Refuge: a design for humanity

The humanitarian project Cloud Shelter, by Didier Fiúza Faustino, came into being after the September 2017 earthquakes that severely shook the town of Juchitán in southern Mexico. It is a volunteer project, carried out and financed by the Fondation Fundación ou Foundation Alumnos. The public site of collective use is comprised of a basketball and baseball court, green spaces, a children’s playground, toilets and a community house.

‘Conceived like the shell of a dasypodidae, commonly known as the armadillo, the structure of this architecture is comparable to a protective skin, ensuring the safety of the people in case of a natural disaster. Thanks to its elevated platform, people are protected from possible flooding, whereas the hammocks, which it shelters, provide dry refuge. They are mobile and may slide along the masts to meet the needs of the time. This particularity offers a clear open space when all of the hammocks are raised skywards, allowing the inhabitants to use the area and take up different activities’, describes Didier Fiúza Faustino.

A true gathering space of exchange and conviviality, the structure is able to host approximately 50 people. This bright and open space is thought of as an anchorage point for the community, a symbol of identity. An opportunity to render make time and life more pleasant, moments more precious, to eat, to rest, to take refuge, to converse, to resist, to care for one another. A place suspended in time, with one’s head in the clouds.

The construction of Cloud Shelter will be completed in the spring of 2019.

didierfaustino.com / alumnos.org.mx