The topic of humanitarian design-or even humanitarian architectureappeared a little over one hundred years ago and is now an essential discussion for the 21st century. What challenges must we face in order to use design to further improve areas affected by disasters? That is the question this article seeks to answer, and is based on research that started in 2010 and continues today through the APIS Project. It entails a design project featuring a modular bathroom that fits inside a container so it can be transported to disaster areas. In the current stage, a prototype of the module is being built, which will be adapted for testing with people temporarily sheltered in public buildings, such as schools and gyms, in a municipality in Brazil's Ribeira Valley that is recurrently affected by floods. It includes sustainability aspects since it proposes treating and reusing graywater, and also uses low toxicity sealing components made with local materials. The project's methodology is therefore a collaborative one, grounded in the design thinking methodology that requires the formation of multidisciplinary teams in order to deal with the high complexity of design problems intrinsically related to disasters. The contribution of this paper emphasizes the values of resilience, focus of the global campaign of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, UNISDR, aiming to increase the levels of awareness and the commitment to sustainable development practices, while reducing vulnerabilities and providing wellbeing and safety to citizens.
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