Archinect - News

Airbnb to offer free housing for up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees

2022-03-03T16:41:00-05:00

Airbnb said this week it will offer free, short-term housing for up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion. The program will be backed by Airbnb.org, an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and funded by donors and hosts.

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky announced the move on Twitter, calling for people to offer their homes in nearby countries, including Poland, Germany, Hungary, and Romania. This comes as an estimated 660,000 refugees have so far fled Ukraine, with the U.N. refugee agency predicting that this figure could rise to 4 million by July. The agency believes this may be the largest refugee crisis of this century.

1. Airbnb and https://t.co/enqjlQB0rH are working with our Hosts to house up to 100,000 refugees fleeing from Ukraine, for free
— Brian Chesky(@bchesky) February 28, 2022

According to The Real Deal, Airbnb will work closely with European governments to coordinate hosting, including offering long-term stays where possible. The organization is also accepting donations, which can be made here.

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...

Trump considers tent cities to house unaccompanied migrant children

2018-06-13T19:29:00-04:00

The Trump administration is looking to build tent cities at military posts around Texas to shelter the increasing number of unaccompanied migrant children being held in detention. The Department of Health and Human Services will visit Fort Bliss, a sprawling Army base near El Paso in the coming weeks to look at a parcel of land where the administration is considering building a tent city to hold between 1,000 and 5,000 children...

Over 11,200 migrant children are held without a parent or guardian by The Office of Refugee Resettlement at HHS who oversees around 100 shelters. As these shelters fill up with children separated from their parents, the Trump administration considers building tent cities to accommodate this rapidly increasing population who await processing.

Charles Leadbeater on the meaning of home in today's culture of rootlessness

2016-12-09T15:20:00-05:00

The tiny house is just one example of the lengths to which people will go to create a sense of home even when they lack the means for it. It’s just one symptom of a much wider and intensifying search for belonging, which makes home as important to politics as the idea of class or rights – especially now, when so many people feel displaced, both literally and figuratively, by life in innovation-driven, high-tech, networked capitalism.

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.

Ruimteveldwerk maps 'modes of movement' for asylum seekers in Oslo

2016-09-13T18:30:00-04:00

According to estimates by the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration, up to 60,000 people will seek asylum in Norway this year alone, most of them from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of these newly-arrived people have little knowledge of where to go to find basic resources, not to mention where to make friends. How do you spread information among a constantly changing group of people who don’t have either the visibility or the vocality of the rest of a city’s population?

For Modes of Movement, one of the 2016 Oslo Triennale commissioned ‘intervention strategies’, the Belgian collective Ruimteveldwerk met with asylum seekers in Oslo to gather information and anecdotes about places they found useful or appealing. They then converted their findings into a city guide, which delineates fundamental resources like medical centers and shelters, alongside places where asylum seekers can simply meet one another and share stories and experiences.

Like the rest of the intervention strategies in ...

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:

Olafur Eliasson's 'Green Light' responds to the refugee crisis in Europe

2016-05-17T11:30:00-04:00

Green Light is an artistic workshops that responds to the current situation in Europe, in which countless refugees are caught up in legal and political limbo. Together with TBA21 in Vienna, Olafur Eliasson has invited people from different backgrounds – refugees and locals – to take part in exchanges at TBA21-Augarten through a playful, creative process.

Over the course of the three-month project, which ends 5 June, participants put together Green light lamp modules designed by Olafur Eliasson on two days of the week and take part in practical workshops and language courses on two other days. During that time, TBA21 is also hosting a multifaceted programme of shared learning that features workshops, seminars, performances, screenings, lectures, and artistic interventions.

“Green light is an act of welcoming, addressed both to those who have fled hardship and instability in their home countries and to the residents of Vienna. I hope Green light shines light on some of the challenges a...

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)

America's first "climate refugees" head for higher ground

2016-05-03T13:33:00-04:00

In January, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced grants totaling $1 billion in 13 states to help communities adapt to climate change, by building stronger levees, dams and drainage systems. One of those grants, $48 million for Isle de Jean Charles, is something new: the first allocation of federal tax dollars to move an entire community struggling with the impacts of climate change.

"The divisions the effort has exposed and the logistical and moral dilemmas it has presented point up in microcosm the massive problems the world could face in the coming decades as it confronts a new category of displaced people who have become known as climate refugees."

Precisely determining who qualifies as a "climate refugee" is a notoriously difficult challenge. While the UN Refugee Agency estimates 22 million people were displaced by "disasters brought on by natural hazard events," evidence linking, for example, the civil war raging in Syria and Iraq with a prolonged drought would up that number.

