Title: Belonging in Ephemerality: How can architecture create belonging for displaced women?

Author: Jodie Yew

Year: 2025

Abstract: To be a woman is to live in a world where your rights have been, and still are held in the hands of others. To be a woman in a space of temporality is to have this amplified. How do you find belonging in a place that you cannot control? The ‘Beyond Survival: A Safe Space for Rohingya Women and Girls’ centre is a project by Rizvi Hassan, located in Camp 25 in Teknaf, Bangladesh. The centre provides a space of dignity for the Rohingya women, as well as allowing them to socialise and learn new skills. The ‘Unbroken Mothers’ centre by Sulyk Architects is located in Lviv, Ukraine. It is a temporary housing project specifically for internally displaced mothers and children. The two projects contrast each other in terms of formality. While the ‘Unbroken Mothers’ centre is built using what are considered modern Western construction methods, the Beyond Survival centre is situated in a camp where temporality is the law and employs vernacular techniques. Analysis of these two case studies demonstrates how architecture can be used to create a sense of belonging for displaced women in a range of social contexts, through healing identity, creating safety, and encouraging change for the future.