Ecuador Earthquake Recovery
Role: Workshop Participant
San Jose is an estuarine environment and most of its houses were destroyed by ‘liquifaction’ of the ground similar to the earthquake in Christchurch
Cleaning shells collected for a community project to rebuild and decorate an important stairway in the village
Most of the community was trying to eke out a living surviving on hand to mouth fishing activities
The team worked with the community to learn about the artisanal fishing process
At about 7pm on 16 April 2016 a 7.8 moment magnitude earthquake struck San José de Chamanga on the coast of Ecuador.
Its epicentre was approximately fifty kilometres away just off the coast of Pedernales. 668 lives were lost in total in the earthquake and 6,274 people were severely injured. Six provinces were affected and the estimated economic loss to Ecuador is US$3 billion.
Chamanga lost approximately 80% of its buildings but fortunately very few lives. 570 houses were destroyed, leaving over half the population homeless. The artisanal fishing industry and the shrimp farming industry were severely impacted destroying the livelihoods of most of the population.
The Urban Regeneration Workshop in San Jose de Chamanga was a joint initiative of RMIT and UIC Barcelona hosted in Ecuador by Pontificia Universidad Católicade Ecuador (PUCE).
The potential topics for consideration included:
Looking at public space and social dynamics in relation to external recreation spaces or community buildings;
Investigating connectivity and accessibility in relation to the entrance into the town and the connection between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ parts of the community, and
Consideration of the possible uses of the waterfront and port areas
I worked on the port and waterfront project with a group of five other international architects and landscape architects and at the conclusion of the workshop we made a presentation to the community with a concept design and ‘proposed next steps’.