Why Aren't Architects Talking About the Migration Crisis?

Read Richards’s original article on Building Design.

If you read the mainstream press, it won’t have escaped your attention that we are in the midst of a worldwide humanitarian crisis. Every major European newspaper and website has devoted a succession of front pages to the unfolding plight of refugees – even the Daily Mail has executed a spectacular volte-face when confronted with the tragic death of a three-year-old, washed up on a Kos beach.

The architectural press on the other hand has been largely silent. And this is odd, because while the causes of the crisis are almost entirely unrelated to architecture – some of the more immediate responses most certainly are. The challenges inherent in moving and housing large numbers of people, where they might stay and for how long, in what size groupings, and what infrastructure supports them – surely these are architectural and urban issues? 

In years gone by, responses to earthquakes or dramatic people movements provoked by conflict or flooding would be met with ingenious solutions: new designs for tent-based cities or pop-up temporary accommodation. Now the issues are (literally) closer to home – Calais rather than, say, the Bay of Bengal – we seem to have gone quiet. Can it simply be that proximity acts as a reality check for some of our well-intentioned (but perhaps naïve) ideals?

There is a story in the news this week on the transformation of a beer hall in Munich into a temporary shelter. It’s a simple story of human resourcefulness and the willingness to adapt existing, underused infrastructure into much-needed accommodation. In architectural terms, it’s not very wild. But the German profession does at least seem to be engaged with the issue: co-ordinated responses, adapting buildings, looking for medium-term solutions. Maybe this is partly because Germany is accepting 20,000 refugees a week – as opposed to the 20,000 over five years our government has deigned to accept.

We don’t pretend to have answers – many of these questions are complex, and as much dependent on political decision as architectural ingenuity and pragmatism. But we are confident that unless we start looking for answers, we will never find them. Ideas of integration vs maintenance of community, the creative re-use of spaces and buildings and the balance between short-term and permanent solutions have long been discussed with architectural education – why aren’t they being discussed in the profession today?