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Meche´s house or “being in the world”: A post-disaster community building experience

Abstract:

On April 16, 2016, Ecuador had suffered a 7.8 earthquake. The experience designing and building of Meche´s house, a post-disaster alternative building process, is analyzed in this paper applying Martin Heidegger´s concepts of Dwelling, Being in the World and Being There. These allow better understanding to the idea of housing in the community where the object is built, to visualize its most symbolic space, also it enables to see how the users of the built dwelling make it their own, the construction, form and materials despite that in the beginning of the construction process they did not accept them. This article tries to explain two questions: The house of Meche reflects its habitat: Where is it built? And how Meche, who is the homeowner, and the participants make the house and experience their own, in order to replicate the appropriate construction and resilience.