Refugees Settlement

Floating Yona City, Barcelona

This project was develop in my 2nd year of architectural school with Professor Tomeu Ramis. The task was to create an ephemeral refugees settlement.

What is a Refugee? A human being escaping an extreme situation from her country of origin. This human is on a journey of survival that is going to lead her to our Floating Refugee Settlement as well as to our Wonderful city and country. What we want to achieve is to make them feel welcome and part of this society getting the best tools, training and location to do so. This proposal is meant to be a membrane receiving people from anywhere in order to provide them the best adaptation process.

The project has 2 key points. Firstly to elevate the whole Settlement, this decision is to clear the future rise of the sea levels. Furthermore the elevation of the building will create a shade under it of more than 1 hectare. Secondly to use the measurements of a Cerda’s block that would allow to fit the program in one single floor rather than several.

The program is distributed to form 8 little villages with a central core for services. The core is the main entrance equipped with 2 elevators and is less than two minutes walking distance from the furthest point. These little villages are made to have communities and to share the place from the core to the main promenade located at the front having views to the sea. Every village has its own access by a staircase placed in the central column.