Architecture in children’s shelters serves a purpose beyond building physical spaces; it is about creating refuges that nurture healing, protection, and growth. For vulnerable children, designing these environments plays a vital role in their emotional recovery. Every aspect—from natural lighting to room layout—works together to create a secure and welcoming atmosphere, supporting their physical well-being and psychological and social development.
The year 2022 was marked by several socio-cultural and economic crises across the globe, from the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the increasing cost of living worldwide, combined with a number of natural disasters such as the devastating floods in Pakistan and hurricane Ian in the US. In these difficult times, architects are stepping up and embracing their role in developing design-based solutions to humanitarian crises, ranging from temporary shelters and affordable housing schemes to centers for protecting at-risk groups such as homeless underage girls, children from low-income environments, or families in need of medical care.
This week's curated selection of Best Unbuilt Architecture highlights projects submitted by the ArchDaily community that engage with their local communities, offering safe spaces for disadvantaged and at-risk groups. From a sanctuary for homeless girls in Iraq to an affordable housing project in Prague’s first skyscraper, this selection features projects centered around people, their needs, and desires. Many of the projects employ local materials such as clay bricks to lower the construction costs. They also reuse existing buildings and hope to engage the local community in building and appropriating the proposed spaces.
In this article, which originally appeared on Australian Design Review as "Reframing Concrete in Nepal," Aleksandr Bierig describes how New York-based MOS Architects, a firm better known for its experimental work, is designing an orphanage for a small community in Nepal.
Strangely enough it has become almost unremarkable that an office such as New York-based MOS Architects would find itself designing an orphanage for a small community in Nepal. Now under construction in Jorpati, eight kilometres north-east of the capital, Kathmandu, is the Lali Gurans Orphanage and Learning Centre, which finds itself at the intersection of any number of tangential trends: the rise of international aid and non-governmental organisations, the seeming annihilation of space by global communications networks and the latent desire of architects to use their designs to effect appreciable social change. Emphasizing simple construction techniques and sustainable design features, the building hopes to serve as a model for the surrounding communities, as an educational and environmental hub, the provider of social services for Nepalese women and as a home for some 50 children.
MOS Architects, founded in 2003 by US architects Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample, is not a practice known for its involvement in humanitarian projects. Its work is often experimental and, at times, willfully strange. Alongside its architecture, MOS makes films, teaches studios, designs furniture and gives lectures on its work. It was after one lecture in Denver, Colorado in 2009 that Christopher Gish approached Meredith and Sample to ask if they would be interested in designing an orphanage.
