Safe, dignified, durable, easy to assemble, cost-efficient, modular and adaptable. Better Shelter is a lightweight, temporary, single room humanitarian shelter that comes flat packed. These new build-it-yourself homes were developed thanks to a collaboration between the IKEA Foundation and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR). They can be set up in an instant without the use of special tools, to provide immediate shelter for those in need. Walls, a lockable door and indoor light Better Shelter resembles a house with four walls, electricity, mosquito nets, a high ceiling and lockable door. These features are what make this project special as refugees usually live in tents not equipped with such basics, often for years. A solar panel installed on the roof adds precious value to the little house. It allows it to generate its own electricity and charges a LED light, extinguishing the need for candles or kerosene lamps. When fully charged, this can be used for up to four hours during the night, also enabling mobile phone charging through a USB port. Better Shelter exploded view © Eutopia Magazine Modular, strong and safe With a floor space of 17.5 square metres, the shelter’s foundation is made of strong, lightweight stainless steel and is anchored to the ground. The frame is modular and parts are interchangeable, thus can easily be dismantled and remounted again. Each one is designed for a family of five or six. The design allows the shelter to withstand strong wind, rain, snow and heavy impact and the structure as a whole provides a sense of dignity and a higher level of security compared to a tent. Security, in fact, is one of the biggest issues in these camps where women and children are abused on a daily basis. Quick&Easy to assemble: IKEA style The Better Shelter comes flat packed in the company’s famous cardboard boxes and people can start building it immediately by simply following an instruction manual. It is constructed in three subsequent steps: the foundations first, then the roof that includes ventilation and the solar panel, finally the walls with windows and a door. It takes four people four to eight hours to complete the construction. No additional tools are required and most components are assembled by hand. What’s backstage Work on the Better Shelter units began more than five years ago, with a prototype unveiled in 2013. Designed with and for refugees, and focused on their needs, now, after an 18-month pilot involving forty families in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Iraq, the UNHCR says the design has been rolled out to scale. With the success of IKEA and Better Shelter’s field testing, the refugee agency has signed onto an initial commitment of 10,000 shelters. According to Olivier Delarue, head of UNHCR Innovation: This is a real example of how the private sector and public sectors can come together to make something new. UNHCR shouldn’t be designing shelters, we should be harnessing the expertise of others, and who better to make a flat pack shelter than IKEA. In recent years the agency has also worked with IKEA to provide solar lamps to refugees in Ethiopia, Sudan, Bangladesh, Chad and Jordan. Is pure solidarity the right approach? The Better Shelter social enterprise is driven by a mission to improve the lives of people displaced by conflicts and natural disasters by providing them with a temporary home away from home. At a cost of $1,150 each, the shelters are three times more expensive than a standard UNHCR tent. Yet while the latter are designed to last for just six months, these new shelters last for a minimum of three years in harsh conditions, and up to twenty years in more temperate climates. Whilst the goal of this project is admirable as it visibly improves the lives of people in camps – who sometimes spend their entire lives in a tent – how aid money is spent is a delicate consideration to make. Aid in the form of money or goods flows into countries hit by hazards. However, spending a substantial portion of it for immediate or medium-term relief in the form of transitional shelters in most cases means limiting the funds that would go into long-term development, such as building schools and permanent homes, as well as designing appropriate social strategies.
