Build Together – Learn Together

Due to bureaucratic procedures, refugees arriving in Germany are condemned to sustain a long period of passiveness. In the refugee camp on the location of the former American Spinelli Barracks in Mannheim, they are well provided with the bare essentials, but the immediate surroundings are quite desolate and lack quality of common spaces. In this situation, the project „Build Together – Learn Together“ came into being. 18 students of the Faculty of Architecture at TU Kaiserslautern built a community centre together with 25 refugees.

The refugees were given the opportunity to actively shape their environment and acquire new skills. As future architects the students contributed expertise that may appear luxurious in a refugee camp at first glance, but is even more important upon closer inspection: the creation of pleasant places and high-quality architecture.