"Papers,A day-long festival of the art, culture and architecture of the refugee crisis" is at the Barbican, London, on 12 June.

When Irish architect Gráinne Hassett first arrived in the Calais refugee camp known as the Jungle in August 2015, she was greeted with a post-apocalyptic scene. The several thousand-strong population of the camp was sharing just four cold-water standing pipes and 30 toilets between them, which hadn’t been cleaned for months. There were no paved roads, no food distribution and no formalised provision of shelter. Yet, despite the misery, she was struck by what she saw – a prototype city in the making.

“There was a kind of life there that UNHCR camps simply don’t have,” says Hassett. “The cafes and restaurants, churches and mosques, even a bookshop and a radio station – the stages for strong social and cultural structures had somehow been forged out of nothing.”

Hassett, who teaches at the university of Limerick, has been working with volunteers ever since to build a series of civic structures around the camp. Beginning with a women and children’s centre last October, followed by a therapy and community space, a vaccination unit and a youth centre, she has brought her expertise to bear with a minimum of resources. Her system is modelled on one used by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, of cardboard tubes connected with prefabricated plywood nodes, held with rope and covered with thickly insulated duvets. The interiors feel cocoon-like, safe havens from the cold and noise of the camp outside.

Contained … the official accommodation stands in stark contrast to the self-built shelters of the camp.
Contained … the official accommodation stands in stark contrast to the self-built shelters of the camp. © Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images

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Médecins Sans Frontières recently opened France’s first purpose-built refugee camp near the port of Dunkirk, where a grid of little wooden cabins now houses around 2,500 refugees, while the mayor of Paris announced this week that she would be opening a similar camp in the city within weeks. All will have access to drinking water, kitchens, showers and sanitation to meet minimum UN humanitarian standards, but it remains to be seen whether they will foster the same kinds of cultural and community life as the Calais camp, despite its evident squalor.