Mobile Housing as an Initial Proposal to Manage Informal Territories Exposed to Disaster Risks

Abstract

From the study of informal territories, mobile housing is presented as an initial proposal to manage heterogeneous precarious settlements located in the north of Chile. More than a housing typology with certain construction characteristics, mobile housing contributes to a set of arguments that question housing policies and governmental reactions to urban informality, and its proximity to multiple human and physical hazards. In terms of management, the exposure of informal territories to numerous disaster risks has been a controversial aspect for local and central authorities, where the main actions have focused on eviction without temporary housing solutions, or the construction of supposed transitory neighborhoods, which are configured as territories of permanence. For this reason, mobile housing also raises the need to recognize that any existing and future housing must seek to reduce disaster risks, and must use materials according to the climatic, cultural, and temporal conditions of each territory.