The structure of refugee camps from Middle-East to Europe … a few examples

 

The structure of refugee camps

from Middle-East to Europe

… a few examples

 

 

Which countries are affected by refugees from Middle-East and in which scale ?

Where are they going ?

Middle East is facing a huge crisis because of wars, which forced too many people to leave their country. The same situation is ongoing in many African countries. The most important conflict right now is the Syrian civil war. The number of refugee in the neighboring countries is worrysome : for a population of 22 millions, 4 millions had already left in September 2015, with the bigger part going to Turkey and Lebanon.

Most of those people are trying to reach Europe, seeking for at least safety. We add to that a certain amount of migrants, whom differ from refugees on this point : a refugee has no other choice than leaving his country if he wants to live, a migrant leaves his country by himself in search of a better life. In both cases, an unbelievable amount of people have been put on the road, leading to what is called the European refugee crisis, which started in 2015. Here is a few more statistics to get a glance at the situation :

-2014 has seen 60 millions forcibly displaced people around the world, which is the highest rate since World War II. It is equivalent of the number of inhabitants of France.

-One million migrants set foot in Europe in 2015, four times more than in 2014

-More than 3700 people died on the way by the sea to Europe

So, because this situation had not been foreseen, refugee camps have been set up without too much of thinking put in it. They of course are not a durable solution and they bring lots of issues : isolation, criminality, poverty... But still, some have been there for decades already, and there could be a way to make it better. Let's see about it more in details.

Is the UNHCR system of emergency help good enough ?

In case of the crisis in the middle east a lot of money is involved because a lot of interests lay in this area. That's why in the camps in Jordan, Lebanon or Turkey enough shelter, water, food and health assistance was never a problem. The basic level of human needs were met as fast as never before. In the standards of the UNHCR a camp like Zaatari (around 100.000 refugees live there) provides the following:

100.000 x 20 litre water per day
100.000 / 5 tents
100.000 x 2100 calories per day


With this measurement of human life the UNHCR created an easy way of dealing with the problems, not knowing that this might cause even more problems. That the refugees can not choose where and with who they want to live together or what they want to eat, is one of the smallest problems of the camp life today.
  

Why is there so much violence in the camp ?

It is a fact that nevertheless the inhabitants are provided with the basic things for surviving, violence is a daily matter in the camps. Every day eight camp workers get attacked and 4-5 staff members are brought to hospital every week.
So how does this anger and aggression can exist? Shouldn't the be thankfulness at first? On whoose side lays the mistake? Well what the western aid system does not realize with their static manner is that “they are people!” People who lost friends, family members, homes and villages. In the Zaatari camp everybody can still hear the war and see the new incomings every night. It is quite natural that in these conditions there is a certain anger against the western officials rising up. An anger because the inter fearing in the war is not really working out and because the ones who survived are kept in inhuman conditions. Due to the cause of the vast urbanization of the camps (Zaatari is actually the fastest growing economy in the world) and the inadequate infrastructure for the 21. century structures of organised crime establish themselves more and more.

What happened especially in Zaatari is that refugees started to build a city instead of a camp, a space of living instead of a storage place. The average stay in a refugee camp right now is 17 years. Children become adults, adults pass away in these places. The typology of a refugee camp will be our future when you look at the coming crises of the world. Maybe we should start to make them adequate living spaces because obviously our standards are not applicable.

What kind of solutions are there for a better life in the camp infrastructure ?

First of all the urban structure of the camps have to change drastic. Most of the refugees come from an organic small scale village structure and now have to live in a kind of concentration camp typology. This has nothing to do with the life of a human in any way and has to be replaced by a more organic, hetero-gen and people driven concept of space. Also you have to adapt an emergency plan to local condition and not apply the same for regions all over the world, that is just irresponsible. Nevertheless a good composition between the people, services, assistance, cultures; religions and economies will be the solution no matter where you go but you should always address and answer the local issues. In any case the aggression of the inhabitants shows that only if you come up with a bottom up process of designing the environment people will find themselves in comfortable situations. 

  

What is the Calais Jungle ?

«Calais Jungle» is an expression referring to the migrants and refugees camps settled since the beginning of the 2000's in french cities Calais, Coquelles and Sangatte, close to the french entrance to the tunnel under the Channel and the ferry port of Calais. It had been demolished several times by the police. Those makeshifts camps see their population grow quickly due to the closing of the Sangatte's center in 2002 and the migratory crisis in Europe during the years 2010.

The main Calais camp is located in a small forest close to Calais's port. In October 2015, the main camp accommodates 1500 people on the 7000 that the whole area houses. The biggest part are migrants that try to penetrate in UK's territory as clandestine passengers in the ferries between Calais and Dover, or in the train going under the Channel (Eurostar, Shuttle). Among the jungle's migrants are refugees and asylum-seekers from Afghanistan, Darfour, Syria, Irak and Eritrea.

Sadly, such camps suffer from poor sanitary conditions, a lack of access to basic services (like

water, electricity, bathroom...) and problems of security and public hygiene.

 What's the refugee situation in those camps ?

