Connecting Cultures, Strategies for the Best Use of Diversity

Abstract

The essay proposes an alternative approach to the design and location of emergency housing for refugees. Beginning with past experiences that demonstrate how cultural diversity and cohabitation have served as an impulse for change and development in host countries, the paper reflects on choices of location that overcome the current solution of spatial segregation in favour of territorial distribution. This approach is applied to the case study of Tel Aviv through strategies that operate: at the level of the building by adopting envelopes that adapt to existing buildings, at the level of the dwelling through recognisable and customisable and at the level of the city through connections and reciprocal opportunities involving all actors.