In earthquake-prone regions, displacement persists when emergency shelters are not designed to adapt as needs change. In Jama, Manabí (Ecuador), standardized solutions that overlook local practices and site risks have prolonged the use of temporary shelters. This dissertation develops and evaluates a transitional housing framework that bridges emergency relief and long-term habitation. The framework combines modular bamboo construction and folding scissor mechanisms with a computational planning workflow.

Methods include component- and system-level prototyping; physics-based form-finding (Kangaroo); finite-element structural checks (Karamba); computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for microclimate; and GIS-based site selection with multi-objective optimization (Wallacei) to balance accessibility, hazards, and land use. The result is a repeatable, scalable pipeline—from single deployable module to cluster to phased settlement—that enables rapid deployment, incremental upgrades, and community integration over a 0–10-year horizon. Outputs include a deployable module toolkit, aggregation rules, and a site strategy that minimizes disruption while improving service access. Results indicate the framework can shorten the relief-to-recovery interval in Jama and comparable contexts.