The thesis Local Asylum: From Isolation to Integration is based on the belief that urban designers and associated fields hold a purpose in the debate and the handling of refugees arriving in Denmark. The urban designers focus should be on how to unfold their toolbox in order to highlight potentials in the built environment to help create the best possible conditions for asylum seekers during their more or less temporary stay. