Actualidad

I.  Si hiciera una pintura de mi vida sería muy fuerte por mi discapacidad. Yo creo que en este país nos va muy mal a quienes tenemos discapacidad.    Mariana Tirado   Mi infancia, como la de la mayoría de las personas con discapacidad fue muy difícil; viví discriminación, maltratos y abandono. […] Al paso de los años mi situación …

This conversation case for humanitarian architecture frames the method of refugee response between the global and the local. In this conversation Ennead and GDI speak of their complementary work as architects, urbanists and designers working to improve refugee lives in refugee camps worldwide. Their research and constructed projects are presented and discussed with the aid of Brett Moore, Chief of Shelter and Settlement Section of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. GDI is a citizen-organization that intervenes in international conflict zones independently of the United Nations or other jurisdictional authorities, with a unique focus: to build play and public spaces for displaced communities. Ennead Lab’s Rethinking Refugee Communities project is an award winning collaboration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that addresses the growing and protracted crises affecting the lives of refugees and their host communities. The project rethinks the process of planning, building and operating refugee settlements, with the goal to nurture mutually beneficial relationships and shared resources among refugees and host communities alike.

For the conversation Post-Trump Immigration Policy: From Central America to the US, pertains the US-Mexico border, refugee and migrant integration. This conversation was joined by Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, a research-based political and architectural practice in San Diego that has led a variety of urban research and civic / public interventions in the San Diego-Tijuana border region and beyond. The second guest was Pablo Landa, founder of Taller Nuevo Norte, an initiative that organizes workshops where architects, designers and artists work alongside migrants and refugees. He has led art and radio workshops for migrants, developed educational materials for migrant children and women, and established an urban agriculture initiative with refugees who have recently arrived in Monterrey. Lastly, we were joined by Mike Smith Masis is the Director of Entre Nos Atelier. San Jose, Costa Rica, an architectural practice that encourages participation, collaboration, cooperation, and ownership by low income residents, rural and indigenous communities, and communities of informal settlements.

After facing extreme violence and persecution by the Myanmar military, over one million Rohingya refugees arrived in Bangladesh in late 2017. This unexpected mass exodus convening in the southern Chittagong province rapidly created the fourth largest “city” in the country. In this conversation the processes undertaken by three Bangladeshi architects,  trained as community architects by Suhailey Farsana and Professor Hasibul Kabir, are discussed and contextualized within the architectural practice of Bangladesh. Saad Mostafava, Fatmi Kwaja, and Rizvi Hassan have worked as architects, or as co-creators, aiding Rohingya communities in exile in Bangladesh in the frontline of the Rohingya Refugee Crisis since 2018. Dean Faud Mallick, current director of the School of Architecture at BRAC University, helps frame the conversation describing their school’s role in producing “community architects”. The work discussed in this panel was recently recognized with the 2022 Aga Khan Award for Architecture, the most prestigious international prize in Architecture in areas with significant Muslim presence.