Desert Refugio | Farrokh Rostami Kia

When we have been assigned to design a Refugio for use in the cause of disaster relief, be it natural, political or otherwise the very first issue that popped up in my mind was the safety matter. An inevitable solid protection provided for these poor people against any kind disaster. I’m coming from a culture (Persia) which in ancient time has been forced to protect himself from any type of natural disaster or war. Having said that I started to study how they managed to solve this issue. In Iranian Introverted architecture people decided to live in a form of a big family or close neighbors. They built a closed form with a singular entrance into an inner yard. And from that intersection point they had an access to their own unit. This simple and brilliant form of integrity let them to control the accessing and helped to protect each other. Consequently, I decided to use this solution as a base of my design.

The second factor that I was looking for was potential for quick deployment and retrieval. However, rather than addressing these needs alone, I preferred to combine them with another major fact, which I’m going to describe. While I was examining photos from these refugee camps, my very first impression was their emotional moods. Almost every person in those photos look sad and frustrated, which remind me my responsibilities as a designer for humanity. It’s easy so provide some prefabricated cubes or tents which can be replicated and installed in a blink of eye, but what the value of humanity in term of design? What about those people’s culture and roots? Thus, I decided to look from another perspective which let me to the design I’m going to present.