Beyond Arrival: Ethics in Housing Those Who Will Come

Abstract

The paper discusses ethics in architecture amid the design of asylum spaces in Europe. It queries the role of the designer in the building typologies of shelter and housing across the limitations that the contemporary asylum practice poses on the discipline, pointing out regulative, political, as well as historic and current societal aspects that critically inform the design sphere around asylum and the understanding of refuge – discussing global phenomena as much as local initiatives. In doing so, it not only works out features related to design types and methodologies, but it also reflects on the ambit in which designs are put forward, including official solutions, privately based collaborations, and university research or lab projects. Against the background of the most recent trends around standardization and design policies, the paper debates if there is an architectural leeway and its potential worth along theoretic and actual design contributions towards a humane contemporary architecture for refugees and displaced people in Europe.