Abstract:

With no end to the global refugee crisis in sight, the villages of temporary shelters have become a new form of not-so-temporary urbanism. The current settlements, while effective at addressing the primary concern of shelter, fail to meet the other needs of their populations. PROVISIONAL PERMANENCE fills this void by providing the civic spaces needed to develop a community. Through the introduction of schools, markets, and nondenominational places of worship, all derived from IKEA’s ubiquitous flat pack shelters, displaced populations have accessible means of creating the social dynamism found in traditional cities, ultimately allowing refugees to become residents of places of their own making.

Body:

PROVISIONAL PERMANENCE engages the issue of quality of life by providing three different community-oriented programs to refugee camps in order to foster a sense community while benefiting the residents in an immediate and tangible way. By introducing a market and town center, a school with an auditorium, and a multi-faith space, PROVISIONAL PERMANENCE provides refugees with three distinct areas to learn new skills, assemble and self-govern, partake in commerce, and retreat to self-reflect.
These new spaces are created with materials that are already available and easy to work with. Our three typologies are built completely out of the components of the flat pack houses, each being made of a combination of two, three, or four units. . In this scenario the components of the IKEA shelter become a new vernacular material. Using the pre-existing units provides a certain level of structural stability and material quality. Each of the newly introduced typologies is created through one simple move in order to allow them to be easily built by the users. The interventions offer much needed relief from the homogeneous grid of shelters.
PROVISIONAL PERMANENCE addresses the new status of refugee camps as a permanent place with a transitory population. Interjecting these civic buildings into the field of regularly spaced shelters, the camps are given a sense of place and hierarchy. This project focuses on improving the quality of life in the refugee camps, providing a functional and humane place to live. PROVISIONAL PERMANENCE does not solve the refugee crisis and it does not seek to do so. It does, however, give the people the tools and encouragement to turn a camp into a community and the structure to turn a community into a city.