“At the sprawling, city-like Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan, the average Syrian refugee is expected to stay as long as 17 years. And yet despite that time frame, many people are living in canvas tents that can start to fall apart in months.
The U.N. is starting to invest in longer-lived prefab housing, like clever new flatpack homes from Ikea. And now a team of architects has proposed a more sustainable way of building homes, schools, and clinics in refugee camps: Using local materials like sand and gravel, the design can be built by refugees with no prior knowledge of construction, using no electricity or water. If a family or school later moves, they can disassemble the building and rebuild it somewhere else…”