Redefining Dignified Refugee Housing
How can we rethink refugee accommodations to be more humane? This project explores how design thinking can uncover and address key challenges in temporary housing, shifting the focus from mere functionality to dignity, privacy, and community well-being.
Client:
Diakonie Augsburg, Tür an Tür
Role:
Year:
2021
The Challenge
Refugees often live in overcrowded, impersonal, and restrictive spaces, creating frustration, lack of privacy, and disconnection from society. Designing a meaningful intervention wasn’t straightforward—we faced barriers in accessing first-hand experiences and struggled to define a tangible solution that could create real impact within existing political and bureaucratic constraints.
Process
Using Theory U as a framework, we followed a structured, iterative approach:
Empathy & Research – Conducted interviews, analyzed documents, and engaged in co-initiating workshops with NGOs (Diakonie Augsburg, Tür an Tür).
Immersive Observations – Visited different refugee accommodations to identify pain points and emotional stressors.
Ideation & Concept Development – Explored co-creative prototypes, from interactive public installations to landlord awareness campaigns.
System Mapping & Validation – Used 4D-Mapping to visualize the power dynamics and institutional barriers refugees face daily.
Pivoting & Refinement – Shifted focus to activism-driven interventions, including guerilla campaigns and workshops to challenge public perception and drive systemic change.
Solution
A 7m² public intervention—an experiential installation placed in city centers to represent the average living space of a refugee in Germany. By immersing passersby in these conditions, we turned statistics into lived experiences, sparking dialogue and awareness. Alongside this, we designed QR-coded urban interventions linking to refugee voices, resources, and opportunities for civic engagement.
Key takeaways
Design thinking isn’t always about creating a “product”—sometimes, the most impactful solution is shifting mindsets and policies.
Empathy is powerful, but access matters—without direct refugee participation, interventions risk being one-sided.
Impact happens beyond screens—leveraging public space and physical installations created more engagement than traditional digital awareness campaigns.