Archinect - Features

It’s Time To Consider the Refugee Camp as a City — And Here’s Why

2022-12-09T09:00:00-05:00

With the horizon of increased global instability closer than ever, whereby the scales of political balance can be so quickly tipped and toppled, questions relating to the rights of displaced peoples in refugee camps are both pertinent and vital. Yet, since refugee camps are becoming increasingly ‘urban’ in terms of scale, population density, social processes, and physical manifestation through schools, clinics, roads, and infrastructure, the questions surrounding refugee camp design and camp dwellers’ rights inherently become architectural and urban matters.

The Medusae and the Migrant: Ala Tannir on the Ecology of Crisis in the Mediterranean

2018-06-21T11:55:00-04:00

Since the beginning of 2018 alone, 857 people have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean — more than five per day — fleeing war, political repression, economic hardship, and ecological crises. It is the deadliest migration route in the world. While the internal borders of the European Union have been made increasingly porous since the early 1990’s, the external borders have been progressively closed off, leaving the sea as the primary path to asylum. But the waters are rough, and migrants are often crammed on overpacked, unseaworthy vessels by opportunistic smugglers. Armed with remote sensing technologies, policing missions sent by the European states send many boats back. Others sink. Rescues — mandated by international maritime law — have become less and less frequent as European countries have instituted a complex set of laws that provide loopholes allowing the abdication of their responsibility. Nearly one in every fifty migrants attempting the journey does not make it.

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Emergency Shelter: Housing for the Age of Mass Displacement

2017-07-20T11:30:00-04:00

Today, forced displacement affects more people than any crisis or conflict. According to the UN, 65.3 million people, or one person in every 113, is now internally or externally displaced. The average time families remain in emergency accommodation is now 17 years, longer than the average US house buyer will stay in their home. No longer temporary but not yet a city, these ‘camps’ are where millions of children will grow up. In this month’s feature we speak to architects working with the concept of emergency shelter to find out how they are approaching the issue. An overview will be provided by former UNHCR official Kilian Kleinschmidt, now director of Switxboard, who will discuss where and how input from the design disciplines would be most welcomed.

The Short Life and Bitter End to Munich's 'Yellow Submarine'

2016-11-26T12:26:00-05:00

Made of 16 bathtubs with specially installed portholes, 'Yellow Submarine' was a hotel room/political housing statement, and one of the 24-winning designs in the 2015 Shabbyshabby Apartments competition. Created by the Glasgow-based and Lithuanian-staffed collective Urban Restart along with Kurt Cleary, the design is purposefully referred to in the past tense: only two days after it was erected in Munich, it was destroyed. This prompted speculation that vandals, or right-wing extremists opposed to refugees, were responsible.

Context as content: mapping the contemporary at the 2016 Oslo Triennale with OMA, Andrés Jaque and more

2016-09-19T11:54:00-04:00

Maybe the closest thing to new construction in After Belonging, the sixth Oslo Architecture Triennale, is an apple press assembled with two 2x2’s, some nails, a saw, a gallon bucket, a heavy pole, a colander, a hammer, a plastic bag, a funnel and a car jack. Eriksen Skajaa Arkitekter designed the device after finding an abandoned apple orchard on the eastern edge of the Torshov asylum center, which houses refugees from wars in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries.

One student's solution to the permanent limbo of refugee camps

2016-06-08T08:37:00-04:00

As conflicts continue to rage in the Middle East, North Africa, and elsewhere, millions of people have found themselves without papers, a state, or a home. Architecture is directly implicated in this humanitarian crisis—providing shelter is, after all, a primary onus of the disciple—and it’s taken notice, as the projects rolling out of Venice make clear.

paraSITE: the bandage over the nomadic wound

2016-05-27T11:04:00-04:00

Using the air discharged from publicly accessible HVAC units, artist Michael Rakowitz has created a series of inflatable temporary plastic shelters for the homeless he calls “paraSITE.” The work, which began in 1998 and was later added to the MoMA’s Architecture and Design online collection, is both a form of social protest and an ingenious, budget-conscious design (most units cost around $5 to construct).

Photographing the 'Jungle' of Calais' refugee camp

2016-05-20T10:20:00-04:00

The northernmost vertex in the hexagon of Metropolitan France, the port city of Calais is nearly 100 kilometers closer to Brussels than to Paris. On a clear day, you can see the White Cliffs of Dover, one of the most iconic of England’s natural wonders, from its shores. Several centuries ago, Calais belonged to the English crown—its “greatest jewel.” More recently, the Germans seized it and then razed it. Calais is, in a way, the quintessential European border town. Here, Europe’s incessant identity crises and territorial struggles surface in physical form.