When refugees flee they lose everything: their homes, their livelihoods, their dreams. No camp and no project can ever restore what has been lost.  However we believe that by working with refugees and host communities, together, we can put into place the foundation for a thriving community – that refugees are able to call home.

The built environment matters; it shapes the way that we experience and interpret our surroundings. Intentional design has the power to transform camps into neighborhoods, clinics from places of sickness to well-being, and despair into hope for a brighter future.  With years of experience, we are experts in the design and construction of durable, cost-effective structures. We build housing, latrines, showers, and cooking areas to help restore a sense of home and stability to vulnerable communities. But we are also the first to admit that too often the urgent nature of crises have lead us to construct buildings that although technically adequate haven’t built the strong foundation for community that all people deserve.

Architect Jan Gehl said, “First life, then spaces, then buildings – the other way around never works.” At ARC we are rededicating ourselves to this fundamental principle.  In Somalia we successfully lobbied for integrated neighborhood planning; houses placed purposefully around shared communal spaces and services.  In Rwanda this has meant working to build Mahama camp, from the ground up, first with tents but quickly transitioning into permanent structures. This dedication to placemaking doesn’t end just with housing projects, but it permeates the way that we do everything, from the creation of sports stadiums in Kismayo to using water distribution points as places of trust and accountability in DRC and Uganda.

We believe that we are tasked with something so much more important than providing shelter. We are providing the foundation for the future of a family, a neighborhood, and a community.

“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir our blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency.

… Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty.”

– Daniel Burnham, Architect