| If a post-disaster rebuilding plan is to succeed in the long term, it needs to embody a collective of ideas that translate culture into built form. A culture is a complex puzzle of fragmented, localized knowledge. When it breaks down, a rebuilding initiative can attempt to piece it back together. Since rebuilding is specific to context, it is crucial to consider democratically collected local knowledge that is accurately translated so cultural beliefs are embraced, historical knowledge preserved, and long-term subsistence occur.;Finally, a hypothesis-driven project of architecture analyzes the cultural resilience of a disaster-struck community in Leogane, Haiti. This case study both ties to the paper's main objectives and serves as validation to confirm research suppositions that see architecture as the catalyst for a culturally sensitive, long-term rebuilding strategy.;This research paper has three primary objectives: to identify the relationship between long-term strategic planning and the importance of culturally specific community rebuilding; to examine successful and unsuccessful community rebuilding case studies, noting the role played by local knowledge and collaborative design; and to determine potential for a theory-based formulaic response to long-term redevelopment that could be applied either in general or to similar rebuilding scenarios. |
