Archinect - News

A Palestinian architect looks for a future in Gaza’s rubble

2024-02-05T11:47:00-05:00

Over 60% of the buildings in Gaza have been destroyed. But it's also the heritage, the culture, the collective memory. So it's important for us to rethink how to rebuild, how to accommodate one of the highest densely populated spots on Earth. Do we go vertical? Do we go horizontal? You've got an urban fabric. You've got a coastal fabric. You've got a rural fabric. Each one requires a different way of looking at it.

Yara Sharif is the London-based co-founder of the group Architects for Gaza. The Palestinian architect tells NPR the task now is to assemble a society literally of the rubble using the remnants of some 200,000 buildings that have been destroyed and in the most environmentally sensitive ways possible. A top-down solution that keeps Palestinians out of any post-war rebuilding process has been a growing concern for activists, who brought the issue to the International Court of Justice as part of South Africa's attempt to use it to stop the violence in December.

To date, the IDF’s military strategy has razed more than 70% of all residential structures, plus another 20 or so hospitals and approximately 350 schools. Its plan to establish a 23-square-mile "buffer zone" within the Gaza Strip's borders has become another recent point of contention (h/t LA Times).

IKEA Foundation supports Better Shelter’s deployment of 5,000 modular shelters in response to earthquake in Turkey and Syria

2023-02-24T11:34:00-05:00

Swedish nonprofit Better Shelter has announced the provision of 5,000 emergency shelters in Turkey following the major earthquake that has so far killed over 47,000 people across the country and neighboring Syria. The shelters were made possible through a EUR 10 million (approximately USD 10.5 million) donation by the IKEA Foundation.

Better Shelter's modular units deployed in Hatay, Turkey after the recent earthquake. Image credit: Alaaddin Seyitisa for Better Shelter

“The generous support provided by the IKEA Foundation will give crucial protection to many thousand people in this difficult time,” said Better Shelter’s managing partner Johan Karlsson in a statement. “We are proud to support our humanitarian partners in Syria and Türkiye working day and night to help survivors. We now ask businesses to step forward and join our efforts to support even more people who have lost everything.”

Better Shelter's modular units deployed in Hatay, Turkey after the recent earthquake. Image cre...

Doctors Without Borders seeks architect to join their global humanitarian missions

2023-01-18T11:12:00-05:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for a Shop Manager at Studio Sanford Biggers, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open position on Archinect Jobs for an Architect at Doctors Without Borders.

The role, which requires a minimum of two years’ experience, calls for an architect who will oversee the design and construction of infrastructure to support the organization’s international humanitarian missions. Responsibilities in the role can range from feasibility studies and design proposals to management of the tendering, construction, and completion process.

In return, and aside from conventional industry workplace benefits, the organization offers to cover a range of primary costs including pre-departure inductions, vaccinations, visas, transportation and accommodation in the field, and psychosocial care support before and after missions.

Zaha Hadid Architects designs collection of emergency shelters for displaced communities

2022-12-20T11:20:00-05:00

Zaha Hadid Architects has designed a collection of tents to be used as schools, clinics, and emergency shelters for displaced communities. The 27 tents, constructed with the support of the Education Above All Foundation, have been donated to the International Organization of Migration (IOM) and the Qatar Red Crescent.

Photo credit: Luke Hayes

Described by the ZHA team as a “robust, cost-effective, and lightweight modular architectural system,” the weatherproof structures are designed to be easily moved and re-assembled, with components that can be upcycled or recycled. Supported by a curving steel frame clad with fabric, the internal environment offers an open-plan layout lit by diffuse natural light.

Photo credit: Luke Hayes

Before the donation, the tents were being utilized as schools for hundreds of displaced Pakistani children in Pakistan, and Syrian children in Turkey. In their new capacity, ten tents donated to the IOM will serve as schools in Turkey and Yemen, while five will ...

BIG's newest museum project is a timely testament to the outsider in Danish society

2022-06-30T14:45:00-04:00

The latest museum project from Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) is now officially open following a weekend ceremony for the new FLUGT Refugee Museum in Oksbøl, Denmark.

With Queen Margrethe looking on, Ingels and his team were on hand to inaugurate the new institution, which is meant as a platform for stories of the immigrant experience in Danish society.

Photo: Rasmus Hjortshøj

Located on the site of one of Denmark’s largest post-World War II German refugee camps, BIG’s design reworked an existing historic hospital structure into a 1,600-square-meter (17,220-square-foot) space, split into two buildings, that are connected by a single curved Corten steel volume to create a welcoming entryway into the exhibition areas.

