AA Tutor Mark E Breeze publishes new book rethinking refugee shelter

AA tutor Mark E Breeze and Tom Scott-Smith from the University of Oxford have edited a new collection of essays titled Structures Of Protection? Rethinking Refugee Shelter.

"Questioning what shelter is and how we can define it, this volume brings together essays on different forms of refugee shelter, with a view to widening public understanding about the lives of forced migrants and developing theoretical understanding of this oft-neglected facet of the refugee experience. Drawing on a range of disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, law, architecture, and history, each of the chapters describes a particular shelter and uses this to open up theoretical reflections on the relationship between architecture, place, politics, design and displacement."

The book comes out of the Architectures of Displacement project that Breeze and Scott-Smith undertook at the University of Oxford Refugee Studies Centre. Mark continues to work on these questions through chairing the University of Cambridge Sustainable Shelter Group, which he founded. Humanitarian shelter is one of the most basic forms of shelter; providing effective human shelter is one of the most fundamental roles of architecture, and yet there is surprisingly little architectural engagement in this area. This collaborative interdisciplinary design and research group seeks to remedy that to create better humanitarian sheltering solutions for all.