(re)Displaced in City explores the link between architecture and human rights concerning newcomers’ (refugees, asylum seekers and irregular migrants) marginalization and degrading treatment in Paris. A specific focus is drawn on newcomers who have limited or no resources and are “trapped” in the complex bureaucratic system that limits access to fundamental rights, expulse from society and leaves no alternatives but to live in degrading conditions. The research brings an argument that universal rights do not align with state territorial politics and that architecture attributed to helping newcomers is a product of the current politics that keeps feeding the faulty system rather than tackling the problem. Opposite of this, rights-based architecture to overcome newcomers’ marginalization and degrading treatment not just provides a shelter but architecture that empowers social changes of acceptance and a co-living mindset. The research leads to the architectural intervention in the square de la Chapelle alongside the boulevard de la Chapelle in the north of Paris. One of the most reclaimed spaces by newcomers since 2015 where inhuman living conditions, repeatable re-displacement social expulsion and violence against newcomers are evident in the urban fabrics. The proposed design aims to show how architecture based on a social-mixed-shared program could be used to strengthen the social bond and a sense of collectivity to overcome newcomers’ marginalization and degrading treatment urgency. This research-based project is structured in three main parts: (re)Displaced – the research, (re)Position – the link between research and architectural design, and (re)Shape – the architectural intervention.

This thesis examines urban agriculture as a tool in city planning to overcome a different form of urban crises, such as urban poverty, war, and climate crisis. By examining those specific crises based on historical events, I define agriculture integration strategies in urban planning and their effectiveness to restructure the urban fabric to overcome the different forms of urban crises. The city of London is a case study that is investigated at three specific moments; the early 1900s, during the First and Second World War, and from 1970 to the present. The first part of the research analyses the concept of ‘Garden Cities’ (1902) created by urban planner E. Howard to overcome urban poverty. The second part investigates ‘Victory Gardens’ and the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaigns that were introduced to cope with the food shortage during both World Wars. The last part of the thesis explores sustainable cities concepts created in the 70s and the theory of Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes (2004) to overcome climate crises. In addition to this, I am mapping London’s agriculture fields, community gardens, and allotments at each section of the research that monitors the changes of physical connection between food cultivation and urban areas. The analysis defines three main strategies of agriculture integration into urban planning: zoning line; integrated into the urban areas; intermixed with the urban fabrics. Those urban planning strategies have qualities to restructure the physical environment, the ecological, socio-cultural, and economic structure of the city.