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Violent chronic conflicts, uprooting, and the continuous massive (re)generation of displacement waves constitute the main elements of the Kurds’ history within nation-states’ (changing) geographies. Today, Kurdish-inhabited territories represent palimpsests of involuntary dislocations and relocation stories, constantly (re)written by refuge-seeking/ granting (spatial) practices. Since 2011, contemporary uprisings and wars in Syria and Iraq have inscribed the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KR-I) territories with a new layer of displacement stories. These territories acted as frontline receptors for consecutive Syrian refugees and Iraqi internally displaced waves seeking protection. Displacees found refuge in the rural, urban and newly set humanitarian camps’ spaces; hence, they (temporarily) anchored and carved some sort of a presence within their receiving sites. The rationale behind such receiving sites' emergence, use and progression in the KR-I have historically oscillated between modernization, discipline, development and humanitarianism.
Guided by the urbanism lens, this research aims to narrate the KR-I’s forced displacement territorial biography of involuntary dislocated and (re)located Kurds. This narration chronologically traces these groups' newly (re)shaped receiving sites and how refuge-seeking/granting practices aggregated and (re) articulated the KR-I’s territories. It investigates the ways in which these receiving sites act as seeds of emerging urbanities in such a politically contested region. On the one hand, the research zooms out and repositions these sites' emergence and spatial progression within a broader geopolitical context, socioeconomic conditionalities, uses and meaning subversions due to the ever-changing actors. On the other hand, it zooms closely into the newly set Syrian-Kurdish refugee camps in the KR-I within and beyond predefined (nation-state) belongings in their ever-distorted time-space frames. It securitizes on the ways in which these sites are conceived and inhabited to (re)claim rights “to” and “in” space, territory, history and future. Between the large and small pictures, the research investigates the human and the non-human spatial agency that (re)patches these ruptured Kurds' collective memories and contemporary narratives of where, when, what and with whom (a future) home rests.
This study is an urgent call for the international and local constellation of actors to critically rethink their standardized ready-made solutions and piece-meal spatial interventions in geographies associated with chronic crisis, ever (re)branded under emergency, development and peace ‘help’ banners. It sets the basis for rearticulating and developing further research-based interventions that account for exhausted conflict-ridden (infra)structures, political sensitivities, socio-economic situations and environmental impacts.
Climate change is one of the most pressing global challenges of the 21st Century. According to the United Nations, Vietnam with a coastline of more than 3600 km, is one of top 30 countries facing an “extremely high risk” from the impacts of climate change over the next 30 years. Research undertaken in Vietnam indicates that significant impacts due to sea level rise have already occurred, resulting in the increased unpredictability and severity of coastal problems, such as land-loss, flooding of low lying coastal areas, accelerated coastal erosion, all which directly impacts the local population residing in the coastal region. Moreover, due to sea level rise, the amount of land available for development along the coast and further highly populated low lying land such as in the Mekong Delta will decrease. Facing these risks requires government and experts to urgently find effective solutions to ensure adequate space for residents in low-lying coastal areas. The current solutions being discussed are not only traditionally raising accommodation or resettlement to higher areas, or “living with the water”, but also a view of “living on the water”. In this case, floating architecture is seen as an effective solution for many low lying coastal areas all over the world and in Vietnam in particular.
In fact that, Vietnam has a long history of floating settlements with a large number of floating villages. However, these floating villages are built with dilapidated houses which are built on rafts, and most floating settlements have been threaten by several socio-cultural, economic and environmental factors. Therefore, the main purpose of the research is to upgrade floating architecture in Vietnam to a higher level and standard adapting to climate change and social change. The research will provide methods and innovation tools to bridge the gap between existing floating house, as an unsafe and inconvenient type of accommodation, and contemporary housing needs in water bodies to allow for a fit between traditional designing experience and contemporary innovation of floating architecture.
Based on lessons and innovations of floating architecture development in other countries, as well as based on the traditional experience and vernacular architecture of floating houses in Vietnam, the research will create theoretical frameworks, guidelines and design criteria for sustainable floating houses and floating settlements. The sustainable concept focuses on both sustainability and affordability when using innovative floating structures and materials in accordance with the local climatic and social condition of Vietnam, as well as adapting to climate change and sea level rise. The study will not only protect existing floating villages, preserve aquatic lifestyle that ensure a stable and permanent living on the water for inhabitants, but also improve floating architecture for modern demands and resilient living adapting to social change and climate change in Vietnam.