All migrants do not seem in a hurry to cross the Channel, since there are refugees that came to settle here because they would benefit from of a network of social, economic and benevolent mutual help that they can't find anywhere else in France. Their waiting for the examination of their case of asylum-seekers can last a whole year and during that time people are not allowed to work. Indeed, everybody in Calais has the same problematic, they had known the same ways and sometimes share a common culture. A minimal economic activity even exist in those camps, the atmosphere is fulled with everyone's energy and dynamism – that's a unique atmosphere, that doesn't exist in the reception and orientation centers strewn in the french countryside.

What lessons can we learn from this model for the new refugee camps creation ?

 

Italian architect and theoretician Aldo Rossi defined the «architecture of the city» by those three permanencies : road networks, monuments and housing typologies. Those three elements appeared in Calais Jungle since its birth. The muddy walking path became roads and streets, churches and mosques appeared. Among the infrastructures there are schools, a theater, a library, restaurants, shops and even a night club. The housings are a result of time, mixing of cultures that are depending on the available materials, contribution of volunteers and associations.

 

The Eritrea church is one of the most beautiful symbol as a monument of the Jungle : built since the first days of the modern camp in March 2015, alone in the middle of the moor, it was colorfully rebuilt after being destroyed by fire, and architectural pieces have then been added : a yard, a portal, other buildings for ablutions. It's a place for contemplation and prayer.

As for the housing, there first was what is called the Alpha Blue House which established a standard for minimum quality all around the camp. It's a square plan house, four faces roof covered in lime, inspired by the hut of Eritrea.

The inhabitants of Calais Jungle, regardless of their origins, are most of the time former urban inhabitants that had benefit from a good level of education : they are contemporaries living in a connected world and open to world's cultures. Their ways to design, construct and live in their houses are highly defined by their origins culture that give birth to different typologies : inhabitants have invented their own architectures, specific ways of living, related to their manner to live together.

Sudanese, for example, have created houses organized around a common rectangular yard, structured by clearly defined and identified functions, ergonomic and efficient : the storage protected from pests, the kitchen open and ventilated, the living and meeting room sunny, with a high ceiling and protected from the wind, the sleeping rooms dark and low to keep the heat.

Structures made by Eritrea people are smaller and more flexible, while afghans had constructed the biggest buildings, some used as restaurants. Even volunteers built several hundreds of ecological wooden houses for less than 400 euros, set up everywhere in Calais Jungle for the last comers.

The camp has become a permanent home, and a fully functioning town with its own culture. What is built in the Jungle is based on the refugees' desires, memories and shared symbols.

Of course, a long-term solution is needed by the people living there, and criminality, violence and tension with the French neighbors does not make life easy. But while official camps driven by UNHCR are in much better shape, they are often stripped of any identity. Surely the Jungle has poor sanitary conditions and many problems, but there is a living unique culture at work here. A mix between the two is possible. Architects and town planner should be included in the building process : they must play a role in the challenge of finding a successful solution that bridges political acceptability, economic feasibility and human decency.

How are the refugees spread over the country in Germany ?

The distribution of refugees in Germany is strictly regulated by the federal states. How many refugees will be accepted by each state is accurately calculated by the Königssteiner Schlüssel. Hence refugees are distributed by a simple formula: The weight of the population to one third and the tax revenue to two thirds. That is to say, richer states with a high population have to welcome more refugees than poorer states with a smaller population. That’s why the accommodation of asylum seekers is very different depending on each federal state in Germany.

When arriving to Germany refugees are firstly placed in so called Initial reception centers. The provision of these centers is required of the federal states. These centers use old military barracks or fabrics for housing asylum seekers. With the number of asylum seekers rising significantly since 2014, overcrowding has become a serious problem. The duration of stay was limited from 6 months to sometimes only a few days, or newly arrived asylum seekers were not even accepted and send directly to local accommodation or to emergency shelters such as gyms, office buildings, containers, tents and airhouses, before their asylum application had been registered. Authorities claim that such emergency shelters should only serve as temporary accommodation but most of these accommodation centers became permanent facilities.

Because of the Königsteiner Schlüssel many asylum seekers are placed in rural areas. In terms of integration and provisioning this is seen as problematic. In rural areas there is less provision of neither public transfer, nor are there many people being able to help in translation issues or medical supply. On the other hand there is a lot of vacant living space which could be used to facilitate accommodation and provide private and adequate living standards for asylum seeking people. In contrast bigger cities provide already established networks which could ease the asylum procedure and the Integration processes.

 What is the Templhofer feld ? Where does it come from, what are the plans for the future ? 

The Tempelhofer Feld in Berlin-Tempelhof and used to be an airport used in cold war airlift. Now it should get a new humanitarian mission. After receiving the most of any industrialized nation in 2014, Germany expects about 800,000 migrants by the end of 2015 as Europe faces perhaps its worst migration crisis since World War II. A plan was created to make Tempelhof Airport Germany’s largest refugee center. For Tempelhof, that spells yet another transformation. Houses for up to 7,000 refugees shall be establish on the field. In the latest referendum in 2014, Berliners rejected a plan to build 4,700 homes while leaving up to 85 percent of its vast green space open. 

Berliners have voted against the development of the former Tempelhof airport site, securing its future as a public park. The referendum was the culmination of a campaign by local residents, and almost half of Berlin's 2.5 million eligible voters turned out to cast their ballot. Over 64% voted in favour of keeping the land as a public park.

Cochinaire Robin, Hamman Caroline, Matzmorr Vincent