Lessons Learned from Refugee Camps: From Fetishizing Design to Researching, Drawing, and Co-Producing

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter explores cases when a design-oriented approach can be harmful, especially if it shifts the attention from refugees’ needs and complex realities toward producing “successful” and “innovative” solutions as determined by the expectations of the field of architecture. To illustrate this point, the author discusses examples from workshops and seminars tackling urban and spatial issues regarding refugees. As a successful model and counterpoint, the chapter demonstrates how a successful process includes the active involvement of refugees and a collaborative approach toward fulfilling their needs. Additionally, the chapter illustrates how a research-oriented approach to architectural design can powerfully raise awareness about the complex spatial realities that refugees face in exile, citing examples from studios and design workshops conducted in refugee camps in Jordan and Berlin. Finally, the chapter underscores the last point, by giving further examples from a seminar taught to students in the Urban Studies program at Vassar College.