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Rethinking the Refugee Camp: 8 Architectural Proposals for Asylum Seekers

01 Aug

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

Refugees fleeing the worst humanitarian crises of our time don’t just need tents – they need safe and stable long-term housing, a sense of community, access to transitional resources and plans for permanent integration into existing cities. Smart and sensitive design solutions may play just one small role in addressing the crisis, but they can help provide the architecture and infrastructure needed to start a new life.

Mannheim Refugee Pavilion, Germany

Architecture students at the University of Kaiserslautern in Mannheim created an airy community center made of latticed wood to offer a sheltered communal area for refugees arriving to an adjacent camp. The team worked with 25 refugees and building companies to create the shelter. “Due to bureaucratic procedures, refugees arriving in Germany are condemned to sustain a long period of passiveness. They are well provided with the bare essentials but the immediate area is quite desolate and lacking of quality common spaces. The residents at the preliminary reception center has the opportunity to actively shape their environment and create a quality place for common or individual use.”

20,000 New Homes for Refugees in Kenya by Shigeru Ban

Japanese architect Shigeru Ban will design 20,000 new homes for refugees at the Kalobeyei refugee settlement in Kenya based on discusses he held with refugees in the area. “The key thing will be to construct shelter where no or little technical supervision is required, and use materials that are locally available and eco-friendly,” he says. “It’s important that the houses can be easily maintained by inhabitants.”

Ikea’s Flat-Pack Refugee Shelter Named 2016 Design of the Year

The ‘Better Shelter’ by Ikea is a flat-pack structure large enough to house a family of five that can be assembled in just a few hours. Made from recyclable plastic, it consists of just 68 components and includes a solar panel to power lights and charge smartphones and other devices. It went into production in 2015, and since then, tens of thousands of units have been delivered to countries all over the world. Though it’s more practical than glamorous, the Better Shelter won the Beazley Design of the Year Award presented by the Design Museum in London in 2016.

‘Weaving a Home’ by Abeer Seikaly

Winner of a Lexus Design Award in 2013, ‘Weaving a Home’ by Abeer Seikaly is a collapsible structural fabric shelter capable of adapting to various climates. The design is cellular, made of high-strength plastic tubing woven into a fabric membrane, and segments can be left open to create doorways or windows or closed to retain heat. At the top of the unit is a water storage tank supplied by rainwater or an onsite source to provides running water inside. “Refugees carry from their homes what they can and resettle in unknown lands, often starting with nothing but a tent to call home…” says Seikaly. “In this space, the refugees find a place to pause from their turbulent worlds, a place to weave the tapestry of their new lives.”

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Rethinking The Refugee Camp 8 Architectural Proposals For Asylum Seekers

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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Prison Reformed: Amsterdam Structure Now Hosts Refugee Center & Art Hub

26 Jan

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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A structure that once housed thousands of prisoners now hosts up to 1,000 refugees as well as a creative hub, offering space “in a time of fear and division.” Amsterdam’s Bijlmerbajes first opened in 1978 and closed in 2016, and the complex, which consists of six towers, went up for sale shortly thereafter. It’s set to be demolished later this year – but until then, it’ll function as a temporary home for those seeking asylum in addition to art studios, offices for entrepreneurs and other projects.

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The new ‘Lola Lik’ cultural hub opened on January 20th in the former main building of the prison, neighbor to the refugee center known as Wenckebachweg. The complex’s courtyard has been transformed into gardens, and will host Solar World Cinema, a project bringing free films to open-air public spaces.

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Lola Lik also hosts The Favela Painting Foundation, which “invigorates public urban spaces by turning them into inspiring and colorful artworks of monumental size.” The group, which is responsible for large-scale art projects in Haiti, Philadelphia and Rio de Janeiro, also helped give the drab concrete prison buildings a cheerful makeover.

lola-lik-7

The space aims to be an incubator for inspiring projects and businesses operated by both the refugees who live next door and residents who have lived in Amsterdam a bit longer. The space is open to the public, and its studio spaces can be rented. The prison’s former kitchens have been transformed into a ‘Start-Up Kitchen’ run by Jay Asad, a Syrian entrepreneur who formerly owned several restaurants, a hotel and specialty donut shops in Damascus.

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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14,000 Refugee Life Jackets Wrap Berlin Konzerthaus Entrance

19 Feb

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

life jacket art project

In an effort to raise awareness about the growing refugee crisis, Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has wrapped six giant entry columns to a landmark concert hall in central Berlin with life jackets collected in Greece.

life jacket installation berlin

Weiwei has been living on and working from the Greek Island of Lesvos, a destination currently swamped with income refugees, many coming across Mediterranean Sea from Turkey.

life jacket columns berlin

life jacket installation

He regularly shares images and videos of asylum-seekers from his stay on the island via social media accounts, but the installation takes things a step further, bringing the point home to those living inland on mainland Europe.

life jacket materials

life jacket installed

life boat hangs center

These 14,000 jackets are by no means a complete collection, and that is also part of the point: they are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, a sampling of the suffering and strife. Hundreds of refugees have also died trying to reach safety away from conflict (images via mompl and Frank Löschner / Konzerthaus Berlin).

