CONTINGENCY PLANNING
Contingency is a future event or circumstance which is possible but cannot be predicted with certainty. To ensure the safety of their citizens and to uphold critical functions and infrastructure in the event of an emergency, governments, local authorities, businesses, and other societal actors need to plan for the unknown by determining prioritized actions that can be rapidly implemented. A contingency plan is also sometimes called a Plan B.
The built response to displacement management is quite often improvised. Structures are hastily put together, often spatially and socially insignificant to the communities in which they are placed. In theory, as described in literature providing guidance on contingency planning and displacement management, temporary structures are put up when needed and then removed when not in use. This also means that the built environments in displacement management are treated as technical interventions, in which social conditions are not prioritized, sometimes not even considered. The high numbers of people seeking sanctuary in Europe in 2015 demonstrated that the collective emergency preparedness of European countries fell short. The political decision to prevent people from coming to Norway in the subsequent years, also meant that the improvised solutions that had been built during the alleged crisis, had to be scaled down shortly after. What if instead the architecture, landscape architecture and urban design could be better integrated in contingency planning? The preferred option, Plan A, with purpose-built, multi-performing structures used for everyday activities, and designed and built to also withstand cycles of extreme use?
THE COLLECTIVE CENTER
A Collective center is defined - in emergency contexts – as pre-existing buildings used for temporary accommodation and provision of assistance and protection of displaced persons. Purpose-built collective centers are rare. Even in Norway, asylum and reception centers (one type of a collective center) are often located in buildings unsuitable for habitation and sometimes placed in so-called leftover spaces. Most collective centers are used only for a couple of days or weeks, in other contexts they may be used for a decade or more. With new types of threats, with climate change, and displacement being a constant phenomenon – either because of internal movement or caused by (forced) migration – what does the 2020 version of the Collective Center look like? Where are they placed in our communities? How can these centers be turned into positive places with added value for a neighborhood?