7. Protection and Prevention of Natural Resources( Destruction)
7.1 Metro Manila Current Practices Metro Manila, a popular region in the Philippines, it includes governmental sectors and other metropolitan cities; presenting the highest population density, 43,079.38 per km2. One of the metropolitan cities, is the city of Manila, overall consists of clusters of high-rise buildings, towers, universities, and other famous shopping malls in the city center, as shown earlier in Figure 2. On the other hand, smaller buildings and houses occupy the rest of the areas. These low building structures and housings are most likely the ones that would be affected by floods and natural disasters, which take place in the city. This study is using a single area“ compound” of a small housing project in order to improve their performance and to meet a higher level of sustainable design, by also focusing on their current and future practices.
7.2 Sustainable Usage of Housing Land Metro Manila is an area that consists of buildings and homes of different sizes and heights. In general, the most areas that were affected by floods are areas of low height buildings and houses. On the other hand, tall buildings are less affected and they are considered as safer shelters. Thus, redesigning areas of single-story homes to multiple story buildings would majorly affect and help positively to reduce natural disaster impacts. Considering houses of single stories, illustrated in Figure 4 below, a compound of an approximate area of 600 square meters( sqm), including four single story houses per compound, which makes it a ratio of 4:4 is full filling the whole area. While redesigning the same occupancy area with single and multiple story buildings, decreases the ratio to 1:4 and allows 3:4 ratio for other services and spaces. This division reduces land occupancy and helps reducing the risk of house flood damages where three houses are considered in a safe zone while only one lower level is in risk.
Figure 4: Top view, housing compound sample, 4:4 housing area, no housing services, single-story level( left), 1:4 housing area, 3:4 housing services, multi-story houses( right)
Nevertheless, multiple story buildings still lack efficiency and protect their users from massive amounts of water entering homes during high flood activities. Because ground level and subways are still affected and cannot be accessible, as shown in Figure 5 below; lower building story, and other services and subways are majorly affected, and must be carefully studied.
Flood water level
Figure 5: Elevation view, housing compound sample, 1:4 housing area, 3:4 housing services, multi-story houses
140 ZEMCH 2015 | International Conference | Bari- Lecce, Italy