Architecture and urban design are continually reshaped by crises. Natural disasters, climate change, war and conflict, pandemics, economic turbulence and migration patterns constantly transform public space and collective identity. Crises do more than displace people; they disrupt cultural identities and social formalities tied to space. In such moments of turmoil, architecture and urban design become more than shelter. With care and attention, they can become a platform for cultural preservation, a canvas for color and material expression and a tool to foster belonging.
Designing for Crisis with Dignity
Architectural responses to crises often begin with the most basic of needs – shelter. In such instances, modular systems or prefabricated units made of lightweight materials are called upon. However, even in these practical structures, design details and color, form, and texture matter. They can transform a temporary dwelling into a symbol of stability and care. Architect Shigeru Ban’s paper log houses in 1995, for example, used humble, recyclable materials yet offered warmth and a sense of identity to earthquake survivors in Kobe, Japan. Similarly, modular shelters commissioned by the Ikea Foundation and deployed after the Turkey–Syria earthquakes in 2023 incorporated elements of privacy and adaptability, acknowledging that culture shapes how space is used.
Culture, Materiality, and Belonging
Displacement strips away familiar patterns of daily life. In addition to modular construction, adaptive reuse of existing buildings like schools, offices, or industrial buildings provide more than cost savings: they place migrants in established, human-scaled environments that are recognizable. With thoughtful design choices like painted walls in culturally-appropriate colors, humble yet durable finishes and interior layouts reflecting cultural culinary practices, reused structures become places where memory and identity are sustained. Importantly, how exterior spaces are defined can cultivate communal gathering.
La Colaborativa, based in Chelsea, MA, empowers Latinx communities by enhancing social and economic health, and holding institutional decision-makers accountable. Now in construction documents, we began the design of La Colaborativa’s Economic Development Center in 2024 with the definition of an exterior space. A new courtyard, or Placita, forges a central gathering area for the non-profit, connecting the new building to their existing ones. South facing workshops reinforce the relationship between inside and outside. Interior programmatic imperatives required a large blank wall which was leveraged to create an expansive mural based on the organization’s logo. The colorful wall, placed high on the elevation, serves as a beacon for the organization to the nearby MBTA Silver Line station. The design of the ground plane accommodates outdoor educational programs but also reconciles flooding by channeling water into planting areas and into an underground cistern.
Community-led design further strengthens cultural connections. Many Latin American cultures bring strong traditions of building practices, decoration, and the use of familiar colors to shelters and public spaces. For example, using local pigments, textiles, or patterns on façades or floor surfaces acknowledges cultural continuity while enriching the visual landscape of host cities. Such gestures may seem small, but they are fundamental for dignity and pride. Design not only continues self-identity but also provides opportunities for host cities and communities to acquire cultural diversity.
Ongoing crises, far from transitory, profoundly reshape our communities. In response, architecture and urban design can oppose reductive solutions and instead embrace color, culture, and design as tools of resilience. Weaving cultural identity into buildings and spaces affirm that, even in times of displacement and migration. People deserve not just roofs over their heads or senseless urban solutions, but places and spaces that reflect who they are and what they can become.
La Colaborativa Project Team: Gamble Associates (lead / architect), Goode Design Studio / Design Under Sky (landscape architects), RSE Associates (structural), Stantec (MEP), Nitsch Engineering (civil), Omloop design (signage and wayfinding), Available Light (lighting), Feldman Geospatial (surveyor), Hastings Consulting (code), Robert Pass (cost estimating), and Acentech (acoustical consulting).
Featured image credit: omloop