You are here

Ikea Sends Its New Flatpack Refugee Shelter to Syria

Primary tabs

businessweek.com - by Caroline Winter - September 11, 2013

Ikea, known for its affordable flatpack furniture, is moving into new territory: refugee housing.

The Swedish retailer has teamed up with the United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR) to develop a flatpack shelter that can be quickly assembled on site. Recently 50 prototypes, all packed into standard Ikea cardboard boxes, were shipped to refugee camps and crisis regions in Syria.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Also see:

Ikea brings flatpack innovation to emergency refugee shelters - http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2013/jul/02/ikea-flatpack-refugee-shelter

Discussion of cost - http://www.wired.com/design/2013/07/ikeas-innovative-new-refugee-shelter/

Country / Region Tags: 
General Topic Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 
Groups this Group Post belongs to: 
- Private group -

Comments

On Sep 16, 2013, at 4:47 PM, "Vinay Gupta (Hexayurt Shelter Project)" <***@***.***> wrote:

Hi folks.

That shelter was designed by Johan Karlsson, who I worked with for a couple of projects in Sweden a few years ago. We build a variety of hexayurts (http://hexayurt.com) together and discussed the fundamental philosophy of disaster relief. The hexayurt features every year at STAR-TIDES.

In the material they are using, Johan tells me, they could do a hexayurt for about 200 - 250 EUR. UNHCR wanted something a little more traditional with some different features. An even simpler solution is to work in plywood, in which case a hexayurt around that size costs $87 at US prices. I don't know what plywood costs in Syria but if large scale construction is to be undertaken, it could be brought in by sea or trucks at the international market price.

Are we expecting the refugees to be there for a long time on this one?

Vinay

http://hexayurt.com/hexayurt_country/ might be a useful point of reference for people too (a sketch outline of a plan for Haiti, with links a technical document that describes a shelter prototype for testing.)

- Show quoted text -

For additional information on the Hexayurt Shelter, click on the links below:

http://us.resiliencesystem.org/hexayurt-shelter-1

http://newyork.resiliencesystem.org/hexayurt-shelter

howdy folks
Page loaded in 0.360 seconds.