From the studied sample shelters, it was concluded that the
proposed functional unit produces comparable results for diverse
construction materials and shelter types. Furthermore, the method
developed here allowed us to identify the most promising material
and design combination able to withstand local natural hazards
with the lowest economic and environmental costs. From these
results, it was observed that shelters with high cost and/or environmental
impact do not necessarily perform the best from a
technical viewpoint. Furthermore, no direct correlation between
the type of construction material and the shelter sustainability was
found. However, it is clear that proper design and material selection
drive the sustainability performance of the studied shelter designs.
In addition, both global and local construction materials can be
used to produce sustainable solutions for post-disaster reconstruction
projects, with local materials having higher potential for
low environmental impacts and costs and global materials having
higher potential to produce better technical performances. These
results show that shelters with high technical performance can be
achieved under low price/low environmental impacts per functional
unit. Although local constructive systems can provide the
best compromise between environmental impacts and cost, their
structural design requires more effort