Rebirth of a city lessons learned from post disaster reconstruction; the case study: Rofayye'

After disasters, one of the main challenges confronting authorities is site selection for reconstructing damaged structures. Experiences indicate that appropriate policies in site-selection could greatly influence on reconstruction success and resident's satisfaction. Meanwhile, in literature related to post disaster reconstruction, avoiding from relocating settlements is generally emphasized. However, when relocation is inevitable, adopting proper procedures is necessary to gain success. This article is about reconstruction of Rofayye' -a town in Khuzestan Province of Iran- after the Iran-Iraq war, which is a distinguished experiment from different aspects. Then all the town's components relocated from their situation, but in newly built city, still every part has an identifiable vestige of the former Rofayye', that’s why some researchers considered it as "in-placement" by mistake. In this article, the narrative of annihilation and recreation of Rofayye' is described and important specifications which are considered when dealing with urban planning and design are explained. The main issues include preservation of formal fabric structure, neighboring pattern, tribal territories, former plot areas, and situation of distinguished urban elements. Moreover, providing urban standards and properly allocating responsibilities between authorities and residents were considerable. The article is based on an intensive research and practice done during Rofayye' reconstruction in 1980's. The research performed by qualitative method through extensive field study and analysis of maps, documents, and pictures. It is hoped that study of the instructive points of this experiment lead to improved future reconstruction programs.