Beyond Encampment is a series of conversations reflecting on efforts of design professionals who work to change the paradigm of enclosure, and who practice models of urban integration and refugee resettlement through design activism. Worldwide, the number of asylum seekers has doubled in the past decade alone, nearly exceeding 80 million as of 2021. In the last four years this number increased by 20 million people. The convention of international humanitarian response strains under the reality that camps, and the aid apparatus, is insufficient to house and provide a meaningful existence for displaced people within the paradigm of enclosure. Rather than replicate the failures of large-scale encampment and the reactionary method of policing migration, we must proactively reconceive forms of settlement at the terminus of forced migration, and redesign the spatial plan and frameworks of refuge. The Beyond Encampment project highlights, supports, and broadens awareness of design practices that seek to enable spaces of care.
Image courtesy of Rizvi Hassan
Rohingya Cultural Memory Center
