The Norman Foster Foundation and Swiss building materials giant Holcim launch the Essential Homes Research Project’s first design – a concrete cabin shelter. Nick Compton met with Norman Foster to find out more
If your world is turned upside down and you’re unhoused by a natural or man-made catastrophe, you will probably end up in a tent. If you’re lucky. The Norman Foster Foundation, working with Swiss building materials giant Holcim, has launched the Essential Homes Research Project and come up with a more substantial, if admittedly more costly, alternative: a quick-build, design-led concrete cabin that promises displaced populations a more dignified, safe, solid and longer-lasting shelter.
Measuring 6m across and offering 18 sq m of living space, each cabin could house a family of four, the project partners suggest. The modular, reconfigurable design means it could serve a range of other purposes, from office to store to school room. can be connected by low-carbon permeable pathways packed with light-absorbing, glow-in-the dark aggregates, reducing energy use and light pollution.
The project was born of a student/architect workshop, sponsored by Holcim, and run by the Norman Foster Foundation in 2022 at its headquarters in Madrid. The challenge it addressed is huge. There are currently 103 million displaced people around the world, according to the UN. Climate change threatens to massively increase that number, and on average, displaced people spend 20 years in ‘temporary’ shelter.
Foster says the students set the project’s direction of travel: ‘They were asking, how can this be more like a home? Can it build something more like a community? Can the buildings work together to create public spaces? Could it be less institutional, less like a barracks? Could it be more human?’With a current cost of €20,000 per cabin, the Foster/Holcim design isn’t going to be the most affordable option for instant housing.
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