Climate refugee center project recognized in France!

Dobrawa Bies

14 of June '23

The center is made of modules

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The {tag:studenci} from the Faculty of Architecture at Bialystok University of Technology took up the topic of climate refugees and the shape and location of new migration centers. His design for the Community Center— is the first building from which the construction of a newly built settlement for people in refugee crisis would begin. The work, done under the direction of Dr. Michał Chodorowski, received the Grand Prize of the French SARP for the best engineering degree!

The presented Community Center is part of the concept of the entire settlement, which was designed together with Gabriela Zawadzka (also a student of Bialystok University of Technology), responsible for the houses in the settlement.

The Community Center is varied in color

The effects of climate change are already widespread and noticeable these days. As these changes proceed, along with repeated natural disasters, there is a need to relocate entire communities from vulnerable areas. Such climate migration is already occurring on a large scale, and is projected to increase in the next decades. For this reason, the question facing future generations will no longer be when, but where and how to resettle entire localities? It is important to anticipate and plan for such migration early enough, before the emergence of an emergency situation in which it is necessary to provide people with conditions of minimal existence in places unsuitable for this. Current temporary camps are built quickly and at low cost, but in the long run this is a way full of disadvantages. Although protected from the weather, people often lack privacy and basic comforts. The infrastructure of such facilities is rarely designed to accommodate larger numbers of people. Logistical, social, psychological and technical problems are mounting in such camps. The solution here is planned resettlement from at-risk areas in an organized manner to a prepared site, which allows for the creation of appropriate non-emergency conditions and the preservation of existing social ties. The most important issue in the creation of such a place is the shortest possible time for its creation, while not limiting people with temporary facilities, says Paweł Matulewicz.

Students have developed a schematic of the planned resettlement

scheme of planned resettlement

Together with Gabriela Zawadzka, Paweł has developed a scheme of planned resettlement. Their migration plan calls for the establishment of a settlement near an existing urban center, in an area free of development, with the possibility of connecting to the existing technical infrastructure, however, in a way that places as little burden on it as possible. The main idea of the newly created settlement is to build it quickly allowing for later modifications and adaptation to the current needs of the community. They divided the plan into several phases. The first phase of the community's entry into the new area is to build the main facility— the Community Center— as soon as possible and welcome the first two hundred people.

Community Center project

Community Center

In addition to providing shelter, the Center's building allows those living there to get on with building their own homes.

Our most important goal was to design a facility that serves not only as a temporary shelter, but as the future center of the new settlement. For this, it was necessary to create a permanent facility with a short construction time, which could change its functions and adapt to the current demands of the community. Here, too, we introduced phases showing how the facility could change over time, combining multiple functions at the same time or following one another as time and the settlement grew, Paul explains.

Modular wood construction allows for interior rearrangement

Initially, the facility provides the basic spaces needed for survival— living quarters, sanitary facilities with bathrooms and showers, as well as a canteen, administration and clinic. Changes in function, made possible by modular wooden construction, allow for simple rearrangement of the interiors to fit current needs. The division into smaller parts of the whole establishment, as well as adequate natural lighting also in the situation of the appearance of rooms without access to external walls, makes it easy to change the function of the interiors.

The initial entry phase is followed by an exit phase. This involves changing the functions of the Community Center and receiving more climate migrants, but already in smaller numbers. During this phase, the functions of most importance can be moved to separate facilities. The exit phase may be followed by stabilization, during which the most important aspect is the creation of a local community. During this phase, the center loses its residential character and gains other functions adapted to current needs such as a school, a meeting hall for the local community or even basic recreation or retail services, the young architect continues.

The center is changing its functions thanks to, among other things, its modular design

modularity of the design

The entire layout of the estate has been divided into smaller equal parts, independent of each other structurally, reflecting the division of residents into neighborhood groups. As a result, each module can take on a different function to suit the needs. The atrial layout of the modules creates the central space of the estate with the possibility for residents to develop it into, for example, a place for recreation, an open-air cinema, a market.

Thebottom-up shaping of the space is an important factor influencing this project," stresses Paweł Matulewicz.

technical drawings

Modularity is also applied to the Center's building. The use of a modular grid with a square side of two meters facilitated the rearrangement, and lighting is made possible by windows placed in the shed roof.

By consulting the roof design with the builder, it was possible to propose a friendlier form for the Center, referring to the archetype of the gabled roof and to the houses designed further down the estate, all still taking into account the advantages of the roof associated with industrial buildings, the PB student adds.

logistics and transportation scheme

The small variety of modular elements, on the other hand, additionally allows them to be used in many parts of the facility, or even in newly designed buildings of the estate. With the exception of slab foundations, each element can be made using wood prefabrication technology. Its use affects the lower cost, production time and simplicity of installation compared to concrete prefabrication. Also important to the designers was the reduction of the carbon footprintgenerated in production, transportation, construction and changes in function.

aesthetic and social aspect

An equally important consideration was the aesthetic finish of the building. Here, too, the author used wood, and the variation in the direction of the formwork and the color of the facade was intended to break up the monotony of prefabricated architecture. On the other hand, the use of less economical materials in details such as— gutters, window frames or cladding is intended to enhance the appearance of refugee centers, which are mostly associated with the use of simple barracks, containers or tents.

The atrial arrangement of the modules creates the central space of the settlement

The result of this engineering work was a project with complex programmatic assumptions based on a simple structural principle andan attempt to respond to increasingly topical issues. I wanted to emphasize that an issue that is rarely taken into account at the planning stage is the social character of the entire premise— and it should be at its core. Without the design of space, taking into account the human factor, that is, providing opportunities for the formation of social ties and development on many levels, mistakes that contribute to the failure of such settlements will be repeated," concludes Paweł Matulewicz.