Redefining Boundaries
Architecture Design, Urban Planning
A design proposal for the UAE's migrant worker housing.
01 PROBLEM
Being born and brought up in the UAE, I had the privilege of watching Dubai transform from a desert port into a metropolis with the third-most skyscrapers in the world. With the increased demand for migrant workforce due to large projects like Expo 2020, the UAE and the rest of the Gulf are going through a transformation that could affect their migrant workers.
Since 2014, about 34,000 laborers have died in the Gulf due to exploitative working and living conditions. I believe it is crucial to evaluate the impact of design, and for my thesis, I proposed a redesign of the UAE’s migrant worker housing to provide more humane housing conditions for the low-income migrant worker population.
02 SOLUTION SUMMARY
The current ‘labor camps’ are extremely overcrowded and lack basic amenities. I designed a portable, sustainable, and flexible communal housing model that will serve the current migrant workers and possibly their families in the future. The site includes integrated introverted-extroverted spaces built up of modular typologies that can change over time as demographics and needs change. The spatial arrangement of the building typologies with mixed functions could contribute to the social and cultural integration of the migrants in various ways.
03 BACKGROUND
The immigration of migrant workers in Dubai is an overlooked humanitarian issue. There are physical, social, and economic barriers put in place that marginalize the migrant worker population whose rough camps are located far outside cities, run-down and overcrowded. Accessibility to adequate housing and social spaces is limited for migrant workers.
Image by Jonas Bendiksen. Tired South Asian workers on a company bus that takes them from the construction site to the labor camp outside the city. Workers often go to work at dawn and return after sunset.
Image by Jonas Bendiksen. On Fridays, the one day off in the week, laborers often play cricket outside their lodgings on whatever space they can find.
Image by Jonas Bendiksen. A dozen Indian migrant workers share this room, sleeping on the floor to save space and costs. Living conditions are often of very low quality.
04 PROPOSAL
The design solution aims to meet the needs of the migrant workers in the effort to provide humane living conditions. I will propose a portable, sustainable, and flexible co-housing model that will serve the current migrant workers and possibly their families in the future.
The site will include integrated introverted-extroverted spaces, which will be built up of modular typologies that have the ability to change over time as demographics and needs change. The design incorporates traditional architectural elements used in Middle Eastern and Indian architecture. The spatial arrangement of the building typologies with mixed functions could contribute to the social and cultural integration of the migrants in various ways.
04 MAIN GOALS
01
Use social engagement philosophies to achieve a physically, socially, and culturally more inclusive co-housing model.
02
Create a flexible and sustainable design in a challenging climate.
03
Design a model that is portable, affordable, and easy to assemble.
01 THE SITE
After evaluating the current labor camps in Dubai, I decided to choose Al Quoz as my site. Since 1977, Al Quoz has been dominated by industrial factories, warehouses, and labor camps. Over time, it branched into a residential area. In 2008, Al Serkal Avenue was established, which is an art district that attracts various groups of people from different parts of the world, ranging from artists to entrepreneurs.
