We are absolutely delighted that Dr Francesco Pomponi, Associate Professor, has been awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering Grant to the value of £300k for his research project SHELTERs: Sustainable Homes Enabling Long Term Empowerment of Refugees. It was an extremely competitive and prestigious funding process.
Project Team
Francesco Pomponi, Edinburgh Napier University (UK)
Mark Richard Huxham, Edinburgh Napier University (UK)
Abimbola Olukemi Windapo, University of Cape Town (South Africa)
Susan Snaddon, Built Environment Consultant (Kenya)
Lara Alshawawreh, Mutah University (Jordan)
Bernardino D’Amico, Edinburgh Napier University (UK)
Johannes John-Langba, University of Kwazulu-Natal (South Africa)
Gamelihle Sibanda, Biomimicry SA (Zimbabwe)
Sara Candiracci, ARUP (UK)
Luana Pomponi, PA Architects (Italy)
Tim White, ARUP (UK)
Abstract
70.8 million people are now displaced in the world fleeing persecution, conflicts, and natural disasters. At the end of 2018, 2.3 million more were forcibly displaced than a year earlier: this is the highest number the UN Refugee Agency has seen since its foundation. Half of all refugees are children, and two thirds come from just Syria, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Somalia.
Refugees are generally not hosted by wealthy nations but by poor and middle-income countries next to their own such as Kenya and Jordan. Resettlement is always the preferred, life-saving outcome but out of the 1.4 million people who needed to be resettled in 2018, only 92,000 (6%) were.
Evidence therefore shows that well over 90% of refugees remain in shelters that become their (semi-)permanent homes despite being wholly inadequate, characterised by high environmental impacts, identical across time and space, soulless and in disregard of social habits, cultural norms, and traditional values of the people they host for decades.
This project addresses this major moral, humanitarian, and knowledge gap by following on from a highly successful seed-funded project, which developed—through participatory design and interdisciplinary research—a shelter prototype called Makazi (winner at the UK 2019 RISE Awards). This follow-on project allows building full-scale Makazi in four different countries (Jordan, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and South Africa) through strong and constant engagement with users and stakeholders. We will collect unprecedented primary data on as-built life cycle costs and environmental impacts, whilst assessing users comfort and the social suitability of our five regional variants developed from the core Makazi concept. With the involvement of Plan International (NGO), the United Nations Office for Project Service (UNOPS), and ARUP International Development [please see letters of support], this project is ideally placed to achieve substantial impact to benefit the lives of millions of people.
Project lead, Francesco Pomponi, says “70.8 million people are now displaced in the world fleeing persecution, conflicts, and natural disasters. Half of all refugees are children and only 6% or less get resettled. Despite best intentions, existing emergency shelters become their (semi-)permanent homes despite being wholly inadequate, characterised by high environmental impacts, identical across time and space, soulless and in disregard of social habits, cultural norms, and traditional values of the people they host for decades. Our project SHELTERs follows on from previous funding and will allow us to build full-scale prototypes in different countries through strong and constant engagement with users and stakeholders.
“We will collect unprecedented primary data on as-built life cycle costs and environmental impacts, whilst assessing users comfort and the social suitability of our five regional variants developed from the core concept. With the involvement of Plan International (NGO), the United Nations Office for Project Service (UNOPS), and ARUP International Development we are excited and determined to address this major moral, humanitarian, and knowledge gap and achieve substantial impact to benefit the lives of millions of people.”
For more information about this project, see:
Leave a Reply