TURN VACANT OFFICE BUILDINGS INTO EMERGENCY VILLAGES

On 15 March, an opinion piece by Gideon Boie and Lieven De Cauter appeared in De Standaard, responding to the government’s plans to build emergency villages for (Ukrainian) refugees. They put forward vacant real estate in cities as the solution, instead of remote temporary housing. Numerous architects and architecture organisations, such as the Flemish Architecture Institute, signed the open letter.

The war in Ukraine is not only a humanitarian problem, it is also a housing problem. The Flemish government wants to create 18,000 reception places by the end of March, starting with 6,000 places this week. To do so, it is looking at vacant holiday parks, care homes, monasteries and social housing.

Using vacant buildings is a fine idea, but the need for larger collective reception facilities remains. Our country is expected to take in an estimated 120,000 fleeing mothers and children. Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration Sammy Mahdi proposed creating emergency villages, and the Flemish government has taken up that challenge. How many villages there will be and where has not yet been decided. What is clear is that they will be spread across Flanders, and that each village will have around 250 housing units.

“The hospitality of Flemish families is impressive, but large property players must also show their solidarity with the refugees”

It sounds good, but the plan threatens to turn into an ecological and social disaster, at least if we take the same spatial approach as with the emergency reception centres for Syrian refugees in 2015. Those camps were mostly set up far from inhabited areas, often on abandoned military sites, such as Vlasmeer near Hechtel-Eksel. Setting up a camp for 300 residents was a heavy logistical operation, with emergency containers on a concrete slab.

Meeting space

Now the government has the chance to do things differently. Our cities have more than enough useful empty floor space. In Brussels alone, there are 6 million square metres of permanent vacancy. This mainly concerns office buildings in public or private ownership. Altogether, that is the same area as an average municipality in Brussels. Cities such as Ghent and Antwerp struggle just as much with structural vacancy, in buildings that can quickly be converted into habitable units.

Creating reception places in vacant offices reduces the ecological footprint of the operation, and saves time and costs. The advantage is that all technical facilities are already there: water, electricity and sewerage. There are also often cafeterias and meeting spaces already. That leaves enough room for social and psychological support.

An additional advantage is that the emergency villages would be well embedded in the existing social fabric. The refugees would have direct access to social facilities such as shops, sport, culture and public transport. Proximity is needed for direct support. The emergency village must be a place where Ukrainians can meet their compatriots and where Flemish host families can go for support.

The hospitality of Flemish families is impressive, but it is time that the large property players, too, show their solidarity with Ukrainian refugees and put their shoulders to the challenge of creating emergency villages. It is the ideal chance to polish their image. The buzz that arises around vacant buildings can also benefit the property market.

The Ukrainian refugee question can give new momentum to buildings that have stood empty for years, and can make office districts flourish after years in a comatose state. Smaller cities and municipalities can create vertical villages on a smaller scale, for example in vacant schools or monasteries. The most important thing is that the emergency reception places fulfil a function that strengthens town and village centres, and thus can contribute to spatial policy in Flanders.

A roof over their heads

The first concern is a roof over their heads, Minister-President Jan Jambon (N-VA) rightly said. But even in times of need, a well-considered spatial policy must be pursued. Too often, emergency facilities are built only to disappear afterwards. The government must already think about what will later happen to the infrastructure. In this way, the operation could be a try-out for projects that combine office and residential functions. The emergency facilities could also later serve as social housing.

A camp director at the old emergency reception centre in Hechtel-Eksel showed a graph with an inverted triangle: the first need was sleeping and eating, then psychosocial support, and the last and hardest challenge was integration and human dignity. The camp director said: ‘Each time, we organise our own problem.’ The camp was shut down as early as 2016. The remaining refugees had to move to a holiday park in Houthalen.

If there is anything to be learned from the spatial approach to the 2015 crisis, it is that we must turn the humanitarian triangle around: human dignity must be the foundation. Isolating Ukrainian refugees in remote emergency villages will alienate these traumatised people even more. It is more humane and more hospitable to take them in at the heart of our cities and municipalities. That it is also more economical and more ecological is a nice bonus.

Signed by:

Gideon Boie, Lieven De Cauter and the master’s students of ‘Architecture and Activism’ at the Faculty of Architecture, KU Leuven.

Co-signed by:

Olivier Bastin (former Brussels Government Architect, Maître Architecte), Sofie De Caigny (director, Flemish Architecture Institute), Stefan Devoldere (former Flemish Government Architect), Christian Rapp (Antwerp City Architect, professor at TU/e, founder of Rapp+Rapp), Marcel Smets (former Flemish Government Architect), Peter Swinnen (former Flemish Government Architect), Leo Van Broeck (former Flemish Government Architect, professor at KU Leuven, Bogdan & Van Broeck Architecten), Peter Vanden Abeele (Ghent City Architect) and Erik Wieërs (Flemish Government Architect).