Humanitarian Construction: Socio-Cultural Sustainability in Crisis Responses

My PhD research focuses on socio-cultural sustainability in humanitarian construction, exploring how shelter and reconstruction responses support recovery, a sense of place, home, and belonging during and after crisis. Based on fieldwork in Brazil, Ukraine, the Philippines, Kenya, Greece, Iceland, Iraq, and Nepal, the study combines academic research with practical experience in humanitarian field operations. It highlights the need for respectful, grounded, and context-sensitive approaches that recognise local cultures and long-term recovery. The work challenges current models that treat shelter as a standardised product, instead of a process shaped by people, place, and time. A socio-cultural sustainability approach is not an optional add-on, but a core condition for meaningful recovery. The study argues for a humble, locally grounded, and interdisciplinary approach to sheltering responses in crisis, and invites to listen, more carefully, more consistently, and more respectfully to the affected communities, and co-create, not only deliver, the foundation for recovery: a home.

Published articles:

Adalgeirsdóttir, K. (2020). The story of the disaster-relief houses in Iceland. In N. Martins, M. Fayazi, F. Kikano, & L. Hobeica (Eds.), Enhancing Disaster Preparedness: From Humanitarian Architecture to Community Resilience (pp. 41-58). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-819078-4.00003-4

Adalgeirsdottir,K. Sandman,H. (2024). Cultivating Wellbeing – Sheltering of the Global Displaced Population. Studies in Health and Information Technology book (HTI) series on IOS Press, ISSN 1879-8365. https://ebooks.iospress.nl/doi/10.3233/SHTI240957