IKEA Foundation – Designing a better place to call home for refugee
children
IKEA Foundation – Per Heggenes, CEO IKEA Foundation
1.
What is the IKEA Foundation's mission and how does the Refugee Shelter initiative
contribute to that?
Our mission is to create substantial and lasting change by funding holistic long term programmes in
developing countries that address children’s fundamental needs of: a place to call home, a healthy
start in life, a quality education and a sustainable family income.
This unique partnership with RHU, UNHCR and IKEA Foundation will go a long way in giving refugee
children and families a more sustainable and longer lasting place to call home. Giving them back their
dignity and providing security and energy for their essentials.
2.
When and why did this initiative begin? What prompted it?
It started back in 2010 under ‘Formens Hus’, now the Refugee Housing Unit
IKEA Foundation linked UNHCR with Refugee Housing Unit to see how the two organizations can
collaborate and share expertise. IKEA Foundation funded this project since the current humanitarian
tight budgets do not allow organizations to invest in setting up new and innovative projects like these
although there is a clear demand for better shelter among refugee communities.
Tents used in emergency relief operations today poorly meet the economic, social and
environmental needs of refugees and humanitarian organizations. Despite the rapid development of
materials, technology and production in the private sector-little of this knowledge has been
transferred into the humanitarian sector when it comes to shelter. The project bridges the
humanitarian needs with the opportunities of modern technology, materials and manufacturing
processes.
3.
What is the IKEA Foundation's role in the initiative?
The IKEA Foundation funds and shares its knowledge with Refugee Housing to help develop and
produce a modular shelter solution for refugee children and families, giving them dignity, safety and
the opportunity to rebuild their lives. This allows them to become more self-reliant by giving them a
more stable and safer place to call home.
4. Who is paying for the project and for the subsequent distribution of the shelters?
The IKEA Foundation funds the project design and development. The IKEA Foundation has invested
approximately 3.4 million euros (grants to UNHCR and Refugee Housing Unit of Sweden) in this
project.
5.
How will this project change living conditions in refugee camps?
The modular shelter solution for refugee children and families, will give them dignity, safety and the
opportunity to rebuild their lives by provided them with a more solid, stable construction that lasts
years, instead of months. The shade net provides warmth during the winter and shade during the
summer and the solar panel gives them energy and light for their essentials. This allows them to
become more self-reliant by giving them a more stable and safer place to call home.
5.
The prototype is set to be introduced to Ethiopia next month. Where specifically and why
was that location chosen?
The shelter will be tested by Somali refugees in Dollo Ado on the boarder of Ethiopia and Somalia
and in Northern Iraq. There are around 200,000 refugees living in Dollo Ado under extreme
conditions and the new prototype shelters will be tested by a sample of families who will give their
feedback to help shape its development.
UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency) - Olivier Delarue, UNHCR Innovation
1. How did UNHCR get involved with the IKEA Foundation's Refugee Shelter initiative?
For a number of years UNHCR has been exploring innovative solutions to refugee related
challenges with the IKEA Foundation. Very early on we realized that IKEA’s huge expertise in
a number of areas—such as logistics and flat packing— could bring huge benefits to our
work.
With its clear commitment to improving the lives of refugee children, the IKEA Foundation
has sought out a number of partners, and is working with these partners to find innovative
solutions to important problems. One such problem is the issue of temporary refugee
housing. The IKEA Foundation has been supporting the Refugee Housing Unit (formally called
SVID) on a R&D project aimed at developing a new improved emergency shelter. As the UN
Agency with the mandate for refugees, UNHCR joined the initiative and provided the
technical knowledge and experience acquired over decades of humanitarian assistance to
refugee families spread across the world. IKEA, RHU and UNHCR have been working together
ever since in a true partnership to capitalize on respective expertise and innovative thinking.
The project has now reached a new milestone as we are now testing prototypes of the RHU
shelters in UNHCR operations in Ethiopia, Iraq and Lebanon.
2. What role is UNHCR playing in the initiative?
As the UN Agency with the mandate for the protection of refugees and other of concern,
UNHCR is uniquely placed as the world leader on refugee issues and more specifically on
emergency shelter. This enables us to provide technical expertise to inform the design and
requirements of shelters suitable to withstand very harsh living conditions that refugees
unfortunately have to endure while in exile. UNHCR also provides RHU with a sense of the
everyday challenges that refugee communities face. Furthermore, building on our extensive
field experience UNHCR is able to provide the crucial real world field locations needed for
the testing of the prototype and the gathering of feedback and learning’s from the refugee
themselves. Our expertise is based on over 60 years of direct relief work and our desire to
bring innovation to complex and recurring challenges: temporary shelter is clearly one of
these.
