Innovative tent for refugees harnesses renewable energy
What the tents, in use, could look like. (Images via Abeer
Seikaly)
Nearing the half-decade mark, the Syrian Civil
War has by modest estimates already created
four million refugees and
driven at least seven million inside the
shattered country to abandon their homes.
Unfortunately, those forced to flee frequently escape one battle
only to encounter a new one: the struggle to live normal lives in
crowded refugee camps, or finding basic shelter on the road between
their old lives and their new.
Temporary dwellings for Syrian refugees are often nothing more
than simple tarpaulin tents. These are tasked with providing
protection from scorching heat and bitter cold, and shielding
inhabitants from rain and snow.
Seeing this aspect of the crisis unfold, Jordanian-Canadian
architect and designer Abeer Seikaly decided to use her unique set
of skills to do something about it.
Over the last two years, Seikaly has worked on developing an
innovative multi-purpose tent shelter that she hopes can be put to
use aiding displaced individuals such as the Syrian refugee
community.
Unlike the austere tents seen in images of refugee camps like
Zaatari in Jordan, Seikaly’s tent harnesses renewable energy, uses
unique structural fabric allowing controlled ventilation, and can
be broken down and transported easily.
“The intention of the project is to help those in need, those in
conflict zones, refugees,” says Seikaly.
And she intends to do that by creating a shelter that enables
people to exist in harmony with their surroundings, rather than
battling it.
Work began in 2013, when an early prototype of Seikaly’s tent
won the Lexus Design Award. That, and seeing current events, helped
convince Seikaly that her design had promise.
“The conditions that were present at that time, with the Arab
Spring, and the refugees, coupled with my aspirations of creating
flexible structural fabrics, it made sense for using its potential
uses as a tent,” she says.
So Seikaly set to work developing and refining her prototype
further.
The early prototype drew inspiration from everything from
snakeskin to traditional cultural aspects such as weaving and
nomadic lifestyles.
From the outside, the tent is a compact, dome-like living
structure resembling a yurt—but with scales.
The structural fabric is weatherproof, lightweight and flexible,
offering a dual-layer ventilation system that can close up to
shield from wintery weather and open to allow air circulation
during the summer.
Rainwater can also be collected from the top of the tent, where
it filters down the sides to storage pockets.
Additionally, the tent can potentially provide basic sanitation,
like showering; the tent offers a thermosiphoning system that uses
heat from solar radiation striking the tent to draw water upwards
from the storage pockets, turning the tent into a showering
facility.
That same solar energy striking the tent can also be collected
and stored in a battery for future use, providing another source of
renewable energy.
Although the existing prototype and its different features
reflect what the eventual design will look like, Seikaly is still
working on updating and streamlining a final version.
“There are parameters we’re working with: it should be
lightweight, it should be foldable, transportable; we have rough
ideas on dimensions, how much electricity we need,” Seikaly says.
The tent itself has no formal name yet, but Seikaly refers to
the project as a whole as “weaving a
home”.
Seikaly spent the last seven months working with an engineering
firm in the United Kingdom to finalize the design, and hopes to
have the tent ready for widespread use soon.
She doesn’t yet have a confirmed plan for how her tent will be
introduced to vulnerable communities such as refugees, but Seikaly
says she’s considering several possibilities as she continues
finalizing the design.
And as she does this, people are eagerly awaiting its
arrival.
“I receive emails on a daily basis from all around the world
asking for prices, for availability, for costs, and so on,” she
says.
According to Seikaly, she answers each email, informing them
that the tent is still in development.
And part of the reason that the development process has taken so
long is because she’s had to transition from being simply a
designer to a product manager.
Developing the design has involved collaboration with experts
across multiple fields in order to combine all the tent’s different
capabilities - such as water collection and solar energy
collection.
“We’ve gone through many iterations,” Seikaly says, adding that
every time she’s arrived at a solution, seemingly 10 new problems
arise.
And she also notes that there are legal and patent procedures
she needs to tackle before the project is finished.
But despite the long development process and the obstacles still
looming, Seikaly hasn’t lost sight of the goal she established when
she undertook the “Weaving a Home” project.
“I see architecture as a social technology,” she says. “I really
believe that the environment you live in reflects your behavior as
a human being.”
The cycle of wars and natural disasters that plague humanity may
never stop expelling people from their homes, but for Abeer Seikaly
that doesn’t mean people can’t still have the opportunity to live
happy, healthy lives.
“It’s about giving people back their dignity.”
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