Yuan Ma
I’m Yuan MA, an interior designer from Shanghai, China. My current research interests focus on social and environmental issues, ultimately with the aim of improving lives and the happiness of the inhabitants of the spaces I design. I tend to view the issues I see around me, and the issues of our time, through a critical lens and with a seriousness that I believe they deserve.
My project was motivated by the urgent need to address the challenges faced by refugees from Bhola Island in Bangladesh. Displaced by climate change such as sea level rise and river erosion, these refugees have had to move from their homes to form their own refugee slum in the capital city of Dhaka. I recognize the importance of creating a safe and inclusive community for refugees.
Contact
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My project was motivated by the urgent need to address the challenges faced by refugees from Bhola Island in Bangladesh. Displaced by climate change such as sea level rise and river erosion, these refugees have had to move from their homes to form their own refugee slum in the capital city of Dhaka. I recognize the importance of creating a safe and inclusive community for refugees.
Water is an important memory for the people of Bhola Island. People go fishing and play in the sea by boat, which is a kind of free identity experience. But after moving to the Bhola refugee slum, people were trapped physically and mentally. The proposed project aims to establish a floating community within the Bhola slum, focusing on the "collective memory” theme in Bhola Island. It intends to create a space that accommodates and supports the refugees, providing them with a sense of belonging and fostering community integration, and creating an experience that transcends the city.
The design takes modular and resilient as the starting point integrates sustainability and identity in the design, proposes a mobility concept, and gives full play to the flexible characters of the floating community on the water. It can also create a Beyond-City Experience for refugees in the Bhola slum. Mobility and resilience are reflected in three aspects. The first is the movement of the modules through buoyancy supports. Second, people can carry out activities in the shared community more freely through walkways. Thirdly, the cork bricks constitute modular furniture in the interior, which is flexible in assembly and disassembly.
The anticipated outcomes of the project include enhanced social interaction, increased cultural preservation, strengthened community integration, and improved psychological well-being for the refugees.
Keywords: Climate refugees, collective memory, shelter design, modular design, shared community
[post_title] => Floating community-Location: Bhola slum-Dhaka-Bangladesh
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[post_content] => - Bhola island:
- Bhola slum:
- Under the context:
- Proposal：
- From Trapped to Movable：
- This is the view from the ground floor door into the interior space. Furniture constructed from cork bricks are placed in the space. In summer, half-open windows allow wind to enter the space, bringing coolness to the interior without being stuffy. The furniture and interior architecture are in wood tones to create a cosy interior environment.
- Through a wooden ladder to the first floor space, the scale of the first floor space retains the scale of the houseboat on Bhola Island, like a small loft in the interior space. Refugees rest and sleep here, they and can also look out at the distant scenery through the transparent bioglass.
- This is a view of the workspace from the perspective of the kitchen. Most of the women in Bhola slum are generally housewives. The textile workbench offers them the possibility to work from home. The woman in this picture is weaving, and the cork shelves next to her are full of materials for weaving. The bright space facilitates textile work.
Floating community-Location: Bhola slum-Dhaka-Bangladesh
Abstract
My project was motivated by the urgent need to address the challenges faced by refugees from Bhola Island in Bangladesh. Displaced by climate change such as sea level rise and river erosion, these refugees have had to move from their homes to form their own refugee slum in the capital city of Dhaka. I recognize the importance of creating a safe and inclusive community for refugees.
Water is an important memory for the people of Bhola Island. People go fishing and play in the sea by boat, which is a kind of free identity experience. But after moving to the Bhola refugee slum, people were trapped physically and mentally. The proposed project aims to establish a floating community within the Bhola slum, focusing on the “collective memory” theme in Bhola Island. It intends to create a space that accommodates and supports the refugees, providing them with a sense of belonging and fostering community integration, and creating an experience that transcends the city.
The design takes modular and resilient as the starting point integrates sustainability and identity in the design, proposes a mobility concept, and gives full play to the flexible characters of the floating community on the water. It can also create a Beyond-City Experience for refugees in the Bhola slum. Mobility and resilience are reflected in three aspects. The first is the movement of the modules through buoyancy supports. Second, people can carry out activities in the shared community more freely through walkways. Thirdly, the cork bricks constitute modular furniture in the interior, which is flexible in assembly and disassembly.
The anticipated outcomes of the project include enhanced social interaction, increased cultural preservation, strengthened community integration, and improved psychological well-being for the refugees.
Keywords: Climate refugees, collective memory, shelter design, modular design, shared community
SITE ANALYSIS
- Bhola island:
Bhola island is located on the southern coast of Bangladesh, and the area is very prone to the effects of riverbank erosion and frequent cyclones. So many people migrated to Dhaka and formed their own community. They call it Bhola slum.
Unlike many mixed slums, more than three-quarters of the refugees in Bhola slum come from the same place, Bhola Island, and they share similar experiences and the same cultural background.
- Bhola slum:
Physical trapped:
The Bhola slum is surrounded by the city and a wet area. Informal cities are gradually forming and it is difficult for people to integrate into the surrounding city. Bhola refugees without jobs, especially women and children, spend almost every day in informal dwellings of only a dozen square metres.
