Cities of Tomorrow

Description

Violent conflict and persecution, compounded by rising food insecurity, environmental degradation, poor governance and countless other factors, drove more than three million people to leave their countries as refugees or to seek asylum in 2016.
Project Earth 2 wants to address the improvement of living conditions inside refugee camps and look for concepts and ideas to trigger their social en economical integration.

Project Earth 2 wants to propose a different approach towards refugees and refugee camps. Rather than conceiving refugee camps as storage facilities to fulfill basic human needs and refugees as temporary inhabitants, we encourage you to zoom out and consider the refugee camps as an instrument and an opportunity to activate deserted areas of Europe. Design refugee camps as stable settlements and as a changing structure that can grow, adapt and develop. How refugee camps can be flexible and grow in an organized way as their population increase? How can they transform from a temporary shelter into a stable settlement, providing proper living conditions and becoming the cities of tomorrow?

Solutions created by participants will be delivered to organization and NGO working on-site, looking for the implementation of the ideas.

CONTEXT

Refugee camps are usually planned, built and designed with the aim of fulfilling the basic human needs for only a short time, but only 189.300 refugees were resettled in 2016 and approximately 40% of the refugees have been in exile for more than 20 years. In fact, some refugees camps has existed for decades. As case studies, the next refugees

camps can be studied:
- Several refugees camps in Palestine have existed since 1948.
- Shagarab camp in Sudan – 1968
- Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria – 1975
- Mae La refugee camp in Thailand – 1986
- Zaatari refugee camp

It is expected that the participants will perform a proactive research work to be able to propose realistic and useful ideas that can be transferred to organizations in charge of establishing and managing refugee camps. Our aim is that the proposals can be totally or partially implemented.

PROJECT

Project Earth 2 wants to propose a different approach towards refugees and refugee camps. Rather than conceiving refugee camps as storage facilities to fulfill basic human needs and refugees as temporary inhabitants, we encourage you to zoom out and consider the refugee camps as the cities of tomorrow, as a changing structure that can grow, adapt and develop. Refugee camps should be flexible and grow in an organize way as their population increase. Transform from a temporary shelter into a stable settlement, offering a worthy and dignified way of living to their inhabitants. Refugee camps should be integrated in the area that is established and create a positive impact from a social and economic perspective. As it was exposed before, only a very limited number of refugees can return to their home country in a short period of time, being the average stay time 17 years. Within these premises, in this competition, Project Earth 2 wants to generate urban and architectural concepts considering refugee camps as the cities of tomorrow and providing proper infrastructure to avoid poor living conditions. How refugee camps can expand opportunities for migrants and allow them to find dignity, meaning and a social and economic future? How can they provide a model under which host countries can benefit from refugees? How your project can fulfill aspirations of their inhabitants and utilize their skills and talents? Project Earth 2 encourages you to imagine and design concepts and ideas to reply these questions and, like Le Corbusier designed the Ville Contemporaine as an utopia for a perfect city, we trigger you to use your skills and imagination to design the cities of tomorrow.

LOCATION

For this competition, there is not a fixed location, but for fulfilling the goal of integration and consider refugee camps as an instrument for economic development and opportunities the concepts should be located in empty existing areas of Europe. Potential locations that can be used are depopulated areas of east Germany, southern Italy or Spain. The participants can also propose their own locations as long as they meet the description provided in this document. Those places can be repoblated with migrants and create opportunities for trade and work.

PROGRAM

Projects can follow the UNHCR guidelines presented in the introduction chapter as an approximation of minimum requirements for livable spaces, however there are not strict rules as the competition runs on an open program and can be modified by the participants. Participants are free to suggest any kind of uses, activities and program that will help to reinforce and shape the concept of their projects. The size of the project it is also a choice of the participants, but Project Earth 2 encourage participants to base their proposals on concepts that can change their size and grow.