Planning guidelines for sustainable residential buildings in the asylum sector

Gina Balsiger
Nov 2
2 min read

publication

What should be considered with regard to providing suitable housing for refugees with a longer-term prospect of staying in Switzerland.

Considerations from an architectural, social and financial point of view for municipal and cantonal authorities, for commissions, planners and other interested parties.

In Switzerland, almost 90 percent of all asylum seekers have a status that grants them long-term residency and officially offers them a prospect of integration. These include recognized refugees, temporarily admitted persons, and those with S protection status. In the medium term, many of them will become an ordinary part of the country's resident population.

On their path to independence, these individuals require public support for a certain period. During this time, they are housed by the responsible municipal or cantonal authorities in apartments and properties specifically designated for them. In essence, the principle here is: as usual, so integrated.

In this online publication, architects from the HUMA association and experts from BEC present planning guidelines for the design of ecologically, socially, and financially sustainable residential buildings – primarily in the municipal, and secondarily in the cantonal, asylum and integration context. To contextualize the architecturally oriented considerations within a broader societal framework, the authors begin by advocating…

Sustainable housing for refugees should also be designed with a view to other groups of people,
to link greater individual quality of life in the living area not only with advantages for refugees, but also with gains for the community,
“Normalizing living conditions” should also be seen as a suitable guiding principle at the municipal level with regard to housing,
Private accommodation may be considered as an alternative to a construction project or as a temporary bridging solution.

The individual architectural planning guidelines and the checklists in the appendix address the various technical and planning aspects of a given construction project. The careful, inclusive, and cost-conscious approach that characterizes these guidelines is exemplified by the following concerns of the authors:

When considering repurposing, conversion or new construction, favor sustainable solutions.
Plan for flexible, sustainable building use with a view to different future residents.
Consider possible future changes when planning the space program.
Benefit from synergies when using public infrastructure or collaborating with institutions in the neighborhood.
Ensure child-friendliness and gender sensitivity in all parts of the construction project.

Finally, fictional model plans illustrate the preceding explanations in the dossier. They show (1) the possible conversion of a commercial building into communal accommodation and (2) a possible new building that, with regard to privacy, is based on the concept of "cluster living". Four checklists help planners to consider everything when working on such a project.