Photo: Rasmus Hjortshøj

Its north wing maintains the original circulation of the hospital layout, utilizing the introduction of three stabilizing cross-sections to increase gallery space in the new exhibition areas. In the new sout...

Hire Ukrainian Designers

2022-05-11T19:03:00-04:00

As we approach the third month of Russia’s ruthless attacks, citizens of Ukraine have continued to suffer unimaginable challenges. One of the many concerns that Ukrainians have had is financial, and how to maintain a livelihood during this tragic situation. Architects and designers, many of whom are regular users of Archinect, with work we’ve featured over the years, have been without work and income. If you’re a design firm that’s currently hiring, you’re in a position to help!

Previously on Archinect: Voices from Ukraine: Architects, designers, and academics share personal insights with Archinect

A new initiative called Hire Ukrainian Designers has been formed to connect struggling Ukrainian architects and designers with American firms for remote and freelance work. The group has been actively collecting applications from Ukrainian designers, verifying skillsets, availability, and English proficiency, and connecting them with US-based AEC firms. They are even providing hiring, IT, ...

Kyiv-based Balbek Bureau develops modular refugee shelters for displaced Ukrainians

2022-03-29T16:58:00-04:00

With more than 3.7 million Ukrainian refugees fleeing the country and another 6.5 million internally displaced, architects in Ukraine have been hard-pressed to put their skills to work by creating the necessary shelters and accommodations required for those uprooted by the brutal Russian war machine.

One such firm at the forefront of this effort is Kyiv-based balbek bureau, an award-winning 70-member practice whose peacetime portfolio ranges from retail and residential spaces to corporate offices, hotels, restaurants, and wellness centers. Led by its founder Slava Balbek, the team has pivoted to the refugee crisis with a new project for temporary housing titled RE: UKRAINE.

Rendered image © Balbek Bureau.

The modular town system is meant to provide a modicum of dignity for their fellow citizens via the expedited delivery of an adjustable set of structures centered around four basic elements: private rooms, public recreation areas, adequate kitchens, an...

Shigeru Ban is on the ground helping war-torn Ukrainian refugees in Poland

2022-03-21T13:38:00-04:00

Shigeru Ban had been working with students from the Wrocław University of Science and Technology on the influx of Ukrainian refugees sheltering in a converted former supermarket in Chelm, Poland, where they were able to construct and install 319 privacy partitions over a four-day span. He now plans to send an additional 800 screens to refugees sheltering within their now war-torn country. The gesture has reportedly had a tremendous emotional impact on the wary travelers, whose plight in turn has captivated the 2014 Pritzker winner well known for working with displaced populations.

“They are called evacuees, but they are ordinary people like us,” Ban told a reporter. “They are with their family members, just like survivors of natural disasters are after emergencies. But the big difference is that Ukrainian evacuees are not with their husbands or fathers. Ukrainian men are basically banned from leaving the country. It’s sad.”

Ban and his collaborators from the Wrocław University of Sc...

World Home Foundation to focus philanthropy on global housing crisis

2020-07-29T13:55:00-04:00

31-year-old entrepreneur Fanyu Lin has initiated a new philanthropic enterprise called the World Home Foundation, an effort focused on providing homes to undeserved populations that include low income urban citizens, migrants, and refugees.

The new endeavor addresses a common phenomenon in reconstruction projects after natural disasters where low quality tents are provided to the impacted population as shelters while transitional housing is developed and built. "The shelters are often shacks, or low quality tents. There are technologies such as 3D printing which could improve the conditions and speed of building significantly, essentially combining shelters and transitional housing. But to achieve that in reality, it requires people who know the technology, the willing capital, and the right organization to bring it to life," writes Fei Bo in a profile on Lin.

Prior to launching World Home Foundation, Lin founded Fluxus, an architecture and construction technology company, and also...

When a refugee camp becomes a semi-permanent settlement

2019-10-01T14:30:00-04:00

With the prospect of the Rohingya not being able to return to Myanmar for years to come, the prototypes in Camp 4 Extension reflect how aid and relief organizations are finding new ways to manage the long-term needs of the most populous refugee camp in the world.

CityLab reports on the latest efforts to drastically improve living conditions inside Kutupalong Refugee Camp, the world's largest camp of its kind and currently home to more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees that fled from ethnic and religious persecution in Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh.

"Designers in the U.S. are helping to facilitate these dreams for more stable refugee camps," write Victoria Milko and Clare Hammond in their CityLab article about recent design and infrastructure improvements.

