Former MSc Student @ TU Delft Faculty of Architecture, Architectural Engineering
July of 2021 marked the beginning of a massive internal conflict in Afghanistan, resulting with the reinstated power of Taliban across the country. The radical change in the regime and the vast destruction of people’s homes and cities led to a steep increase in internal displacement and the total number of Afghan refugees inside and outside of the country. This project shows a new approach to shelter design by making use of local opportunities and implementing traditional vernacular elements in the design. ShellTerra is a shelter design that proposes a solution for internally displaced people in Afghanistan on several levels: from modularity and gamification of the settlement planning on the urban scale, to creating a set of blocks and molds that fit into the compression machine for easier construction and better customization on the block scale. The design uses locally available earthy materials and is fully constructed out of CEBs, which makes the elements reusable, able to being safely demolished and zero-waste. The project proposes low-tech construction methods and the possibility of shelter modules to grow into a settlement, while taking sustainable and people flows into consideration. It takes into account the cultural architectural, inner climate and comfort requirements in the attempt to create a home for the refugee communities, rather than a temporary solution. More information can be found hereImage Credit:
A. Kaletkina
