Draft version of a text on 'Refugee Camps' for the roundtable session on october 6th.

.... Refugee camps are usually planned by architects and technical planners of UNHCR. Based on the belief in global human rights and human needs valid and identical all over the world, the fundamental planning approach for camps is characterized by neutrality. The standardized plan for such a refugee camp starts with the tent or the refugee family as the smallest basic unit. This unit is then organized in to camp clusters (16 tents), camp blocks (16 clusters), camp sectors (4 blocks) and finally the complete camp (4 sectors) which in its ‘ideal’ case houses 20.000 refugees. Smaller tracks and non-motorized lanes separate clusters and blocks from each other, while roads for motorized traffic access the larger camp sectors. Overall, a small image of an idealized city starts to emerge, that in its belief in structured organization and clear separation of functions and uses is reminiscent of the urban planning of the modern era from the 1920s. This modernistic planning approach finds its application all over the world. But the pretty order, thoroughly based on western European planning ideals seems like a naïve fool’s planning in the dusty heat of the African desert, in the malaria and cholera infested tropical rainforests or in direct proximity to violent combat or war-like conditions. Regardless of whether the refugee drama is taking place in the dense jungle of Thailand, in the middle of the northern African desert or in the dry mountain regions of Iran, everywhere the same naïve model of an idealized city is used to project a camp-city of European understanding onto regions that could not be more different. Naiveté though becomes jeopardy in the context of violence and catastrophes and it is specifically its neutrality that makes this planning approach so susceptible to instrumentalization and politicalization. ....

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