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S A F E WAT E R S THE ROLE OF ARCHITECTS IN CRISIS
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Project Type: Humanitarian Studio: Degrowth Studio with Lola Sheppard Date: Winter 2022 - M,Arch, University of Waterloo Location: Kalymnos Island, Dodecanese Islands, Aaegean Sea, Greece Achievement: Published in Galt Publication and was on public display at Riverside Gallery Partner: Water Based Site by Sepideh Rajabzadeh Software Used: Rhino, Revit, Enscape, Adobe Suite
Figure 1: EXTERIOR VIEW
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Greece has been on the front line of an influx of migrants crossing by boat from Turkey as part of Europe’s biggest migrant crisis since Word War II. There has been a notable increase in recent years of people arriving in Greek waters and especially on the Dodecanese islands, fleeing war, violence, and poverty in their home countries. Since the beginning of 2022, more than 46,000 refugees have arrived on Greek islands in inflatable boats on this cluster of islands (Fig.2) The panic-driven inflatable boats lead them to the ungoverned thresholds of Turkish and Greek waters, a treacherous journey that all too often ends in tragedy. Many boats capsizes in this risky crossing, and many end up dying, freezing, and have no where to call home. Both countries politically are not on good terms, and therefore end up blaming each other for this tragedy. Greece welcomed more than 3 million tourists in 2019, each visitor consumes an average of nine 1.5 littres bottles. Kalymnos island’s trash crisis has become a potent expression of the Aegean’s bottle addiction. Therefore, the island is dealing with contaminated water with microplastics that is threatening the fish species and sea sponges in Kalymnos island. Located between the borded of Turkey and Greece, this project is set in two sites, a water-based site, and a land-based site. The water-based site offers an immediate shelter from sinking, freezing, and providing a place to call home temporarly, in a “grey area” where it is uncertain which country it belongs to. One the other hand, the land-based pier located on Kalymnos island, aims to provide all kinds of supplies and aid that gets directly sent out to the water-based shelters in between the two countries. The land-based pier deals with waste management that is linked to the municipality. The new port will offer all logistics to build an repair the water-based shelters which are sent out by red cross boars to offer an immediate assistance.
Fig.2: CONTEXT MAP
LAND-BASED PIER
WATER-BASED SHELTERS
LAND-BASED SITE
PROJECT SECTION
WATER-BASED SITE