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

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Cities of Tomorrow: Refugee Camps Require Longer-Term Thinking

02 Dec

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

refugeeeee

Former mayor of the world’s second-largest refugee camp, humanitarian Kilian Kleinschmidt notes that the average life of a refugee camp is 17 years, “a generation,” and these places need to be recognized as what they are: “cities of tomorrow,” not the temporary spaces we like to imagine. “In the Middle East, we were building camps: storage facilities for people. But the refugees were building a city,” Kleinschmidt told Dezeen in an interview. Short-term thinking on camp infrastructure leads to perpetually poor conditions, all based on myopic optimism regarding the intended lifespan of these places.

kilian kleinschmidt

Many refugees may never be able return home, and that reality needs to be realized and incorporated into solutions. Treating their situation as temporary or reversible puts people into a kind of existential limbo; inhabitants of these interstitial places can neither return to their normal routines nor move forward with their lives.. On the one hand, assert experts like Kleinschmidt, planners need build up refugee camps to be durable and sufficient places in their own right. On the other, they also need to move refugee migrants toward countries and regions where they will end up virtuously integrated into struggling economies, including (though controversially): areas of nearby Europe with unused housing and high labor needs.

refugee housing

Beyond providing more thoroughly for essentials, Kleinschmidt sees additional opportunities to enable refugees with new technologies: “With a [3D-printing] Fab Lab people could produce anything they need – a house, a car, a bicycle, generating their own energy, whatever,” he said. Unfortunately, governmental bureaucracies and aid organizations are reluctant to push boundaries and try new approaches. More fundamentally: they frequently fail to recognize the need for robust solutions that help facilitate refugees who are themselves working hard to create real places for living.

refugee housing ikea

“I think we have reached the dead end almost where the humanitarian agencies cannot cope with the crisis,” he said. “We’re doing humanitarian aid as we did 70 years ago after the second world war. Nothing has changed.” Kleinschmidt worked with the United Nations and their High Commission for Refugees for 25 years before starting an independent consultancy that continues to address humanitarian issues around the globe.

His previous senior roles included deputy humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, deputy special envoy for assistance to Pakistan, acting director for communities and minorities in the U.N. administration in Kosovo, executive secretary for the Migration and Refugee Initiative (MARRI) in the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, and many field-based functions with U.N.H.C.R., U.N.D.P. and W.F.P. He worked extensively in Africa, Southeastern Europe, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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Banksy’s Dismaland to be Reused as Refugee Housing in France

08 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

dismaland panoramic

The dystopian bemusement pop-up theme park known Dismaland, a project of UK artist Banksy, is now closed but its dismantled pieces and parts will find second lives as architecture and infrastructure for refugees across the English Channel in the French port city of Calais.

dismaland night shot

dismaland montage

Known collectively as “The Jungle,” a series of mostly-informal refugee camps around the Port of Calais temporarily house asylum seekers from troubled countries including Darfur, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. Most of The Jungle’s occupants are looking for ways into the United Kingdom, legally or otherwise.

dismaland park bench

dismaland deconstructed

Working fixtures, furniture and furnishings will be appropriated more directly, while more complex structures are being disassembled to be reused as raw materials for shelters and services. While camps have existed in the area for years, they are in constant conflict with authorities and generally lack even basic day-to-day amenities.

dismaland in action

dismaland sunset

Lasting just over a month, Dismaland attracted over 150,000 visitors, featuring works by Banksy and 58 other artists. Dismaland was a surprise installation to the residents of seaside Somerset, England, who were told the construction efforts were building toward a film set for an upcoming movie (images via Wikipedia and Colossal).

[ By WebUrbanist in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Details & Diagrams: $1,000 IKEA Flat-Pack Refugee Shelter

28 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

ikea shelter diagrams

Emergency shelters are designed to be short-term solutions, and many cannot withstand rain, wind and sun for more than six months. Yet the average stay in refugee camp is over twenty times that duration.

flat pack emergency shelter

The IKEA Foundation, in cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, has developed a longer-term solution to this problem, turning their experience with flat-pack furniture and language-free instruction manuals toward disaster relief efforts in and around war-torn places like Syria (they are already testing in Lebanon and Iraq). Sticklers for detail should scroll carefully below for a step-by-step deconstruction of what goes into this remarkable dwelling.

flat pack shelter diagram

The problem, in part, is building the most universal unit possible in a world where emergencies happen globally, spanning regions both hot and cold and with vastly different cultural norms. Their solution is much like an ordinary IKEA product: flexible, adaptable, modular and packed into cardboard boxes of components. Naturally, they require no tools that are not included.

flat pack ikea shelter

While the structures themselves are still only expected to last a few years, they are made to be modified, enhanced and expanded in various ways. For instance, earthen walls and corrugated metal roofs can be pushed up against, fastened to and ultimately help reinforce the core buildings, or even eventually replace the need for underlying framework entirely, rendering it redundant.

ikea shelter finished

The shelters are constructed primarily from polymer panels that clip into a wire frame. On top sits an aluminum-mesh roofing sheet that is designed to reflect sunlight by day and retain heat by night. Solar energy charges a USB outlet for electrical needs. The target price range for mass production is under $ 1000, making it affordable in bulk to international organizations. Images and diagram via The Telegraph, IKEA Foundation and Graphic News.

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

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