In short, it's difficult to clearly isolate environmental factors, which tend to happen on large temporal and geographic scales, from sociopolitical causes of mass displacement, which are often more visible.

In any case, while a sizable chunk of the American government still doesn't believe in anthropogenic climate change, its citizens are already being displaced because of its effects....

Tensions build at Athen's port of Piraeus, the first stop for many refugees seeking asylum in Europe

2016-04-26T12:52:00-04:00

Squalid, chaotic, overwhelmed: Piraeus is the first port of call for the thousands now trapped in the capital, on the frontline of Europe’s refugee crisis. Since the closure of Greece’s northern border and with it the Balkan migrant trail – a move that has resulted in more than 46,000 stranded on the Greek mainland – it has been emblematic of the country’s inability to cope with a situation few had envisaged.

"In passenger terminals never built to deal with a humanitarian crisis, facilities have been rudimentary, tensions high, and resources vastly overstretched."

The article notes that the growing refugee population is putting pressure on Athenian society, which was already tense as the country continues to struggles under crippling austerity measures imposed by the European Union. Far-right movements, like the Golden Dawn, are gaining popularity.

Meanwhile, a plan sponsored by the UN Refugee Agency proposes to house up to 20,000 refugees in private apartments around the capital.

For more on the refugee crisis in Europe and the Middle East, check out these links:

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:

"Nobody thinks about the safety of these women": the harrowing experiences of female refugees

2016-02-16T17:42:00-05:00

Amnesty International and the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, recently presented reports on the vulnerable position of women refugees and the dangers they face. Europe is failing to provide basic protection for them, the Amnesty report stated. This problem is now all the more critical because the percentage of women among the refugees who travel through Europe has risen dramatically.

"All the women interviewed for the Amnesty report said that they felt unsafe and threatened during the various stages of their journey. Women are at greater risk of becoming victims of violence, robbery and extortion... There is also the threat of rape and sexual assault by smugglers, security guards, policemen and fellow refugees. Some smugglers try to coerce the women into having sex with them in exchange for a shorter waiting time or a lower price for the crossing."

Alongside first-hand accounts by female refugees, the article describes some of the particular struggles women face, in addition to those experienced by their male counterparts. Women are expected to care for their children along the difficult sea and land routes from Syria to Europe.

Many refugee facilities don't have separate bathroom facilities for each gender, and the risk of sexual assault runs high. Some women have taken to sleeping outside of the camps, without any shelter, if its seems safer than risking sleepin...

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.

The vast majority of Syrian refugees are seeking refuge in cities, not camps

2015-10-30T13:08:00-04:00

Rows of white tents in an otherwise sparse landscape are often featured in the media, but the reality is that 80% of Syrian refugees have sought refuge outside of camps, and the majority of these are living in urban areas – whether in “informal tented settlements”, rented rooms, or half-finished buildings. [...] While the majority of Syrian refugees are not in camps, the bulk of humanitarian resources are channelled towards maintaining camps.

A world divided: mapping border fences globally

2015-09-17T13:31:00-04:00

Europe will soon have more physical barriers on its national borders than it did during the Cold War. This year’s refugee crisis, combined with Ukraine's ongoing conflict with Russia, has seen governments plan and construct border walls and security fences across Mediterranean and eastern Europe... Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, 40 countries around the world have built fences against 64 of their neighbours.

The Economist takes a look at the world's borders, (mostly) new and old. Of the 40 countries that have built physical border walls since the fall of the Berlin Wall, 30 of those happened after 9/11, and 15 this year alone. Check it out the interactive graphic here.

Related coverage:

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:

Passage: an architectural intervention to span the Mediterranean Sea

2015-09-10T17:53:00-04:00

Last year, the group 1W1P – 1Week1Project – created the memorable speculative project "The Qatar World Cup Memorial," a "scalable building that raises awareness about the number of workers who died during the construction of the stadiums for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar."

Now, the collaborative duo of Axel de Stampa and Sylvain Macaux are back with another provocative project – this one just as timely, and a little closer to home for the French architects. Entitled "Passage," the project envisions a megastructure-like intervention that spans the Mediterranean, bridging the northern and southern shores and, in the process, the geopolitical and economic borders that distinguish them.

"Crossing the Mediterranean is one of the most perilous journeys for the migrants seeking sanctuary in Europe," they state in the project brief. With reference to Operation Triton, the border security operation led by Frontext (the EU's joint border agency), 1W1P invokes the ongoing migrant crisis in Europe ...

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...