IKEA’s Award-Winning Refugee Shelters

Swedish furniture giant IKEA has applied its flat-pack approach to the creation of temporary shelters for refugees. The 17.5-squaremetre Better Shelter consists of a steel frame clad with insulated polypropylene panels and a solar panel on the roof; it can be assembled by four people in four hours using only a hammer.

“If you compare life in the tents and life in these shelters, it’s a thousand times better,” says Saffa Hameed, 34, who has experienced both at the Al Jamea’a refugee camp in Baghdad. “It’s more protected,” agrees Saffa’s wife, Hind. “We have a door we can lock. It’s safer and cleaner.” Developed by the not-for-profit IKEA Foundation and the United Nations Refugee Agency, the shelter won London’s Design Museum’s Beazley Design of the Year Award in 2016. At US$1250, it’s around twice the cost of a typical emergency tent, but lasts six times longer.

Sources: Time Pulse and The Guardian More secure and durable than a tent, the Better Shelters give displaced people safer temporary shelter