Sustainability Assessment for Temporary Housing Units

Natural disasters and wars have been happening in recent years because of various factors, such as cultural, political, economic, etc. The conflict has contributed to a considerable rise in refugee numbers. UNHCR suggests that nearly 62 million people had been displaced from their countries and had to flee to areas they believed would be safer. Around 22 million of these people are refugees. The majority of refugees staying in refugee camps are placed in different countries worldwide, which have a population of more than 250000. While most of these refugee camps offer much needed services to the refugees, there are numerous problems in many camps. The critical situation in these camps is that some refugees may continue to live in these places for several years, which may last from five to ten years, and sometimes it may last for decades, these camps gradually turn into small random cities if the camp is not subject to regulation. From this standpoint, this research studies the types of emergency shelters focusing on temporary housing units, which are temporary buildings, to present a proposal to assess these units' sustainability. This thesis aims to propose sustainable temporary housing principles and assessment system to create a new scale to evaluate temporary housing sustainability by using the LEED-H rating system as a base. According to the results, this thesis will evaluate a case in order to test the evaluation system. The evaluation system will be used as a tool for decision making processes.