As the world knows strong motions of populations, how may we change the ways of welcoming people in European metropolises and capital cities? The project IMBY, meaning In My Back Yard, proposes to unveil the existing civilian will of help toward refugees by setting tiny houses in private family gardens. The tiny houses are agile and flexible architectures to welcome refugees in cities. Aiming at an agile and resilient city, Quatorze promotes and develops social and solidarity architectures. We explore ways of doing things together: co-design and co-construction. Imby is becoming a reality through a progressive and iterative process which started thanks to an international architectural competition. After setting the concept, a network of partners enabled our team to build the first prototype. Later, mixing public funding and crowdfunding the prototype was changed and adapted to be set as a home located in a garden in Montreuil. Inhabited for few months this first piece of architecture deeply interlaces with social workers involvement. Imby is a transitory housing, from 3 to up to 12 months, leading to an eased autonomy in hosts countries. Within the next two years, 5 tiny houses will be installed in the Ile-de-France region.
In its process, Imby integrates third country nationals via community building and volunteering with locals around the topic of housing, which implies building architectural structures as well as improving living conditions. Putting together architectural and social aspects, Imby changes the mindset of hospitality not by education, but by authentic working experience and lived community with the people affected. Imby promotes volunteering and increases the knowledge about facilitation of workshops between migrants and locals. The setting of opening construction times strengthen the intercultural competence for the younger generation in EU and eases the tensions about housing/living space among refugees and other social (local) groups. As an outcome, Imby raises expertise in network building and empowers voluntaries or community activists to tackle integration with inclusive architecture. Furthermore, it raises expertise on the integration of refugees through inclusive and community-based social construction initiatives. Imby shows to local politicians and administrations how to involve grassroots initiatives into integration, housing policies, and urban policies. This project, its communication, and its developments to come, all raise awareness about hospitality and the importance of the involvement of the EU citizens.
Yet, at the moment, Imby is suited for one type of hosting city: a not so dense piece of the metropolis, a place with gardens and houses rather than housing blocks. To multiply this type of co-planning, co-(re)building, co-living projects with refugees in Europe we are now working on new scenarios of co-planned answers. The talk will present the process, overall and specific objectives of Imby ; its outcomes and impacts; its target groups and partners.
The workshop will be a milestone and one of its undergoing development: creating a catalog of transferable housing methods that can be adapted for successful migrant integration in other situations in Europe.
Quatorze est une association qui promeut, expérimente et transmet une approche de l’architecture sociale et solidaire pour une ville agile et résiliante.