Mind trapped:
People reported facing non-economic losses due to the move, such as identity, honour, sense of belonging and mental health. These psychosocial processes helped explain why some people ended up ‘trapped’ or immobile. They feel meaningless or emotionally empty. : Can the poor afford happiness? Poor people don’t need to be respected?
DESIGN IDEA
Based on my research in the Bhola slum, I found that the refugees were physically and psychologically trapped. Completely dismantling and rebuilding refugee camps is not a good approach by researching informal cities. Instead, an incrementalism is the approach I want to take.
My original design idea was to activate the refugee slum. Bringing people out of the room to integrate into the society and to find a sense of belonging through the collective memory of Bhola Island to evoke people’s memory of home.
- Under the context:
More than a thousand such families live in boats in the entire Bhola district. Most of them are victims of river erosion. After losing their houses to the river, the boats have become their last refuge.
I chose water and Bhola boat as the elements to evoke the collective memory of the Bhola people living in the refugee slum in Dhaka. They are not natural city people. My projects aim to reimagine and reconfigure the sense of freedom, identity and independence in their island of Bhola.
- Proposal：
My proposal is to bring water to the Bhola slums. The first reason is that the region is very vulnerable to climate change. The second reason is that water is an important memory for the people of Bhola Island. People go fishing and playing in the sea by boat, which is a kind of free identity experience. But after moving to Bhola refugee slum, people were trapped physically and mentally. My subtitle, ‘Looking down and looking up’, implies looking up, with the sky and flying birds, and looking down, with the sea and fish, creating an experience that transcends the city.
The proposed project aims to establish a floating community within the Bhola slum, focusing on the “collective memory” theme in Bhola Island. It intends to create a space that accommodates and supports the refugees, providing them with a sense of belonging and fostering community integration, and creating an experience that transcends the city.
Deconstructing Bhola Boat
DESIGN CONCEPT
- From Trapped to Movable：
People went from being trapped in their own tiny rooms, to coming out and forming their own communities, to a mobile-based lifestyle that brought freedom to refugees. Living on the water opens up possibilities for this mobility and offers Bhola refugees a new way of life, especially in an area so vulnerable to climate change.
The design takes modular and resilient as the starting point integrates sustainability and identity in the design, proposes a mobility concept, and gives full play to the flexible characters of the floating community on the water. It can also create a Beyond-City Experience for Refugees in the Bhola slum.
In the following designs, I will achieve mobility through both physical and psychological aspects. From the physical level, I will realize it through some floating devices and movable units and facilities. From the psychological level, I will start from people’s behavior and feelings, explore the relationship between space and free identity, and create their own romance for the people of Bhola Island.
Axonometric drawing
MATERIALITY
Cork has been increasingly used in architecture and interior design in recent years and is a fantastic material for designers and is recognised as one of the most environmentally friendly materials in the world. A company design a modular system, where you can build most of pieces of furniture, walls and structures, for inside or outside use in space, with no tools, no screws, no glue – that’s CORKBRICK! With only 7 different “brocks” we can build whatever we imagine.
Residential units+editable platforms
Residential units+editable platforms：
The design plan features a combination of residential units and editable platforms. Residential units cater for the daily life of refugee families including living areas, sleeping areas, kitchens, and working areas where women can do textile work. The editable platform is connected to the residential units and contains some basic public facilities.
The editable platform is connected to the residential units in the form of plank roads, and people can create their own platforms according to their needs. At the same time, some public platforms provide residents with basic facilities, allowing them to go out of their homes and integrate into society.
Section view
OUTCOMES ( Interior)
My ultimate goal is to create a good and comfortable indoor environment for residents and improve people’s quality of life and happiness index. Bhola refugees are not born city dwellers, and this free residential experience may be a romantic and practical proposition.
- This is the view from the ground floor door into the interior space. Furniture constructed from cork bricks are placed in the space. In summer, half-open windows allow wind to enter the space, bringing coolness to the interior without being stuffy. The furniture and interior architecture are in wood tones to create a cosy interior environment.
- Through a wooden ladder to the first floor space, the scale of the first floor space retains the scale of the houseboat on Bhola Island, like a small loft in the interior space. Refugees rest and sleep here, they and can also look out at the distant scenery through the transparent bioglass.
- This is a view of the workspace from the perspective of the kitchen. Most of the women in Bhola slum are generally housewives. The textile workbench offers them the possibility to work from home. The woman in this picture is weaving, and the cork shelves next to her are full of materials for weaving. The bright space facilitates textile work.
OUTCOMES (exterior)
4. The man in the picture returns to his home after work. He looks at his wife who is cooking at home. Their children are sitting and playing on the curtain. The pigeons behind him are flying in the sky. The harmonious and beautiful picture has never been seen in the dark and damp Bhola slum before. This kind of living experience beyond the city gives refugees a sense of freedom and comfort.
5. Residential units and editable platforms are connected by iron chains or plank roads, and people can freely shuttle between platforms. The planting area can be used to grow some hydroponic vegetables, which also adds vitality to the community. The playground is a paradise for children, and the different curved domes provide them with a shelter, and likewise, these public infrastructures provide places for children’s daily activities.
