‘Better Shelter’, the Ikea-designed flat-packed refugee shelter, has been awarded Beazley Design of the Year award by the Design Museum of London.
The structure features a locking front door and a solar-powered wall that can generate enough energy to power the built-in light or a mobile phone. With the accompanying toolkit, it can also be easily dismantled, moved, and reassembled on another site, making it a highly adaptable product.
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Developed in 2013 by Johan Karlsson, Dennis Kanter, Christian Gustafsson, John van Leer, Tim de Haas, Nicolò Barlera, the IKEA Foundation and UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, Better Shelter is a lightweight and modular 188-square-foot dwelling that provides temporary housing, in addition to privacy and security, to displaced people and can be assembled in four hours. 30,000 of the shelters are already in use around the world.
