"Hunnarshala, founded in the wake of the 2001 earthquake in Gujarat, India, facilitates artisan-led reconstruction in post-disaster areas, as well as long-term redevelopment of cities and informal settlements. Hunnarshala taps the skills of local artisans and builders who have deep knowledge of resilient building systems and delivers high-quality, sustainable, and disaster-safe housing. These collaborations lead to new hybrid solutions that elevate vernacular architecture to innovation. The group’s experiments also spark the reuse of formerly unusable industrial waste, such as waste wood from shipwrecks (now joined into thin strips for flooring, doors, and window frames).
Hunnarshala has worked on disaster rehabilitation in India (Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Kashmir and Bihar), Iran, Indonesia and Afghanistan. It has helped build more than 30,000 interim shelters and almost 12,000 permanent reconstructions."
See a video on Hunnarshala's work on the Curry Stone Prize's site.
Kiran Vaghela from Hunnarshala was interviewed in the Architecture for Humanity Design Like You Give a Damn conference on 8.11.2013.