Refugee Center
Architectural design of spaces that provide shelter, community support, and integration services for displaced populations and refugees.
Refugee centers address the complex needs of displaced people through thoughtful spatial design. These projects combine immediate shelter requirements with long-term social integration, creating environments that balance security, dignity, and community connection.
The community explores diverse approaches including transitional housing for specific refugee populations, adaptive settlements that respond to local contexts, training and social centers that support skill-building, and low-cost construction methods using regional materials and vernacular building traditions.
Popular projects
View all 15 projectsLatest journals
View all 19 journalsDRAA Stacks Volcanic Stone into a Fire-Resistant Refuge that Disappears in the Chilean Forest
A 45-square-meter shelter near Pucón draws on pre-Hispanic Andean rock shelters to resist wildfire and merge with the Valdivian rainforest.
Pedro Moncayo Torres Revives the Primitive Hut on an Ecuadorian Farm for Under $100K
A 175-square-meter stone and timber refuge in Tarqui, Ecuador, channels vernacular building traditions to dissolve into its misty pastoral landscape.
Three Architects Stitch a Social Center into a Crumbling Galician Hamlet
In Muimenta, Spain, timber and plywood volumes graft onto granite ruins to anchor a rural revitalization effort.
Héctor Ayarza and Estudio Garúa Lift a Training Center into Panama's Rainforest Canopy
A 135-square-meter pavilion in Gamboa floats above the jungle floor on concrete piers, learning from the forest rather than competing with it.