A timber shelter standing in a Helsinki square, café umbrellas and historic buildings around it.

Architecture for People

Atelier-3 / Hsieh Ying-chun Architect, Helsinki Design Week 2017

A transitional shelter built with refugees, citizens and students for Helsinki Design Week 2017 — I supervised the build and designed the exhibition.

Year
2017
Type
Built
Role
Supervisor & exhibition designer
Location
Helsinki, FI

At Helsinki Design Week 2017 we delivered our proposal to build a transitional shelter together with refugees, citizens and international students. The shelter offers a decent living space for the refugees taking part, to ease some of the anxiety of having had to leave their homeland.

Through their own efforts, the participatory and collaborative construction can also ease the refugees’ sense of uncertainty and rebuild a sense of value and dignity, while nurturing the skills and creativity they will need to rebuild their homeland.

Close-up of a timber joint: two beams joined with a round metal plate and bolt.
01 A bolted timber joint.
Volunteers in hard hats and hi-vis vests laying out the timber floor frame in the square.
02 Building together.
A volunteer kneeling at the timber frame while three people watch.
03 Assembly on site.
A traditional Chinese construction drawing of a timber house section, annotated with characters.
04 A traditional timber-frame drawing, used as reference.