Design of water carts as educational and cultural objects in Syrian refugee camp

Abstract

The Future Heritage Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been working with residents of the Azraq refugee camp to develop projects that address the issues of everyday life within the camp. One prevalent problem is the lack of access to water. It is often the duty of children to hike through the desert sands in order to fill their jugs with water and lug them back home for their families. In order to address this issue, this thesis explores means of constructing carts for carrying water. The cart will serve both as a tool for transporting water, and as an object of play for those who use it. Through its design and construction, people in the camp will learn valuable lessons in engineering and gain hands on experience using the tools to build it. Materiality is an important factor in the development of the cart. One model will be constructed at MIT as a proof of concept from PVC pipe and bicycle components, then the final versions will be comprised entirely of scrap bike frames and other components from within the camp. On top of its water carrying capability, the cart will also serve as a cultural object. One of the greatest struggles within these refugee crises is how heritage and culture can be preserved and celebrated through displacement. With that in mind, this portion of the cart will include history lessons and references to pre-Islamic mythology, in order to inspire a cultural symbolism to be integrated into the design of the carts.