A House for Sedentary Nomads
Sedentary nomads is the name we chose to identify the thousands of migrants who moved from the south of the World to the western countries where they are currently stuck in border checkpoints as Ventimiglia, Lesbos, Calais or Melilla. They are real prisoners, forced to live in temporary camps turned into permanent homes where they have to live for months and sometimes for years.
We designed a permanent structure, made of beams and columns, but with the typical impermanent cladding of temporary camps: cloths, sheets of cardboard, wooden planks to mention a few. It is an encampment but based on a permanent structure, a hybrid between long-term and provisional housing, between a house and a tent.
The aim of the project is to give a provocative architectural answer to this humanitarian issue. The tidal wave of migrants is everyday more intense and it will not stop until the day when the issue will be resolved with an international agreement. That day the structure of beams and columns will be stripped of its cladding and it will last as a ruin, memento of the dramatic events of this historical period.
