FROM SHELTER TO CITIZENSHIP: ESTABLISHING SAFETY, AUTONOMY AND BELONGING FOR DISPLACED WOMEN THROUGH ARCHITECTURE

Abstract

Displacement increasingly functions as a long-term condition rather than a temporary interruption, shaping everyday life for women across refugee camps, informal settlements, and urban transitional shelters. These environments often prioritize efficiency and control while neglecting privacy, safety, and autonomy. Women experience heightened vulnerability within spaces designed around an abstract, neutral user that rarely reflects the gendered realities of care, trauma, and mobility. This thesis examines how architecture participates in the production of vulnerability and how it may also support recovery, agency, and belonging. Feminist spatial theory, displacement studies, climate research, and participatory governance literature establish a framework for understanding shelter as civic infrastructure rather than emergency accommodation. The project proposes a transitional architecture of care that integrates spatial safety, participatory governance, and communal infrastructures. Design strategies focus on layered thresholds, shared care spaces, climate-responsive construction, and co-governance models. The work positions architecture as a medium through which displaced women move from survival toward autonomy and civic presence.