kosovo
Deborah Gans and Matthew Jelacic
One in every 269 persons on this planet is a refugee and a blue tarp is what we give them. Unhappy with the tarp, but without the expertise to develop alternatives, several aid organizations sponsored an international ideas competition for the design of disaster relief housing, which we won.
T he traditional factors of disaster relief housing are ease of transport and assembly, low cost, and the ability to withstand varied environmental conditions. Our project won because it understood the inter-related nature of the factors but also because it addressed the cultural and psychological needs of the refugees. For example, ours was the only design with a toilet or kitchen because most entrants and relief organizations assumed the conditions of refugee camp — group latrines and soup kitchens — to be de rigeur. We proposed that the refugee camp itself be re-thought in terms of design and indeed in terms of its very existence. Our strategy and goal was the immediate return of the people to the sites of their former or future homes. Our kit works in a camp situation, but also serves as a utility core and structural scaffold on sites of reconstruction, and can even remain as a permanent part of the new house. In this
A model of the kitchen and toilet kits with living space in-between that could be enclosed with tarps or doors,
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