Managing the refugee issue by designing: Case of the Syrian refugees in Izmir

Human beings have change their living places, cities or countries due to various reasons through the history. Forced immigration as the part of this mobility, has been a multidisciplinary argument like psychology, sociology and antropology with the increase in refugee number. However, another important to consider is to see the matter in urban planning and architecture view. There are not so many studies on this issue and it should be improved, so that the things this thesis emphesizes are exceedingly important. Refuee groups that leave their country and immigrate because of the war or conflict in their country should be mostly explicated in whole migration groups. Today, according to UNHRC (United Nations of Human Rights Council) reports, more than 50 million people live away their home country due to reasons like security or human rights violation. In the second part of the thesis, notions of forced emigration, refugees and asylum seekers are explicated. The reasons of forced emigration are inconvenient climate conditions, natural events, economical reasons, terrorism and war. Forced emigration due to terrorism and war is a fact that should be explicated because of its desperate results. Its effects are closely related to economic, physicological and physical environment. In fact, all these effects are directly related to each other and they also have both negative and positive impacts on each other. The mental diseases and loss of dignity and economy that are experienced after the war generates some kinds of damages on the refugees. The planning and desinging the living areas are of great importance in reducing the amount of damage they get. In this points the problems of adaptation and place attachment come to order. As these people are expected to return back to their countries, the studies should be handled according to this expectation. The dissolving of the physicological dieseaes that these individuals are exposed to and turning these people into productive individuals will only be possible with the maximum level of palce attachment. Place attachment is a largely explicated subject in literature. The most important factors thats influence palce attachment in terms of refugees are; demographic factors, enviromental expreiences, ecocnomic adaptation, culture and culturalisation, satisfaction of physical environment and the relation of place and activity. These datas should be seriously considered and implicated into the projects of replacement for the refugees. For example, it will be a reason to emphasize the education centers in the campus if the number of children going to school is high in the household of the refugees. Or if the group is conservative, it becomes quite important in designing and the configuration of the dwelling units and the decision of the social installations. In the third part of the thesis, the studies and the examples about the accomodation of the refugees as emphasized. International charity organizations have always worked much about accamodating of the refugees and asylum seekers temporarily in a country. UNHRC is one of the most important organistions of all; It has a big role in solving the problem of accomodation during the settlement of 400.000 Somalian in Kenya and 144.000 Syrian people in Jordan. Every year various reports have been published about forced emigration and these reports reveals the evryday experiences of the people in the camps. NRC (Norwegian Refugee Council) and Sphere Project, are some other charities which work in ccoperation with UNHRC. The reports which are published by these agents contains the standarts in terms of desinging of the camp areas. In Sphere Project, there are five standarts mentioned so as to help the architects and the urban planners. These are explained as strategic planning, settlement planning, closed living area and enviromental factors. In the publications of NRC, there are examples of planning and designing in paralel with the standarts mentioned in Sphere Project. However, there are also some kinds of suggestions that supports the adaptation and place attachment issues as it is consistent with point of view in the thesis, for instance the approach of planning according to the demographic features or the settlement of the families in the garden of the camping areas so as to increase rehabilitation. The smallest units in the campus of the refugees are the living areas called houses or shelters. Through out the history, there has been various types of shelters. The common point of these types are the using of local materials and local actors, being economical and easy and fast to be done. The construction process has sometimes had a professional planning, yet it sometimes has been arbitarily constructed due to the emergency situations and the only aim was protection from bad weather conditions. The architects taking part in the helping projects have a great role in designing and construction of these useful shelters. For example, the Japanese architect Shigaru Ban, has designed the emergency dwelling unit which he named as 'Paper Log House'. This unit can meet the demands in many of the camps especially in Kobe refugee camp. In this thesis, there are some examples from the refugee camps. The models have been chosen from the camp settlements which have been reasearcehed in terms of architecture. Nahr-El Bared camp which is located in Lebanon, is an invincible Project as it is designed professionally, considering the features of the people that are to live in this camp and its social installations in the project. The camp Dadaab in Kenya and Kakuma camp located on the border line between Kenya and Sudan have more difficult living and accomodation conditions. In the fourth part of the study, solutions have been made for accomodation problem with some kinds of analysis for the example mass of Syrian refugees in İzmir. Supporting the literarture study, first of all, Syrian culuture and living style has been researched and profile of the group has been learnt. The profile of the household and their daily life experiences have been explicated. The study has been done with a questionnaire in participation with 100 Syrian refugee living in Ballıkuyu, Kadifekale, Agora and Basmane vicinity which are belonging to Konak country in İzmir. The questions in the questionnaire have been prepared to find out how similar is the physical environment in İzmir is to the environment in Syria, what the physical problems ( heating, warming, humidity, immensity of the places)are there in their dwellings in izmir and whether they would like to go or not if the government offers them a camp area. When the questionnaire seemed inefficient, face to face conversations, observations and drawing methods have also been used. As a result of the analysis, It's been fond out that the refugees can not sustain their living style in İzmir, there is a problem of unemployment and poverty and they try to live in physically inconvenient dwellings. So it's suggested that the government should deal with this urgently. Some kinds of settlement and conceptual suggestions have been made if it is planned to build a camp area. In the upper scale context, refugee problem should be considered as the combination of economic productivity, psychological healing, optimum place attachment and the role of the psyhical environment parameters. In terms of settlement; regarding the demographic datas, territory selection, configuration of the housing units, assessing the utility units and the entegration of the restorative environment elements should be respected. It is recommended that the dwelling unit typologies should be similar to the Syrian culture as they should obtain the usage of the roof or the terrace parts. The dwellings of these types can be constructed with prefabricated materials as mostly seen in present camps. It is suggested that the Syrians living in İzmir should pass from consumption society to manufacturing society. In this point, with 'permaculture' which is really popular in recent years, it will be possible for the individuals to produce a particular amount of their daily food on the fertile soil thay they will be given to, thus it will help these people get mental rehabilitation. Also problems of unemployment and economic inefficiency will be removed with the installation of a textile factory in the settlement area. The reason why Textile is suggested as the employment area is that most of the refugees participating in the questionnaire have come from Halab( Aleppo) and they used to work there as taılor, textile workers or clothes press workers. In this thesis, primarily the meaning of forced migration phenomenon and how it is occured is explicated. The economic, psychological and accomodation related results relevant to the several reasons are mentioned. Additionally, adaptation extention as one of the major difficulties that refugees face with is researched. Beside, how studies international charity agencies assume and how living and social environments they create is discussed. In accordance with all these conceptual frame, Syrian refugees living in İzmir is picked as a sample study group and resettlement proposals are enhanced with the point of view to be useful for the urban planners and architects.