No. 31 (2026): Risks and built environment: From knowledge to project
Essays and Viewpoint

Space, risk, shelter: Designing within the complexity of climate change

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  • Ina Macaione,
  • Enrica Gaia Consiglio
Ina Macaione
Dipartimento per l’Innovazione Umanistica, Scientifica e Sociale, Università degli Studi della Basilicata, Italia
Enrica Gaia Consiglio
Dipartimento di Architettura, Università degli Studi di Palermo, Italia
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/techne-18636

Published 2026-07-29

Keywords

  • Climate change,
  • Adaptation,
  • Complexity,
  • Nature-based Solutions,
  • Shelter

How to Cite

Macaione, I., & Consiglio, E. G. (2026). Space, risk, shelter: Designing within the complexity of climate change. TECHNE - Journal of Technology for Architecture and Environment, (31), 74–84. https://doi.org/10.36253/techne-18636

Copyright (c) 2026 Ina Macaione, Enrica Gaia Consiglio

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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Abstract

The thesis advanced is that, in the context of the climate crisis, the shelter must be re-conceived as a place capable of expressing and negotiating the complexity of ongoing environmental and social transformations. Situated within a permanent condition of risk exposure, the shelter is not conceived as either an emergency response or a purely technical solution, but as a device that renders the tensions running through the built environment legible. The shelter functions as a threshold. It is not an enclosed space, but a relational, permeable device that accommodates variable temporalities and inhabits uncertainty. While not explicitly referring to this category, several contemporary design practices introduce adaptive, reversible, and multi-scalar spatial solutions.

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