A moment of your time for this public service announcement: CityLab is tracking how architecture and smart urban planning can help those condemned to living in refugee camps for prolonged periods of time can make a decent home out of it. A big part of the problem is perception. Refugee camps vary, with some developing into actually cities with very poor services, a very different setting than their traditional image as tented lots. Their residents vary, with many having to flee middle-class lifestyles, a far cry from the disheveled and poor huddled masses being purveyed by a new class of right-wing demagogues in the West. These issues, coupled by the urgency of building camps for those fleeing war zones with immediate short-term needs hampers long-term thinking, and has pushed down in the priority lists of NGOs and international aid organizations the application of sustainable communities practices in the camps.

Architect Anicet Adjahossou, named an Innovation Fellow by the UNHCR in 2014, is at the forefront of applying sustainable urban design to the refugee camps. By talking to residents and determining their day-to-day needs, these camps can be structured to facilitate access to key infrastructure in the camps, tackle issues with space management and overcrowding (a key driver of stress as we all know in Cairo), and helping developing new self-reliant economies around urban and localized food and craft production. “If you have people seen simply as a logistic challenge for the next 10, 15, even 20 years, then you are missing opportunities,” says Kilian Kleinschmidt, founder of the Innovation and Planning Agency, a global network of humanitarian experts. he adds that “People in crisis need to rebuild their identity and individuality, and only then can they give to community.” The lessons here should not go unnoticed in Egypt, which hosts 119,665 people, according to data from UNHCR, and around 500K by the government’s count.