participants in experiments.

The development in (Dutch) building practice necessitates developments in other aspects, besides specialized and professional skills. Important is the knowledge exchange between different participants in design teams. Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) started the 'Duaal traject" (route), in which students merge (combine) working in the practice and studying at the university at the same time. The results of the combined education of students in a professional context and the university is presented and discussed. Within the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven study is done into possible differences by organizing training-workshops for students with different educational backgrounds; middle and higher professional education and academic education.

In the world of design and engineering, gaps of knowledge between these disciplines are recognized [1, 2, 3, 4]. The learning capacity of the building industry - as well as in other industries - is becoming a main issue, also within Architect-organizations [5, 6]. A model for structuring knowledge on different abstraction levels is found in Methodical Design, a system theory based on the combination of the German design school [7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12] and the Anglo-American school [13, 14]. Methodical Design is a problem oriented model based on functional hierarchy, which can be applied on several levels of abstraction and makes it possible to link these levels of abstraction with the phases in the design process itself [15, 16, 17, 18]. This paper describes the research methodology, based on Methodical Design, as used in a doctoral design related to practice and the 6 th European framework research project EURACTIVE ROOF-er. The research methodology - as quasi-experimental design - uses the structuring method of the Methodical Design to investigate how this specific design method and associated design tools can support the collaboration between designers and engineers [19].