tiny shelters

206. Stephanie Dhue, Tiny homes offer convenience, affordability to owners, April 2016, (for) «CNBC», https://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/08/tiny-homes-offer-con-venience-affordability-to-owners.html

207. Paul Heaney, Emergency pods ‘useful tool’ for rough sleeping, says charity, De-cember 2018, (for) «BBC», https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-46607795

208. Riham Nady, When Beauty and Efficiency Meet: Modular Architecture, (for) «Ar-ch2o», https://www.arch2o.com/language-modular-architecture/

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duct variations or across product generations, or preferably both, you save tremendous amounts of money on development costs. You can also be very fast in bringing improved products based on selectively upgraded components to the market in the future.»²¹⁰ (McCluskey, 2000)

SUSTAINABILITY

Another key factor of this typology is sutainabi-lity. Firstly, less and local high quality materials are often used, contributing to important savings in embodied energy²¹¹ of the final product. Again, smaller dimensions fit best when architects and designers want to experiment sustainability, both in terms of materials and costs. This is, in part, one of the reasons why tiny shelters for ho-meless are more and more target of competitions and exercises in the field. Secondly, reusability has become a focal point and it is important both for the user and the producer.

SPACE OCCUPANCY

The other reason why tiny shelters are studied is re extremely flexible: not only designers have

the possibility to build and dismantle units in a very limited amount of time (making the reu-se value even higher), but also to save money in construction costs, which introduces the second theme.

AFFORDABILITY

As a consequence of the modular technique used, affordability is also what makes these pods inte-resting. Most of the time, the limited size allows companies to build everything in advance (pre-fabrication) in the fabric, so that no extra costs (or very low) will occur when placing the project in-situ. In addition, «If you can go through one component design process and create a compo-nent design that can be used in a number of

pro-210. Alan McCluskey, Modularity: upgrading to the next generation design architectu-re, Business and Media, 2000, http://www.connected.org/media/modular.html 211. Embodied energy is the total amount of energy used in the entire pro-duction process of a good

FIG. 18 | Modular design principle

Image Credit: Arch2o (https://www.arch2o.com/language-modular-architecture/)

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by SIAT, the Organization of Architects and Engi-neers in Turin (Italy), with the aim of designing a so called "shelter island", a welcoming place for reclaiming abandoned urban space and, at the same time, offering emergency and temporary re-lief to homeless people. (fig. 19)

ACCESSIBILITY

Built up for emergency cases, tiny shelters usual-ly do not ask for any kind of charge or require-ment to be used, so guests are free to move in for a temporary stay. It may happen that sometimes, when shelters are organized in small "villages"

and, therefore, under the control of charities or NGOs, some limitations could be applied to main-tain a cermain-tain level of order, but it is rare in Europe.

Despite some positive remarks, tiny shelters have also some negative characteristics which make them unsuitable for specific situations.

PRIVATE SPACE

According to the WHO for what concerns well-their particular capability of being placed

where-ver there is need. At a urban scale, one striking issue that urbanists and architects are facing is filling up vacancies, i.e. urban voids resulted from demolitions or low care by the municipali-ty. With tiny units, it is possible to fill these gaps and recreate ideal conditions for building up and renovate the identity of the targeted place. One example is the competition called "Homeless tiny shelters - In the heart of Turin" published in 2018

212. FEANTSA and Abbé Pierre Foundation, Fourth Overview of Housing Exclusion in Europe 2019, p. 33, https://www.feantsa.org/download/oheeu_2019_eng_

web5120646087993915253.pdf FIG. 19 | Sharing Archipelago masterplan

Image Credit: Francesca Turnaturi, Valeria Comazzi, Fabio Vignolo, Elena Rudiero via SIAT YOUNG (http://siat.torino.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2018_SIAT-YOUNG_ESI-TI-CONCORSO.pdf)

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ce of the flows of people are useless both at local and national level.

being, adequate private space per person must be guaranteed in order to preserve people’s health and dignity. «Minimum quality standards exist in almost all European countries»²¹² says FEANTSA, and those must be respected. Usually, the size of tiny solutions does not reach 5m² and does not even foresee an adequate security system with proper doors or lockers, resulting in the complete exposition of the homeless to external threats.

LACK OF SUPPORT

Support is fundamental for the reintegration of the individual into society and the absence of any kind of humanitarian, physical and mental help for those accessing homeless services means not being advocating for independence and self-re-liance of the person. This is due, of course, to the limited living space and the lack of a structured and wider organization around these type of shel-ters. This risks not to contribute to eradicating homelessness.

TRACEABILITY

Unfortunely, because of their temporary natu-re and the nomadic attitude of their clients, tiny shelters cannot keep trace of homeless people.

Since numbers are vital for understanding the scale of the problem, services unable to keep

tra-FIG. 20 | Aronte Bivaque at Passo della Focolaccia, Apuane Alps, Tuscany, Italy.

The bivaque is considered one of the most iconic emergency shelters for those who venture in the mountains

Photo Credit: photo by the author

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bably the most common service provided for ho-melessness and the reason is that it is a system which is, by now, enrooted in society’s culture.

The concept is very simple: once applied and ac-cepted, homeless people are given a bed in com-mon rooms alongside a locker or a storage to keep some few belongings, and have the opportu-nity to attend group activities and benefit of com-mon areas and some forms of basic healthcare and personal support. (fig. 21)

«Hostels are perhaps the oldest institution for homeless people, existent long before there were any explicit policies to mitigate and resolve ho-melessness. They emerged as a response to some effects of industrialisation and urbanisation in the 19^th century. [...] Homelessness was extensi-ve during the Great Depression in the 1930s, and after World War II, but in the subsequent decades it was to a growing extent perceived as a resi-dual problem in a developing welfare state, and many shelters were closed. However, in response to increased rough-sleeping following, for exam-ple, the neo-liberal shift in the US and the UK in the 1970s, the transition of Central and East Eu-ropean countries in the 1990s and local and na-tional strains and constraints elsewhere, hostels of varying standard, quality and size have been established again all over Europe.»²¹³ (Busch-Ge-ertsema et al., 2007)

This short historical digression serves as a re-minder to understand the origin and the initial (and still contemporary) purpose of dormitories:

addressing sleeping emergencies. They are

pro-213. Volker Busch-Geertsema and Ingrid Sahlin, The Role of Hostels and Temporary Accommodation, in European Observatory on Homelessness, European Journal of Homelessness, Volume 1, No. 2, December 2007, p. 68, https://www.feantsarese-arch.org/download/ejh_vol1_article36413141587604968267.pdf