International non-profit organization World Habitat, in partnership with UN-Habitat, has announced the World Habitat Awards 2024. The prizes strive to highlight projects that demonstrate novel and transformative approaches to housing that incorporate principles of climate change adaptation and community-driven solutions. This year, 8 projects have been selected, out of which 2 projects were recognized with the Gold World Habitat Award.
Following the extreme floods that affected Pakistan in 2022, architect Yasmeen Lari the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan pledged to help build one million resilient houses in the country. In 2022, 33 million people have been displaced, and an estimated 500,000 houses have been destroyed or severely damaged. In September 2022, Lari’s NGO launched a target program to start rebuilding and to help communities protect themselves against future disasters. The program is built on Lari’s expertise in working with the communities and employing vernacular and local building materials to achieve resilient and sustainable structures. According to the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan, one-third of the goal has already been reached.
The vomitorium and its purpose is one of historical architecture’s most common misconceptions. It’s said that the vomitorium was a room that neighbored Roman feasts, where guests could socially eject the contents of their stomach before returning to the feast with renewed capacity. Although this theory was not entirely based on fiction – as Romans are known to have indeed taken up habitual regurgitation, possibly as a sign of excess wealth – there’s no reason to believe there was a specific room dedicated to the practice.
The original usage of the term ‘vomitorium’ – taken from the same Latin root ‘vomere’ – in fact refers to a room that allows a large building to disgorge itself of its contents. A vomitorium, therefore, is nothing more than a corridor. Specifically, a wide, arterial corridor leading to or from a high-capacity public space such as a theatre, arena, or stadium, designed with the intention to get as many people in or out of the venue as quickly as possible. A well-designed vomitorium, for example, is essential for efficient emergency evacuation procedures, but even during day-to-day activity, the ability to move large numbers of people quickly helps with a venue’s turnover and creates a more pleasant crowd experience.
As the world grapples with the effects of climate change, natural disasters like flooding, and the spread of incontrollable wildfires are increasingly threatening cities and inhabitants. While architecture and urban planning cannot prevent these occurrences, they still possess strategies to minimize the damage associated with these events and help protect the citizens. Unfortunate events over the course of last year, like the earthquake that hit central Turkey and north-west Syria this February or the more recent earthquake in western Afghanistan, the flooding and dam failures in Libya, and the wildfires that devastated the city of Lahaina, Hawaii, demonstrate the urgency of implementing preventative and mitigation measures in addition to creating procedures for emergency intervention. This article explores the strategies and resources available to architects and urban planners to address these challenges in three types of natural disasters: flooding, wildfires, and earthquakes.
Friday, September 8th, a 6.8-magnitude earthquake hit Morocco’s High Atlas Mountain range. The epicenter was located just 72 kilometers southwest of Marrakech, the country’s fourth-largest city and a popular tourist destination. The quake is the strongest to hit the nation’s center in more than a century. Estimates put the number of victims at over 2,000 and more injured, but as several towns and villages remain inaccessible high in the mountains, the number is expected to increase. In addition to the human toll, several historical landmarks, including UNESCO World Heritage sites, have been affected, while eyewitnesses in the foothills of the mountains report that several remote towns have been completely destroyed, according to CNN.
DAGOpen OÜ has just won the architectural competition for a standard design of Ukrainian Family houses, with their design “Hata.” The competition invited 17 designs from Estonian and Ukrainian architects to design “a standard project for modern family-type small group homes to be built in Ukraine”. The architecture of Ukraine directly inspired the winning design and addressed the spatial decisions made to attend to the crisis.
Shigeru Ban Architects, in collaboration with Voluntary Architects’ Network, has developed an improved version of the temporary housing developed to help those affected by the recent Turkey-Syria earthquake. The new prototype represents an upgrade of the paper tube system deployed in northwestern Turkey after the 1999 earthquake. This new version takes into consideration matters of efficiency and the need to minimize construction time on site.
A major 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit central Turkey and north-west Syria this Monday, February 6, with a second 7.4 magnitude quake reported a few hours later in the same region, according to reports from the Guardian. Among the most affected areas is Gaziantep, located 150 miles from the border with Syria and 50 miles from the earthquake’s epicenter in Kahramanmaraş. Tremors were felt as far away as Lebanon, Greece, Israel, and the island of Cyprus. Authorities are still assessing the number of victims, as local and international rescue teams have been deployed to search for survivors. Early estimates report that over 1,700 buildings have collapsed or have been critically damaged, as confirmed by Turkey's Vice President Fuat Oktay.
