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)

Estudio Teddy Cruz is a San Diego office for urban research and design border issues in public culture.

His work emerges out of "an inquiry into the sociocultural implications of constructing space, and the relationships between architecture and various aspects of contemporary life. These two intellectual interests converge in a process-oriented practice that is grounded in community engagement, acknowledges existing physical and urban conditions, and seeks reconciliation of patterns of spatial occupation and social interaction with often unsympathetic zoning and planning regulations. He cherishes the density of habitation and activity in the immigrant enclaves as well as the informal and improvisational nature of social interactions there, and believes that rather than neutralizing this vitality, policymakers should embrace and accommodate it. He argues for a pub- lic policy that recognizes the particularity of real situations, opening the way for more imaginative and inclusive approaches to architecture and planning."

Oppositional Architecture Charter

"Humanitarian space, of which asylum space is a part, is narrowing in too many countries, that physical insecurity of the displaced and of humanitarian workers assisting them is amongst the main indicators of this, that political will is weak on the part of governments to insulate refugee protection principles against erosion due to global circumstances like the growth in terrorism, transnational crime, irregular migration and the economic downturn, and that there is a resulting need to re-visit the protection architecture in some key areas to ensure that it responds in meaningful ways to 21st century displacement challenges.

Physical safety is also an issue for individuals and groups of refugees. Disentangling refugees from migrants so as to ensure their protection is one aspect of this. This is a problem which presents itself equally at sea, land and air borders. Safeguards in place together with controls at land borders and airports are less prevalent when it comes to sea borders, and most often absent in the context of the increasing number of “virtual” or “offshore” border controls, which include visa-requirements, interception practices, carrier sanctions and out-posted immigration officials. Foreign search and rescue zones are becoming a new point of reference when it comes to deciding where disembarkation of “boat people” and asylum should come about. This is starting to compete with the more traditional criteria of flag state and coastal state responsibilities and has been hailed by some as a new form of extra-territorialisation of migration control, or as “jurisdiction shopping” in order to alter the locus of international protection obligations. Often the very purpose of extra-territorial controls is to keep regulatory mechanisms outside the ambit of regular judicial review.

We live in a world whose population is increasingly mobile, where horizons are ever broader and where the impetus to migrate somewhere else has its roots in a myriad of social, economic, political and human rights push and pull factors. Conflict, human rights violations and environmental disasters, together with lack of social progress, economic under-privilege and sharp divisions between the "haves" and the "have nots" will variously continue to displace Iraqis, Afghans, Sri-Lankans, Sudanese, Somalis or Congolese, Chechens or Ossetians, Roma and Rohingas, pushing them towards and even across the borders of other countries. And these countries will not only be neighboring states or the big migrant takers. They will also include countries facing huge development or security challenges, countries with economies in transition, or countries on transit routes to those of chosen destination. Mobility cannot be obstructed.

There is nothing that prescribes that refugees should only be protected in countries contiguous to the country of origin; there must be space made available to shelter and protect where the well founded claim is made. This includes at sea, as well as at land and air borders. The protection needs of persons displaced inside their own countries are not so dissimilar; nor too their rights albeit that the architecture for their protection may not be so well developed. The challenge is not to prevent movement but to better manage the many sensitive issues at stake, including national security and identity, social harmony, and economic progress, in a manner which protects state interests and individual rights, which maximises protection space and which promotes a proper sharing of responsibilities." (Erika Feller, Humanitarian Space 2009)