By the end of 2017, around 68.5 million people were forcibly displaced, about half of which were children.

Of this figure, over 25 million people escape to other countries, and as a result become refugees. Most refugees do not live in camps – forced displacement is now an urban phenomenon which creates a range of challenges.

To address this global challenge, the Cities and Refugee Student Design Competition was hosted by the Grand Challenge on Rapid Urbanisation at UNSW Sydney, with Australian Red Cross, ARUP International Development, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the APRU – Sustainable Cities and Landscapes Program Hub (APRU SCL).

Twenty-eight student entries from fifteen countries took the challenge.

Find out the challenge here.

Prize winners

1st place (AUS$5000) | Merapatkan Selayang: A Bridging Intervention for Social Integration

Yale-NUS College
Lucy Madeline Davis, Sharan Kaur Sambhi, Ernest Tan Sze Shen, and Nguyen Ngoc Luu Ly
Physical Sciences (Chemistry), Anthropology, Urban Studies, and Urban Studies

2nd place (AUS$2500) | Welcome to the Agora

Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture et de Paysage de Bordeaux &
Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Strasbourg
Cécile Elbel & Ipek Erker

3rd place (AUS$1000) | Threshold Conditions

UNSW Sydney
Samuel Jones
Masters of Architecture