3. How will this project change living conditions in refugee camps?
Currently, there are roughly 3.5 million refugees - men, women and children - living in tents
temporary shelters and other form of locally build shelters. The provision of adequate shelter
remains crucial to ensure immediate physical protection, but also emotional in the form of
privacy and dignity.
Despite continued efforts in research and development to ensure a gradual evolution of the
Emergency tents, it is evident that in many instances the tent performance is still challenged
by extreme weather conditions, including strong winds, cold climate as well as harsh heat.
Moreover, tents typically last on average 6 to 12 months, and it is very expensive to replace
them on regular basis.
Due to the current nature of displacement, the majority of refugee families will be forced to
spend many years in a refugee camp, therefore many children will grow up calling these
tents their home.
The new shelter is expected to address many of these issues. It is modular, and these
modules are very light, durable, and provide insulation and increased security. Importantly
they are expected to last for at least 3 years.
The new shelter has the potential to provide a more dignifying temporary housing solution to
refugees. The unit is expected to be more durable and more comfortable and will have an
integrated solar lighting solution. Essentially it could be a temporary home until people are
able to return to their place of origin. One of the fundamental aspects of the project is its
modularity. Because of its long life expectancy and the fact it is built specially to be
dismantled easy, refugees could bring back their RHU with them when to return home. This
will help them to resume a normal life in the event that their original home has been
destroyed or damaged in the conflict which forced them to flee in the first place.
4. The prototype is set to be introduced to Ethiopia next month. Where specifically and why
was that location chosen?
In Ethiopia 25 RHU prototypes will be based in Dollo Ado refugee camp, which is currently
the home of over 190,000 Somali refugees. It is critical to set the units in a harsh
environment to have feedback on their technical resistance and also have refugees’ views on
the cultural suitability of the units. This process will enable RHU and UNHCR to continue to
refine the RHU solution and ensure that it meets the established requirements. Refugees in
Dollo Ado also benefit from the wider UNHCR – IKEA Foundation partnership which
is working to provide shelter, care, education and self-reliance to families and children within
the refugee camps and surrounding communities.
In addition, 12 units will soon be deployed to Northern Iraq. With the Syria crisis which has
so far forced 1.6 million to flee their homes mainly in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey, the
demand for shelter assistance is huge and urgent thus UNHCR needs to work very hard to
meet this demand.
5. When will the project be expanded? What will be its reach?
The current testing of RHU prototypes follows the work that was initiated in Sweden and in
the laboratory of the Eindhoven University in the Netherlands and Stockholm University in
Sweden.
The output of the field testing phase, conducted by RHU and UNHCR will enable the potential
revision of RHU technical specification and the integration of any necessary modifications
suggested by the refugee families.
The final specification could enable verification of production capacity worldwide and may
potentially lead to production on larger scale.
The RHU has the potential to become one of the shelter solutions along with the family tent
and or any other shelter option locally build.
6. Will the Syria refugee crisis be affected by this initiative? When and how?
Pending the outputs of the testing phase it is expected that RHU may become one of the
shelter solutions to assist the refugee families living in countries neighbouring Syria. Given
the magnitude of the Syria refugee crisis, RHU and UNHCR are working in close partnership
to meet tight deadlines and hopefully be able to enhance impact of shelter assistance
before the upcoming winter.
Refugee Housing Unit - Johan Karlsson, Refugee Housing Unit Project Lead
1. What is the Refugee Housing Unit? When did it begin and who founded it?
Refugee Housing Unit AB (RHU) is a subsidiary of SVID, Swedish Industrial Design Foundation,
a Swedish Non-profit Foundation with its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden.
Refugee Housing’s mission is to create better living conditions for the millions of people who
are displaced by natural disasters and conflicts. By collaborating with innovative companies
and organisations to develop flat-pack homes, Refugee Housing will help save lives and
contribute to sustainable development in the affected communities.
RHU is managed by Johan Karlsson. Johan is a trained industrial designer and holds a Master
of Fine Art from Konstfack University in Stockholm.
The Swedish Industrial Design Foundation aims to improve the awareness within the private
and public sectors the importance of design as a competitive tool and to encourage the
integration of design methodology into their activities.
