#sherlter

[soph-okonedo]

Writer/director Paul Bettany and actor Anthony Mackie attend the "Shelter" New York Premiere at The Whitney Museum of American Art on November 11, 2015 in New York City

[think-progress]

Kansas City Shelter Refuses To House Married Same-Sex Families

City Union Mission will not provide the same services to married same-sex families that it provides to other married families.

[constantconvo-blog]

Beyond Shelter 

Architecture and Human Dignity

There exists a false misconception that all humanitarian and post-disaster architecture are successful in solving social issues and long-lasting when doing so. The reality is, there are very few professionals in the architecture industry that achieve the goal of long-term designs for social and infrastructural recovery. The one matter that has been proven true through the discourse of time is that natural disasters and hazards continuously affect people in the developing world. These events lead to billions of dollars in investments for the resolution of post-climatic and geological crises. These events are also part of a cycle that prevents the growth of specific sectors in the world constantly affected by their geographical flaws. 

How does one, as an architect and designer, address these issues? How does one juggle with so many conditions that go beyond the instant “Band-Aid” project? It is the architect’s duty, as the mediator between construction and people, to provide a solution that will not only resolve these urgent crises, but one that will rebuild lives and bring back the sense of belonging to the locals.  Beyond Shelter is a recollection of twenty-five reports written by the leaders of many of the architecture and engineering firms that have been producing the most accomplished non-profit projects of all time. The book, edited by Marie J. Aquilino, a professor of architectural history at the Ecole Speciale d’Achitecture (ESA, in Paris) contains reports that narrate specifically about the study of sustainable recoveries and disaster-preventive designs. The projects’ locations range from rural to urban sites in places like Sudan, Sao Paulo, Manila, New Orleans, Gujarat, Vietnam, and many more.

Architects today have the responsibility of responding to their obligations with their talent and provide the world with constant design thoughts regarding the people displaced by environmental disasters and conflict. This is a challenge, but let these twenty-five projects serve as inspiration for a world in which problems are permanently resolved with innovative design solutions; inspiring citizens to lead future reconstructions themselves, empowering the people with their own environment, with their safety, and ultimately hand back to them their freedom for aspirations.