Al Azraq
A better environment for refugees using inspiration from nature
Using the Biomimicry Design Methodology, the team created a revised plan for the refugee camp Al Azraq in Jordan. The camp opened in 2014 for Syrian refugees of the Syrian Civil war. By the end of 2024, the camp was home to several generations of Syrian refugees, 41,000 in total. The plan is organized as a hierarchy of interlocking spaces created by the structures for efficient operational processes by UNHCR and small pockets of entirely public to entirely private spaces for the social construction and maintained cultural identities of its residents. Design inspiration was taken from the self sustaining heat of the skunk cabbage, the hierarchical nested structure of human bones, and the self-organization of social insects. The new organization of Al Azraq camp puts an emphasis on maintaining the cultural identity of the people seeking refuge in the camp and positively impacting their mental health.
Team
Kaley Blask, Diana Quintero, & Luisa Solano
Biomimicry Design methodology
The goal of biomimetic design is to create innovations that are able to adapt and fit in with life on Earth. Biomimicry is not about what we can extract from nature, rather it’s about what we can learn from nature. Consciously emulating nature’s genius, learning its secrets to survival, and applying these lessons to design work can result in sustainable design solutions that are conducive to life. Over the course of the four phases of biomimicry methodology – scoping, discovering, creating, and evaluating — the team learned from nature’s genius and incorporated these learnings into a contextual, conceptual biomimetic design.
Biology to design
When it comes to practicing biomimicry, there are two different frameworks one can follow; “Biology to Design” or “Challenge to Biology.” We followed the Biology to Design framework. Rather than starting with a human problem and looking to nature for a solution, we explored different strategies in nature and thought of ways to apply them as solutions to human problems. Once we found a strategy the team was excited about, we translated the benefits and opportunities each biological strategy offers to a human solution through several levels of abstraction. First, we attempt to understand the mechanism in as much detail as possible, which lead us to identify how the strategy works. Those strategies tell us how the function is achieved in nature and how we might emulate through through our design principles.
The camp plan
The proposed Azraq camp incorporates biomimetic design practices, UNHCR’s Camp Planning Guidelines, and strengths of the existing Azraq camp plan. The plan utilizes biological inspiration from the skunk cabbage, human bones, and social insects.
Inspired by nature
Skunk Cabbage
We drew inspiration from the heat generating core of the skunk cabbage to organize the camp. By positioning the tents in an array around a central space, the “spadix” becomes a foci of communal activity intended for the people living in that “spathe” to use as they see fit.
Skunk cabbages, when grown in their natural cluster groupings, each cabbage uses less energy to maintain a constant ambient temperature collectively. We interpreted this into our design as the positive energy created between people — in their relationships, their interactions, and the community built among them — and the spaces that mimic the physical form of the skunk cabbage in our camp plan. Each housing structure also has space for the residents to create a garden, house livestock, or room to create a larger footprint as they are able. The courtyard in the middle, acting as the spadix, creates an opportunity for a tight knit community. Families can share resources, food, childcare, and create community. These spaces can also be utilized by volunteer services and organizations to engage children, teach adults new skills, and distribute aid.
Starting with a simple pattern repetition, we scaled this idea of the spadix and spathe to create spaces on the public - private scale and found a similar hierarchy in the strength of human bones.
Human bones
The scaling from a micro to a macro level of nested structure to create strength and durability allows human bones to be strong, yet flexible. By scaling and repeating the spathe and spadix organization of the camp, the proposed Azraq camp plan maintains organization and order needed for UNHCR operations to run smoothly while creating more private, semi private, and public spaces for refugees.
UN camp guidelines require housing structures to be grouped in small squares, to create communal areas. We chose to group housing structures in an array in order to interrupt the line of sight rather than the view of an unerupted line of white tents. This also creates microclimates within each block of housing structures. Each group of housing structures opens to a larger gathering space where residents or UNHCR can place food and aid distribution sites, educational buildings, playgrounds, or markets.
Social insects
Village playground
Social insects self-organize to adapt to their changing conditions through networks where each insect understands the role they play to contribute to the greater good of the community. Using what we learned from the skunk cabbage’s collaboration and combination of semi-public spaces, we were able to leave free spaces within the villages for residents or volunteer services to utilize as they need. We incorporated the existing services from the current Al Azraq plan and added more safe spaces for women and children, opportunities for community art projects, and community garden spaces.
Neighborhood bathrooms with mural