"Nadyeli Quiroz and John David Wagner at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design are embarking on a year-long collaboration with OBAT Helpers, an Indianapolis-based community nonprofit, to explore how to create varied functional spaces within the camps, such as outdoor courtyards or provisional pop-up designs."

But making lasting progress is tricky. The Bangladeshi government insists on the temporary status of the camp — emphasizing that its Rohingya population would be returning to My...

Training refugees to conserve their monumental heritage

2018-03-20T15:43:00-04:00

The problems: how to conserve extraordinary monumental heritage in Iraq and Syria [...]. The issue is exacerbated by the depletion of skilled craftspeople; once the dust of conflict settles, there will be few able to carry out restoration. At the same time, thousands sit in refugee camps, lives on hold, seeking a future. The solution: train refugees to become the craftspeople and conservators of the future. Give them a skill to help restore their nation’s heritage.

Photo: World Monuments Fund.

Learn more about the World Monuments Fund’s new stone masonry training center for Syrian refugees in Mafraq, Jordan (backed by the UK government’s Cultural Protection Fund) here.

China reportedly building refugee camps on North Korean border

2017-12-14T17:29:00-05:00

A Chinese county along the border with North Korea is constructing refugee camps intended to house thousands of migrants fleeing a possible crisis on the Korean Peninsula, according to an internal document that appears to have been leaked from China’s main state-owned telecommunications company.

The Times reports that one of China’s most prominent experts on North Korea called building the refugee camps “absolutely reasonable.”

Shigeru Ban is building shelters for a Kenyan refugee settlement

2017-07-20T13:14:00-04:00

Due to the large influx of refugees, sheet walls of many temporary houses have begun to wear out. And there are other major constraints. There’s low water supply, deforestation, and extremely hot temperatures, and a rainy season which often results in heavy flooding. Plus Kalobeyei remote location creates many obstacles. There are no commercial flights to the area, and it can take up to 3 days to get there by road for the capital, Nairobi, where some materials may have to be sourced from.

Shigeru Ban has signed an agreement with UN-Habitat to design up to 12,000 new homes in the Kalobeiyei refugee settlement site in Northern Kenya. Commissioned in response to the settlement’s rapid growth, which is expected to outnumber its original capacity of 45,000 within a year, the new housing will need to be a replicable model adaptable to the influx of refugees fleeing violence and climate change in South Sudan and Somalia.

"The key thing will be to design and construct shelter where no or little technical supervision is required,” noted Ban, “and use materials that are locally available and eco-friendly. It’s important that the houses can be easily maintained by inhabitants.”

Dutch prisons converted into homes for refugees

2017-06-21T18:09:00-04:00

As the country’s crime rate and prison population have steadily declined for years, dozens of correctional facilities have closed altogether. So when the number of migrants started to rise—more than 50,000 entered the Netherlands last year alone—the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) saw a solution.

Many prisons in the Netherlands have been repurposed to house refugees who are waiting to be granted asylum status, a process that usually takes at least six months. Free to come and go as they please, the refugees are not allowed to work but are encouraged to learn Dutch and build connections with the surrounding community.

Explore mitigating human suffering via design in this New School symposium

2017-02-23T13:41:00-05:00

As cities densify and the global population increases, much has been made of reclaiming physical spaces: but how does one reclaim a place that is bound up in tragedy, whether that tragedy was natural or man-made? On March 3rd and 4th, Parsons the New School for Design will host a symposium featuring Lina Sergie Attar, a Syrian-American architect, writer, and activist who hails from Aleppo.

In addition to Attar's keynote address, the symposium, entitled “Making Home in Wounded Places: Memory, Design, and the Spatial," will explore several dozen case studies dealing with refugee shelters, the repurposing of Latin American prisons into shopping malls, and how painful memories of the past have been represented and memorialized in places including a Warsaw ghetto. Those interested in registering to attend can do so on the website.

Following the closing of the Calais "Jungle", the streets of Paris fill with tents

2016-11-01T18:56:00-04:00

The number of migrants sleeping rough on the streets of Paris has risen by at least a third since the start of the week when the "Jungle" shanty town in Calais was evacuated. Along the bustling boulevards and a canal in a northeastern corner of Paris, hundreds of tents have been pitched by asylum seekers - mostly Africans who say they are from Sudan - with cardboard on the ground to try and insulate them from the cold.

While their presence is not new, it has grown substantially this week, said Colombe Brossel, Paris deputy mayor in charge of security issues.

