Seeking a balance between privacy and connectedness in housing for refugees

After having been granted protection by the arrival country, refugees can start settling again. Finding appropriate housing is difficult, however. To increase the availability of housing for refugees in Flanders several volunteers developed housing initiatives. We investigated to what extent these initiatives resonate with refugees’ lived experience. To gain insight into initiators’ intentions and refugees’ lived experience, semi-structured interviews were conducted, once with initiators of three housing initiatives and twice with nine refugees living there. In the timeframe between the interviews refugees were asked to further self-document their experiences by using cultural probes. Comparing intentions and experiences brings to light the social meaning of home and how it interrelates with a dwelling’s material appearance. Important for refugees to feel at home is a balance between connectedness and privacy. Finding this balance is not trivial, however. It is affected by preferred personal lifestyle, household structure, and the material environment at the level of the dwelling and living environment. Contact with other refugees and people from different cultures can be stimulated in order to establish and maintain a social network. Privacy inside dwellings creates the possibility to preserve aspects of one’s identity and lifestyle, and to personalize the often western houses to make them feel more familiar. Furthermore connectedness as well as privacy is mentioned as helpful to deal with traumas. The insights gained in our study can contribute to housing designs and design processes that support the integration of refugees, and therefore to a more inclusive built environment and society.status: Published onlin