Norman Foster and Shigeru Ban: Challenges and solutions to provide shelter to vulnerable communities

Eighty million people were displaced in 2021 due to conflict and natural disasters and, in just over two months, the current crisis has forced another 12.5 million people to flee within the country or to neighbouring ones. The average duration of displacement is twenty-six years, so, while we tend to think of displacement as something temporary, most often, it is not.

The first edition of the Norman Foster Foundation’s Public Debates on Shelters took place on Wednesday 8 June 2022 with the support of Holcim, and tackled the challenges and potential solutions to provide shelter to these vulnerable communities.

With a five-minute keynote and debate between the following experts:

- Johan Karlsson, Managing Director, Better Shelter, Stockholm, Sweden
- Elena Giral, Project Manager, European Emergency Shelter and Emergency Transport and Logistics, European Commission (EC)–Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, Brussels, Belgium

And with a never-seen-before conversation between the two Pritzker-recipients:

- Norman Foster, President, Norman Foster Foundation
- Shigeru Ban, Founder and Principal Architect, Shigeru Ban Architects, Tokyo, Japan