**4. Conclusion**

*Natural Hazards - Impacts, Adjustments and Resilience*

**3.3 Construction materials**

carried out in the laboratory.

Another fundamental point addressed in the SHS project is how to calculate the hours for recording each household's working hours (hour bank) and the criteria adopted to prioritise the delivery of the homes. To support these tasks, a time control tool was also developed, which provides the structure for recording the hours worked (with the possible transfer between households) and an automatic list for prioritising the distribution of homes at different stages of the development.

Two deposits of unsaturated tropical soil (Soil 1 and Soil 2), located in Macaé, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, were investigated, and a geotechnical characterisation was

Soil samples were prepared and tested according to international standards. Soil preparation, grain-size distribution, specific gravity and Atterberg limits were obtained according to ISO 23909 (2008), ISO 17892-4 (2016), ISO 17892-3 (2015), and ISO 17892-12 (2018) respectively [32, 33]. An empirical test was also carried out

CEBs were manufactured using a mechanical hand press, from a mixture of 50% Soil 1 and 50% Soil 2, in volume. The final mixes used cement as a binder with 2% of lime and water content (CEB water absorption) next to 20% (**Figure 12a**-**c**). It

*(a) Soil preparation, (b) Material's mixture, (c) CEB's production (d) CEB compressive strength test.* 

to check soil shrinkage during the natural drying process.

**92**

**Figure 12.**

*Source: [34].*

Housing recovery in situations where urgent construction is necessary but resources are scarce (such as post-disasters, post-conflicts, refugee settlements, and so on) is a challenging task requiring technical skills, management, and focus on the affected population. The Simple Housing Solution (SHS) methodology was developed to contribute to empowering governments, support agencies and, above all, vulnerable communities. It is presented in the course format and based on the tripod Simple Professional Design, Low-Cost Construction Technologies, and Community Labour System.

The first class on the SHS course was held in October 2018 for an audience of 30 people: 15 Haitians living in Brazil and intending to return to their country to participate in the reconstruction process; three members of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Engineers Without Borders Brazil; three members of the NGO Teto; three community members affected by a relocation process near UFRJ; two employees from the municipality of Niterói (Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil); two employees from the municipality of São Lourenço (Minas Gerais State, Brazil); one graduate student from the Federal University of Santa Catarina, and one refugee from the conflict in Syria. Since then, two other reduced versions of the course were offered in 2019: one at the Federal Institute of Maranhão, Brazil, on the manufacture of soil-cement bricks, during the 5th Maranhão Symposium on Civil Engineering, and another at the Federal University of Pará, Brazil, on SHS Methodology, during the 3rd Brazilian Congress on Disaster Risk Reduction.

It should be noted that the educational material developed under the SHS project is intended to be a starting point and should be evaluated and adapted to each implementation reality by the local technical assistance team. However, the material provided can greatly expedite reconstruction work, mostly because of the project's simplicity, pre-planned work, accessible construction technology, and tools developed to administer the community labour and construction works.

Aiming to expand the project's scope, it currently seeks to improve the embryo 2C, the SHS model for multi-risk situations involving more aggressive horizontal loads in reinforced masonry technology in CEB [11]. For this reason, new tests are being proposed for SHS project phase 3, when it is necessary to perform cyclic tests in porticos and dynamic tests in full scale on shake tables.
