HARB - Humanitarian Architecture Research Bureau
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Mobile mosque, Bangladesh
Photo: Jonas Bendiksen.
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Climate refugees, Bangladesh
Photo: Kadir van Lohuizen.
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Narbethong Community centre Marysville
Post Black Saturday bush fires. Photo: John Gollings.
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Strawbale Housing for Navajo Indians
Photo: Skip Baumhaur.
About HARB
Never has the demand been so urgent for architects and built environment professionals to respond to the design and planning challenges of rebuilding post-disaster sites and cities. Through three multi-disciplinary platforms of research, teaching and consultancy projects, HARB focuses on the role and capacity of built environment professionals after disaster, through seeking spatial solutions for vulnerable communities.
Dr Esther Charlesworth
Dr Esther Charlesworth is an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture and Design at RMIT University, Melbourne. She undertook her Masters Degree in Architecture and Urban Design at Harvard University and her PhD at the University of York (UK). She is also the founding Director of Architects without Frontiers (AWF). She has worked in architecture and urban design practices in Melbourne, Sydney, Boston and New York and previously lectured in design at the University of Melbourne, QUT and The American University of Beirut. She has published widely on the theme of social justice and architecture, including CityEdge: Contemporary Case Studies in Urbanism (2005), Architects without Frontiers: War, Reconstruction and Design Responsibility (2006), Divided Cities (2009) The EcoEdge (2011), Live Projects (2012) and her recent book; Humanitarian Architecture (2014). For more see Esther’s RMIT staff page.
Dr Iftekhar Ahmed
Dr Iftekhar Ahmed is a Research Fellow in the School of Architecture and Design at RMIT University, Melbourne. He specialises in post-disaster housing reconstruction and architecture in developing contexts, and authored several books including The Vanishing Traces: Vernacular Housing in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (2013); Design and Construction of Housing in Flood-Prone Areas of Rural Bangladesh (2005); Building Safer Houses in Rural Bangladesh (with SM Seraj, 2004); Low-Income Housing: Multi-Dimensional Research Perspectives (ed, 2001). He has a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, India, Masters from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA and PhD from Oxford Brookes University, UK. For more see Iftekhar’s RMIT staff page.
Research
HARB's current research projects include:
Architecture on the Edge Building Sustainable Housing for Vulnerable communities
Charlesworth’s Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship, 'Architecture on the Edge Building Sustainable Housing for Vulnerable communities', involving Ahmed as Senior Research Fellow.
The Evaluation of Shelter Projects in the Asia Pacific Region after Disaster
Building Resilience of Urban Slum Settlements in Dhaka project
Events
22.05.17: Master of Disaster, Design & Development (MoDDD) enrolments will be closing on May 31st, 2017. Please enquire via this external link.
HARB books
Teaching
Since mid 2016, HARB has pioneered a new postgraduate program at RMIT, the Master of Disaster, Design and Development (MoDDD). The program is located in the School of Architecture and Design, within the discipline of Landscape Architecture. MoDDD provides a global learning platform that will enable you to work locally and internationally in the disaster and development fields, harnessing community-based, interdisciplinary thinking. Applications are now open for the 2017 intake. RMIT MoDDD