Architecture Responds to Crisis

Large scale housing crises are often met with mass solutions, which is problematic.  Whether it be a refugee camp or an urban development displacement is an important factor.  Refugees of war and natural disaster victims are fleeing their existing communities because the place they called home is no longer safe.  In an urban setting the development site was probably not a blank slate, and even if the site was previously empty the new residents are moving from their existing communities to a place without an existing social organization and relationships.   

"The laborer exists for the process of production, and not the process of production for the laborer."-Marx

Even well-intentioned designers and policy makers that do not declare these environments “machines for living” like Le Corbusier, by using a list of needs approach, people become numbers rather than human.  A place to eat, a place to bathe, a place to sleep, plumbing, electricity, fresh air.  And repeat 100+ times.  Remove a few things from the list and this is the same approach that jails and worker camps employ.  Yikes.  It is also important to note that solutions posed as “temporary” often end up becoming long-term solutions.  (See the infamous Katrina FEMA trailers.)

How do you solve a large-scale issue with small-scale solutions?

FEMA trailers

Zaatari Refugee Camp