According to the article, there are up to a thousand more people living on the streets of Paris—amounting to around 2,500 in total—following the closure of the Calais refugee settlement. Most of these asylum seekers are from Sudan or elsewhere in Africa. While the city of Paris has plans to open two new reception centers, they will only be able to house less than 1,000 people.

Meanwhile, France and Britain are squabbling over which country will take responsibility for the 1,500 minors who were living in Calais. Despite pleas from the French president François Hollande, the new Prime Minister of the UK, Theresa May, has declined to make any extra commitments. May has taken a hardline stance against immigration since assuming office after the Brexit referendum.

As refugees flood into the country, Germany experiments with new urban-planning strategies

2016-08-22T12:37:00-04:00

Since August of 2015, Germany has become home to more than 1.1 million refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers. This influx has German architects and urban planners asking the question: “Do we have a refugee crisis on our hands? Or a housing crisis combined with huge challenges to the ability of cities, job markets, and schools to integrate the newcomers?”

[Doug Saunders] cautions that arrival cities are “where the new creative and commercial class will be born, or where the next wave of tension and violence will erupt.” The difference, he adds “depends on how we approach these districts both organizationally and politically, and, crucially, in terms of physical structures and built form.”

For more on the mass migrations transforming Europe, Africa and the Middle East, check out these links:

Sweden tightens its refugee policy, introduces new restrictions for asylum seekers

2016-06-21T13:52:00-04:00

Sweden, once one of the most welcoming countries for refugees, on Tuesday introduced tough new restrictions on asylum seekers, including rules that would limit the number of people granted permanent residency and make it more difficult for parents to reunite with their children. The government said the legislation... was necessary to prevent the country from becoming overstretched by the surge of migration to Europe that began last year.

As more and more refugees flood into Europe from the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere, once-welcoming countries are increasingly tightening their borders. For more on this, check out these links:

Fire breaks out at refugee camp in the Duesseldorf airport

2016-06-07T17:25:00-04:00

A large fire has broken out at a convention centre in the western German city of Duesseldorf. The centre acts as an accommodation hub for refugees waiting to be sent elsewhere in North Rhine-Westphalia. Everyone inside hall 18, where 180 refugees were staying, was brought to safety, according to reports. As the fire raged, a thick, black plume of smoke could be seen across Duesseldorf.

In related news:

Ai Weiwei's latest works focus on refugee crisis in Greece

2016-05-23T17:23:00-04:00

the artist says we should not “sentimentalise or romanticise” the crisis, which has seen more than 2,000 children die on their way to Europe. [...] Ai first visited Lesbos on Christmas Day last year, and has since dedicated most of his life to helping refugees there, even moving his studio to the island. [...] “The goal is to make everyone conscious of the struggle of refugees. We need to protect humanity. The fight is endless. If we don’t fight, our children have to fight,” he says.

Related on Archinect:

Curator of MoMA's “Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Shelter" on palliative refugee architecture

2016-05-19T13:17:00-04:00

If we imagine one's escape to a refugee camp as fragmentary, provisional and incomplete, the camp must be transformed not only in design but also in its role as a catalyst for promoting the humanity of those living within its barbed-wired walls. [...] Architecture has become the litmus test of society's capacity for holistic and compassionate security.

For more on the architectural experience of refugees:

New MoMA exhibition explores the architecture of displacement

2016-05-06T18:11:00-04:00

The architecture of forced displacement is the subject of “Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Shelter,” a forthcoming exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. The exhibit will assemble work by architects, designers, and artists responding to the global refugee crisis. Curated by Sean Anderson, MoMA’s associate curator for architecture and design, with curatorial assistant Arièle Dionne-Krosnick, “Insecurities” will include works of design built to help alleviate suffering inside refugee camps.

↑ Interior of a Better Shelter prototype in Kawergosk Refugee Camp, Erbil, Iraq. (Image: Better Shelter, 2015)

Germany announces new integration measures for migrants and refugees

2016-04-14T13:07:00-04:00

Germany has announced new legal measures requiring migrants and refugees to integrate into society in return for being allowed to live and work in the country. Under the coalition government’s measures, announced on Thursday morning, asylum seekers face cuts to support if they reject mandatory integration measures such as language classes or lessons in German laws or cultural basics.

"According to the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the aim of Germany’s first ever integration law is to make it easier for asylum seekers to gain access to the German labour market, with the government promising 100,000 new 'working opportunities', expected to include low-paid workfare jobs."

