Shelter -- basic shelter, shelter which protects one from the elements, provides some basic sense of home, and is neither a health hazard nor likely to collapse in the next weather disaster -- is, of course, a fundamental need. Designing better shelter -- shelter which meets people's basic needs, is affordable to those who need it, and could be widely yet sustainably adopted -- is one of the top six or seven giant tasks of the coming decade.
How big is the problem? Well, besides the millions of people in the developed world who are permanently homeless, 1 in 267 people worldwide is currently a refugee (the UNHCR alone is currently caring for over 20 million people), while ecological disasters, famines, wars and societal chaos may provoke hundreds of millions more to flee their homes over the next two decades.
Meanwhile, the situation isn't always much better in the world's exploding megacities: a recent UN report found that "940 million people - almost one-sixth of the world's population - already live in squalid, unhealthy areas, mostly without water, sanitation, public services or legal security." Within the next three decades, the number of slum-dwellers is expected to rise from one in six to one in three.
That's the bad news. The good news is that extraordinary innovation is beginning to bubble up and spread:
We've already written about Icosa, who's tagline (""If we must live in a world where people are forced to live in cardboard boxes, then someone should at least invent a better box.") bears repeating, often.
Other designers are creating prototypes of other kinds of refugee shelters, though the coolest work I've yet seen on this is Deborah Gans and Matthew Jelacic's refugee housing designs.
For the bigger picture, there's the World Urban Forum in Barcelona this September, is, by all accounts, one of the epicenters of thought on new urban sustainability (man, would I like to go to this!).
I could go on (and will in future posts). But this is an unfolding field, and I'm still learning: what innovations in shelter and urban design for the poor do you think the rest of us should know about? Please share your links, leads and ideas!
