Client and Environment Conditions

Conduct research on your clients: the dwellers displaced by a natural disaster at your nominated location.  Consider the following questions: 

The brief of the project outlines that we have to design a emergency shelter for two people who have been affected by a natural disaster.  The shelter must be able and fully equip to house these two people for a duration of at least 6 months.  The clients i have chosen are an elderly couple who have been lost their home as a result of fire.

• Who has been affected? How have they been affected? What are their needs and vulnerabilities? 
My couple, being elderly are very vulnerable to many dangers and risks. Their homes homes have been completely destroyed and so have many of their personal belongings.
Being elderly they are vulnerable to illness and even death, as a result of new environment, rapid change and climate conditions.

• Are they in an urban or rural location? 

My clients home was located in a rural setting.  Their temporary shelter will therefore be located in a rural scene.
• What housing existed before the natural disaster? How did it deal with the division of spaces, privacy, security, climate control? 

The housing that existed before was predominately single story brick or fibro homes with tiled or tin roofs.
The division of space, privacy, security and control of climate was undertaken in the way small townships were organised; with every single house house it is enveloped by
parcels of land.

• What are the climatic conditions? Cold climate? Warm, humid climate? Hot, dry climate? 

The climate in Victoria in the summer months is predominately hot and dry, where as in the winter months it is extremely cold.
• Do those displaced dwellers have cultural or religious traditions which influence their apparel, day to day activities, or social interactions? 

The displaced dwellers don't have any specific cultural traditions that influence their apparel, day to day activities, or social interaction.  However, the diversity of the rural community may have specific and differing religious traditions.