For more on the refugee crisis currently engulfing Europe and the Middle East, take a look at these past articles:

Milan to pay stipend to residents willing to host refugees

2016-01-07T20:50:00-05:00

The second-biggest Italian city is offering a monthly payment of 350 euros ($376) to every resident willing to host a refugee, or an asylum seeker, in their home. The city of Milan announced Monday with a post on its Facebook page that soon local residents will be paid for giving shelter to one or more refugees.

Related:

Ai Weiwei documents life in Greek refugee camp on social media

2015-12-30T14:12:00-05:00

The Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei is visiting Lesbos to document the plight of thousands of refugees who arrive daily on the Greek island by boat from Turkey. For the past two days, Ai has been photographing orange rubber dinghies coming into shore, families huddled around fires, people queuing to register at the Moria refugee camp and piles of discarded lifejackets, among other scenes [...] It is understood Ai will be creating a work in response to the refugee crisis.

Here are just a few of Ai Weiwei's recent photos from the Lesbos refugee camp; giving a human face to people and entire families escaping war and persecution in their home countries of Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, as well as documenting humanitarian workers, such as the Norwegian group, Drop in the Ocean.

All photos by Ai Weiwei via @aiww on Instagram.

Viennese student dorms may Passively House refugees

2015-10-21T17:19:00-04:00

Sustainable, fast, and cheap housing: just what you need when you're escaping oppressive regimes, natural disasters, and other refugee-creating events. Christoph Chorherr, Vienna's Green Party planning spokesperson, has blogged that the mobile Passive House dormitories designed by Günter Lang for students in Vienna's Seestadt Aspern district could easily be adapted to comfortably house refugees.

With a construction cost of 1.140 Euro per square meter, the dorms not only can be erected in a few days, but also meet the "Passive House Standard," meaning that they reduce traditional building energy consumption by up to 90%. Passive House Standard dwellings aren't limited to Vienna: from Canada to Germany to South Korea, the form is proving popular with energy-conscious designers.

From asylum seeker to award-winning architect: the story of Perparim Rama

2015-09-16T15:34:00-04:00

Perparim Rama is an award-winning architect based in London. He came to the U.K. as an asylum seeker in 1992, fleeing war and persecution in the former Yugoslavia. Here is his take on the biggest refugee crisis since World War II.

Related on Archinect:

Refugees Welcome: the "Airbnb for Refugees"

2015-09-09T18:00:00-04:00

A German group which matchmakes citizens willing to share their homes with refugees said it had been overwhelmed by offers of support, with plans in the works for similar schemes in other European countries. The Berlin-based Refugees Welcome, which has been described as an “Airbnb for refugees”, has helped people fleeing from Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria. More than 780 Germans have signed up to the Refugees Welcome website...

Historic Santa Monica home served as a refuge for intellectuals fleeing Nazi Germany

2015-06-23T16:06:00-04:00

In the 1930s and '40s, the Mabery Road house in Santa Monica Canyon belonged to Hollywood screenwriter Salka Viertel, who made her house a home not only for her family but for hundreds of refugees, some very famous and others unknown... While anti-Fascist volunteers were spiriting people out of Europe, Viertel in Santa Monica was taking them in... She helped to rescue, among many others, the German Expressionist writer Leonhard Frank, the Dadaist poet Walter Mehring, and Alfred Döblin...

The historic home is currently on the market, with an asking price of $4.5 million. It was also the childhood home of noted author Peter Viertel.

UN Refugee Agency Commissions 10k Ikea-designed Better Shelters

2015-03-31T17:23:00-04:00

Ikea's line of flat-pack refugee shelters are going into production, the Swedish furniture maker announced this week, after being tested among refugee families in Ethiopia, Iraq, and Lebanon. The lightweight "Better Shelter" was developed under a partnership between the Ikea Foundation and the ...UNHCR... Each unit takes about four hours to assemble and is designed to last for 3 years — far longer than conventional refugee shelters, which last about 6 months.

As the Verge article notes, the announcement comes at a time when there are nearly 4 million people left without homes from the ongoing wars in Syria alone. Globally, there are 45.2 million people currently displaced by conflict and persecution according to a UNHCR report. And even that number doesn't account for the millions currently being displaced by drought, famine, rising sea levels, resource scarcity or other ecological disasters.

The Ikea Foundation's "Better Shelter" houses comprise three individual parts: the frame, the panels, and the photo voltaic system. They can be assembled on site without any additional tools or equipment. While lightweight and transportable, the units are designed to last three years. The solar panels charge an LED light that can be used at night for four hours or to charge a mobile phone.

In an article posted last year, Architectures of the Disaster, I consider other design projects addressing the global refugee crisis.