2. When and why did RHU get involved in IKEA Foundation’s Refugee Shelter initiative?
It started when I worked as designer for the Formens Hus Foundation, which at the time was
a Swedish non-profit foundation committed to the R&D of sustainable design and
dematerialization. One of the main programs at the foundation was the development of
lightweight, material-efficient structures. Through a partnership with the Swedish Civil
Contingencies Agency, my team and I developed a series of prototypes of light weight
cardboard shelters.
I had the opportunity to demonstrate the project with the former IKEA design manager
Lennart Ekmark. He liked it and believed it was within the “spirit of IKEA” and provided
support to get an application through to the IKEA Foundation.
At the time the IKEA Foundation and UNHCR were already discussing similar projects and so
the partnership was born.
3. What role is RHU playing in this initiative?
All three organizations share a genuine interest and understanding of innovation, and we all
bring unique resources and skills to the project. The IKEA Foundation provides funding and
management support, UNHCR brings the know-how and field experience, while we and our
private and academic partners carry-out the hands-on development of the product.
4. What improvements to refugee housing are being made specifically and what technologies
are being employed?
The design evolved from the inside out. The first year was spent developing a cost-effective
and safe structure to form the skeleton of the house. At this stage the process was not very
visual. Often we came to UNHCR with samples of oddly shaped metal and plastic
components taken from somewhere inside a car. As the design of the skeleton was
complete, several “skins” have been tested until the current solution with panels was agreed.
This is the part of the shelters that excites me the most, the panels. They create significantly
better privacy, but also insulation and protection from the environment.
They are a good example of the transfer of best practice from other industries. The
productions process already exists for various products today, but the application to use it as
a building element is totally new. Living inside the shelter the panels makes a significant
difference from the textile canvas.
The solar panel is pretty special as well, it is made of light weight photovoltaic cells which
provide, for the first time, a source of light and energy to refugees in their homes. This allows
them to continue with daily life for example cooking and sowing and for the children to study
after it is dark. It makes it feel like a proper home
Now the shelters are up for testing with the most valuable feedback loop – the end user.
5. What kind of technological innovation had to occur to make these things cost effective
enough to produce on the scale you wanted?
It is important that the shelter is lightweight enough so that it can be easily and cost
efficiently transported, but strong enough to withstand the harsh conditions of refugee
camps. To achieve this, the shelter uses new technologies in exciting ways. For example, the
shelter’s walls and roof are made of RhuliteTM, a polymer complex developed solely for the
shelter. The material a polymer foam laminated with a polyolefin film in a non-stop extrusion
process. The design is to balance the mechanical properties such as UV, structural strength,
insulation, cost and a very specific requirement for this application - privacy.
A problem that occurs in camps is during the night time, light sources from inside tents
projects cast shadows onto the walls of the people living inside them. This infringement on
privacy is so strong that refugees live in the darkness. At the same time, using nontransparent materials makes the shelters completely dark even during the daytime –
requiring kerosene or electric lamps - a huge waste of energy. With RhuliteTM we managed
to design the properties of the panels so that light can come through during the day, but
does it does not allow shadow to be cast from the inside at night.
The panels are connected together with plastics (polyamide) bolts to create a durable and
watertight/weather resistant membrane.
The frame, to which the panels are connected, consists of an ultra-high strength steel
rodding with extremely high tensile strength compared to normal steels. The steel strength
allows us to use less material and thereby save both cost and weight. These are hot dip
galvanized to protect from corrosion with a design time of 10+ years.
One of the most exciting parts of the prototype design is the shade net and solar panel. The
shade net is an external screen which significantly improves indoor thermal comfort. During
the day is provides 70% solar reflection and cooling, whereas at night it helps reduce
radiated heat loss. The net is knitted technical textile made interlaced with aluminum and
polyolefin strips. On top of the shade net is solar panel laminated on a thin plastic film –
taking away the bulky panels used traditionally.
These technologies have never been applied to a project of this nature. Looking ahead, a
major break-through could be to up scale the solar power to run water purification and
cooking devices. One technology we are watching closely is Organic Photo Voltaic cells (OPV)
-- solar cells which could be printed directly onto the shade net and/or the roof of the new
shelter.
Despite the rapid development of materials, technology and production in the private sector,
little of this knowledge has been transferred into the humanitarian sector when it comes to
shelters. This project bridges the humanitarian needs with the opportunities of modern
technology, materials and manufacturing processes.