Dumpster diving for cardboard, grabbing a Walmart shopping cart and calling election offices for old campaign signs are just some of the ways Devasri Baxi sourced materials for her latest project.
“Initially it was just like, ‘What can I source, quick and easy?’” said Baxi, a Carleton University architecture student. “I was trying to think from the perspective of someone who was on the streets.”
Architecture contract instructor Jay Lim tasked fourth-year students as part of the N.E.E.D.S project to use their creativity and everyday materials to design an emergency temporary shelter a homeless person could reside in — at least for one night.
“I am not a farmer, I am not a doctor, but I am an architect. As an architect, the one thing we can do is provide shelter,” Lim said. “This is really helping the students recognize that shelter is so important and temporary emergency shelter, that’s still shelter.”
His aim is for students to bring a sense of design and dignity to the shelter while bringing awareness to the homelessness crisis.
Baxi said the project also reimagines the possibility of anyone having a portable, personal shelter.
“Not everybody wants to stay in [homelessness] shelters for various safety issues, personal issues and they would rather choose to stay by themselves,” she said. “What if we reimagined a shelter that could be taken with you?”
Students self-evaluate their design on 10 of 15 categories including the portability, strength, waterproofing, heat resistance, comfort and reproducibility of their shelters. The design must also cost less than $100 to create.
Baxi’s design repurposes a shopping cart as a shelter. It was inspired by how people experiencing homelessness live their daily lives, using carts to store their belongings while remaining mobile.
Her design uses cheap materials like cardboard, milk crates, bubble wrap and old election signs to keep the person warm and protected from harsh weather. She also used particle board and corrugated plastic to keep the structure rigid.
“The idea is for them to sleep in the cart while protecting their storage,” she said. “Milk crates are where they would keep most of the storage or their personal belongings, and they sleep over it.”
Another iteration of the project is Will Girard’s design, which uses home construction materials and repurposes them at a smaller scale.
“I went to a few job sites to ask if they had any cut-off scrap pieces, so some of these materials are batting insulation, Tyvek and rigid insulation, and I’m making this thermal blanket that can hopefully keep someone warm,” Girard said.
He took inspiration from a bivvy, a sleeve that fits another sleeping bag inside of it. To him, the design resembles a mini house or “a tube of toothpaste,” if viewed from afar.
Like Baxi’s cart, Girard’s design is portable, packing up neatly for someone to carry on their back.
“We imagine people aren’t going to be in these all the time, and people move around,” he said. “Part of the project is making sure they’re portable, collapsible and lightweight.”
A bit less portable but still functional is Chris Jia’s park bench design intended to house two people.
“Right now, benches are being designed as they call it ‘hostile architecture.’ They’re designed purposefully to prevent homeless people from sleeping on them,” he said.
Along with benches, Jia said he was inspired by the 2024 Paris Olympics’ use of cardboard mattresses as a light and foldable material to sleep on.
His design stacks cardboard to create a flat surface to sleep on while a tarp goes over the bench to protect against the elements.
For Jia, balancing functionality of the shelter with esthetics was a challenge of the project.
“I’m a believer in saying form follows function,” he said. “Basically, the looks of my design are second to me. It’s more of whether it works or not — that’s more important.”
Yet, Baxi and Girard both emphasized the elegance and dignity of their shelters, saying the project aims to inspire creativity and prove what can be done with recycled materials.
“We are design students,” Girard said. “We’re making the instructions, or at least showing one version of that using our design skills, and if you can make it work and look nice, why not do both?”
Also concerned with functionality is Benjamin Gianni, associate professor and co-ordinator in Carleton’s architecture program, who said temporary shelters are not the end goal. Rather, architects should look to create permanent housing.
“The ultimate solution is to offer that person a permanent place to stay,” he said. “The money is much better spent and the efforts are much better spent in permanent supportive housing.”
Though temporary shelters can help, Gianni said homelessness is a deep social issue that can’t be fixed just through design.
“We as architects, ultimately, should be pushing toward the issue of finding more permanent and sustainable solutions to this than find[ing] creative, interesting and high profile, short-term solutions,” he said.
To this, Lim is adamant that the NEEDS project is not a long-term solution, but rather meant for emergency situations.
“We can’t end homelessness overnight, but we could help someone for one night,” he said. “Is it better to help someone for one night than not doing it all? I think it is, and I think it’s worth it.”
Featured image by Bianca McKeown/The Charlatan.
