Developing a sustainable self-sufficient temporary shelter unit for desert climate

ABSTRACT

Shelter-related studies maintain a particular interest in Temporary Shelter Units (TSUs), including the development of indicators that enable them to serve a variety of functions within specific climatic zones. However, there is a lack of comprehensive coverage of such indicators that would support their multifunctionality to serve various purposes. This study aims to develop a comprehensive set of criteria for assessing the suitability of TSUs within the local context of Jordan. The study is based on current literature to develop a list of indicators connected to the main constructs for the TSU design and related to social, technical, and sustainability aspects. It further relies on expert knowledge based on three categories of participants utilizing factor analysis and dimension reduction along with AHP to contextualize the indicators within the desert context. The results demonstrate that technically-driven indicators strongly influence TSUs, followed by socially and sustainability-driven ones. This research contributes to TSU development by introducing a potential evaluation tool for a multipurpose TSU model designed for a desert climate. It adds to the outcomes of previous studies by incorporating a wide range of indicators in connection to constructs and aspects.

KEYWORDS:

• Temporary shelter units (TSUs)
• desert climate
• self-sufficiency
• shelters
• analytical hierarchy process (AHP)
• factor analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.