border cities

Persons fleeing the fighting in Burma that choose a legal status have settled in refugee camps. Persons that have gone beyond the law and chosen an illegal livelihood have settled in urban an industrial areas around Bangkok, as well as in cities lining the border between Thailand and Burma. The largest city in the west of Thailand is Mae Sot. The Thai government applies special laws here for border partial citizenship in order to maintain the influx of vulnerable, cheap, disciplined workers.

"Cross-national border development has become an emerging contemporary global phenomenon. Volumes of cross-border trade, investments, and migration across national borders have increased exponentially over the past two decades in many areas of the world. Various intergovernmental agreements and spatial industrialization strategies for each nation have been proposed and implemented under the theme of sub-regional cooperation and regional development planning."

hyperdense cities

An arcology is a hyperdense city designed to maximize human interaction; maximize access to shared, cost-effective infrastructural services like water and sewage; minimize the use of energy, raw materials and land; reduce waste and environmental pollution; and allow interaction with the surrounding natural environment.

in between

nomadic architecture

Modern day Burma is made up of 135 tribes. The Burmans inhabit the central plains. The Mon introduced Buddhism and their state is on eastern coastal Burma. The Shan migrated to Burma from Yunnan province in China and inhabit the northeastern state. The Naga originated from Tibet. The Arakanese have ties with Bangladesh and are being persecuted in Burma for the last 200 years. Upland areas are inhabited by hilltribes of which the Karen are the most numerous.

emergency urbanism

Refugee camps are basically tents or tarps clustered on a grid: long-term built on short-term principles.

"There are scores of such camps dotting the surface of the planet, from Afghanistan to Poland, Burundi to Thailand, in Serbia, Nepal, Iran and Cambodia, a sort of semi-sovereign archipelago spread out around the world, managed by the United Nations and sustained by N.G.O.’s. The people who live there are refugees, noncitizens confined to ad hoc cities, perhaps the purest form of a growing and global phenomenon: makeshift architecture, last-ditch living, emergency urbanism." (Jim Lewis, Exigent City)

encamped livelihoods

"As is common in many refugee situations, Burmese refugees (with status of displaced person) in Thailand are required to live in remote camps along the border in order to receive protection and assistance. However, since the rations they receive do not contain fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and other non-food items, refugees are obliged to find alternative sources of income." (Inge Brees, Vocational training and access to work on the Thai-Burmese border)

history thesis

"There has been a notable progression to systematic aid dependency among the Myanmar refugees living in nine camps along the Thai-Myanmar border. Refugee participation shifted from self-reliance for shelter and food to the current situation in which the refugees have become fully dependent on the international community for their living in Thailand, tempered by partial self-management of their own health care, education services and food distribution." (Marie Benner, Neglect of Refugee Participation 2007)

Displaced people have "a right to a remedy", as recognized in the Principles on Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and Displaced Person (UNHCR 2005).

inspiring projects

Projects for Burmese refugees in Thailand by the University of Trondheim.



Soe-Ker-Tie-House

bangkok landings

“After 25 years of responding to the consequences of conflict in eastern Burma, it is tragic to see the causes remain unaddressed and the situation is likely to further deteriorate during the next 12 months.” (Jack Dunford, executive director Thai Burmese Border Consortium)

The growing instability in eastern Burma from ongoing military conflict is forcing thousands of ethnic people to become internally displaced persons (IDPs), according to a press release from the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC) on October 29, 2009.

The statement said at least 75,000 people in eastern Burma were forced to leave their homes during the past year, meaning the number of IDPs in the area now exceeds half a million. TBBC compared the scale of displacement to that of Darfur in eastern Sudan.

border crossings

An alternative way to cross a border:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX9S_m7W4UA 

thai policy

Official data from the UNHCR reports that there are nearly 300,000 Burmese refugees, most of them in Thailand. "Thailand has played host to Burmese refugees for more than two decades. Gross human rights abuses by the Burmese government have prompted the outflows and created grave problems for its neighbor (...) Refugees fleeing conflict are afforded temporary asylum until the conflict in the area from which they fled ends. The refugee population in the camps has expanded from little more than 20,000 in the mid-1980s to nearly 300,000 or more (the number is hard to track) and continues to grow." (www.burmeserefugee.org)

mae la

In order to research a suitable case study, one could consider longevity and size of a camp. Mae La, a Burmese refugee camp in Thailand (originated 25 years ago, estimated size of 50,000 inhabitants on 2km2) is an interesting site as there was no formal planning or material distribution: it grew from a bottom up initiative with locally available materials. In age and population size, however, it is comparable to Almere Buiten.

multiple perspectives

Temporary urban structures such as refugee camps have a huge potential for exploration with regard to spatial research. How is the built environment perceived? How can it make a difference? Does it guide behavioral choices? What interventions have the inhabitants made to territorialize their habitat? What interventions did they make before they moved to a refugee camp to feel at home in a space?

"It may be that we have become so feckless as a people that we no longer care how things do work, but only what kind of quick, easy outer impression they give. If so, there is little hope for our cities or probably for much else in our society. But I do not think this is so." (Jane Jacobs, Death and Life of Great American Cities)

towards integration

If humanitarian agencies invested in providing refugees with freedom to move, work and remain in the country of asylum (all the things that camps prevent), refugees could actually become a benefit to the host society and economy.

temporary design

If temporarity was a feasible approach to the problems of migration, then it could be interesting to observe temporary settlements in other contexts and their aim at self sufficiency (waste, energy, traffic and economy).

permanent transition

With global migration and millions collectively fleeing economical, political, social and natural disaster, should we look to Archigram's walking cities, consider options as freedom ships, or embrace temporarity?

diasporic dwelling

Diaspora (ancient Greek: dispersal of population through colonization), while it has taken on a negative connotation of trauma, exile, banishment; has also taken a positive connotation of a relation between migrants' homelands and their new places of settlement.

refugee research

Designing for all humanity is a 'thing of modernism' and nowadays capitalism and sales dictate the mindset of the spatial designer. Social awareness and community spirit are hard to find in contemporary cities, especially when it comes to allowing outsiders in. Borders and states have caused many to fall between the cracks of this civilization; is it the job of the spatial designer to include them in formal planning?

portfolio

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the game

Understanding complexities of a country continuously dealing with natural, economical and political disaster, Urban Emergencies Bangladesh designed a game to aid in communicating these.

insha allah

postcards from bangladesh

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