Structures for the Displaced

Abstract

The design of refugee camps presents an extreme form of urban architectural practise. Despite the large numbers of those who are forced to live in such camps, their vulnerability, and the emergency nature of the camps’ construction, relatively few texts to date have been focused upon camp design, and the state-of-the-art type commonly used by humanitarian organisations reveals an emphasis upon short-term rather than long-term solutions, and an emphasis upon camps being a delivered collection of shelter objects, rather than being considered in the light of the social performance of the settlement as a whole. This thesis investigates: • How institutional, financial and design constraints have combined to influence the form of refugee camp design. • To what extent those influences have created a predominant type, adhered to through humanitarian organisations’ guidelines, and through actual camp construction. • How gaps in performance of the current refugee camp type can be identified and categorised, through an analysis of the form, and through a single case-study of an instantiation of that type. • To what extent an amended design tool for camps can be developed, on the basis of the analysis provided through the thesis. The research method is interdisciplinary: it employs knowledge from humanitarian law, urban sociology, environmental studies, and architectural theory. It also employs the casestudy approach, using the specific case of Ifo refugee camp, in north-eastern Kenya, as well as making reference to the design of a number of other specific camps previously and currently in existence. Within the field of refugee camp design, the thesis draws heavily on the work of Cuny and Davis, and those who have collaborated with them or built upon their work, in particular Corsellis and Vitale. With regards to architectural theory, the thesis makes significant use of the observation and design methodology developed at TU Delft’s Design Knowledge Systems Research Centre, and in particular the work of Alex Tzonis on issues of methodology of analysis of performance and user-needs. For the case study, the thesis departs from the observational and participatory methodologies delineated by Gans, but argues for an adaptation of such methodologies for specific cases in refugee camps. The tool developed, can be applied in refugee camps, and could be adapted for camps for other categories of displaced people whereby the lifespan of the camp is undetermined.