Hard times bring people together. In recent years we have seen how collective work can be a driving force to help those affected by natural or man-made disasters. After a disaster or displacement, a safe physical environment is often essential. Therefore, the need for coordination becomes a key factor in assisting people in times of need.
Architects, as "Shelter Specialists", play an important role in creating safe and adequate environments, whether it is individual housing, public buildings, schools, or emergency tent camps. But as architect Diébédo Francis Kéré says, "When you have nothing and you want to convince your community to believe in an idea, it may happen that everybody starts working with you, but you need to keep fighting to convince them."
Public spaces play a significant role in organizing the life of every community but defining what differentiates them from other spaces within the city is not an easy task. Once these spaces start to settle into the collective memory of the local communities, they become key elements that concentrate the mental image of a city. While this process usually happens with urban spaces, monuments and isolated architectural elements can also become markers for the urban life of an area. So, what happens when dramatic events like fires, war, or even the pandemic alter that image?
The war in Ukraine continues, and the number of refugees has risen to 5million, according to the U.N. Renowned for his involvement in humanitarian aid, Shigeru Ban and the Voluntary Architects' Network have been deploying a paper partition system (PPS) for emergency shelters in Ukraine and neighbouring countries, designed to provide some privacy to the Ukrainian refugees. Since early March, PPS has been installed in Poland, Slovakia, France, and Ukraine by Shigeru Ban Architects and VAN, collaborating with local architects and volunteer students.
With more than 70 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, according to the UNHCR, and nearly 25.9 million refugees, the time has come to reconsider the traditional emergency camp approach. Although the concept is temporary by definition, in real life the lifespan of these refugee camps exceeds the planned and the expected.
Ranging from seven to seventeen years, most of these settlements surpass their expiry dates. Actually, on average, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kenya, "many displaced persons spend more than 16 years living as refugees in temporary shelter."
The concepts of autonomy, collaboration, and participation have gained relevance in architecture and urbanism through collaborative actions involving the community, architects, urban planners, and designers. As the number of climate disasters has significantly increased - doubling in the last 40 years according to a report released in 2016 by CRED (Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters) - in addition to conflicts and other tragedies, the demand for the rebuilding of houses and infrastructure in affected areas has grown simultaneously. This has called for a major collaborative effort in architectural and urban reconstruction.
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Emergencies include a variety of contemporary scenarios ranging from natural disasters to extreme poverty or isolation due to social and political conflicts. In all cases, the disruption of normality and the requirement of basic needs for maintaining a decent quality of life become the basis for finding quick and efficient alternatives to respond to this type of urgency.
Architecture can be a tool for social change, and the belief in this statement is what motivates the work of many architectural NGOs who strive to address the lack of adequate shelter, generate social and economic change and build resilience in communities. These NGOs operate in two major areas, disaster relief and community development, with many organisations pursuing both types of actions. This article rounds-up several architecture-related foundations that act in emergencies, covering their expertise, past involvement in humanitarian crises, as well as the means to join them in their efforts.
New York City is the pinnacle hybrid between the vibrant and granular neighborhoods that Jane Jacobs once envisioned and the sweeping urban innovations of Robert Moses. However, its diverse population has experienced hardship over the last twenty years, forcing the city into a recursive wave of self-reflection to reevaluate the urban strategies, design trends, and global transportation methods that it had grown so accustomed to. After the September 11th and Hurricane Sandy tragedies, the delicate balance between promoting a sense of individual culture and the strength in unity that New Yorkers are so often known for served as the lifeblood for revitalization. New York City has consistently handled adversity, by always rethinking, redesigning, and rebuilding this city for a better future.
Architecture can ground both healing and wellness. Whether mitigating and reducing the transmission of disease, or simply providing a tranquil space for solace, the buildings of our daily lives directly shape our experience. In the case of emergency architecture, spaces are built to address issues of health and shelter. As architects continue to rethink designs for housing and basic human needs, they've also extended their focus to mental, physical and spiritual well-being.
._Image_by_Zupagrafika.jpg?1653259487 "Orła Białego prefab panel estate in Poznań (Brutal Poland). . Image © Zupagrafika")
