Articles by Marcus Fairs

Ten thousand IKEA refugee shelters left unused over fire fears, United Nations admits

April 29, 2017 Marcus Fairs 0

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees has mothballed 10,000 of IKEA’s award-winning refugee shelters over concerns about the product’s vulnerability to fire. Only 5,000 of the 15,000 shelters that UNHCR bought in 2015 have been deployed, meaning that two thirds of them, worth a total of $12,5 million, have yet to be used. The rest have remained in

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IKEA refugee shelter to be redesigned following safety fears and design flaws

April 27, 2017 Marcus Fairs 0

Deployment of IKEA’s award-winning refugee shelter was put on hold due to concerns over a range of design issues including accessibility and fire risk, Dezeen has learned. Better Shelter, the social enterprise that produces the product, said a new version of the shelter was under development to address the issues and would be launched later this year. “Following

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Architect Cameron Sinclair to lead Airbnb’s humanitarian team

April 25, 2017 Marcus Fairs 0

Home-sharing service Airbnb has assembled an in-house humanitarian team headed by architect Cameron Sinclair, to help it achieve its aim of providing temporary housing for 100,000 people within five years. Dezeen understands that Sinclair, who previously co-founded Architecture for Humanity and later worked for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s humanitarian charity the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation,

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Turkey completes first phase of 900km wall along Syrian border

April 25, 2017 Marcus Fairs 0

As Donald Trump prepares to build a wall between the USA and Mexico, Turkey has announced the completion of a three-metre high fortification along its border with Syria to prevent refugees and smugglers entering the country. The completed 556-kilometre section is the first phase of a structure that will eventually seal the entire 911-kilometre border between the two countries. The

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Thomas Heatherwick cafe update

February 12, 2007 Marcus Fairs 0

The website of East Beach Cafe has some new snowy pictures of the nearly complete beach-front structure designed by Thomas Heatherwick. The cafe, at Littlehampton on the south coast of England, is due to open next month. See our earlier story on this project here. Here is a description of the project from Heatherwick’s website:

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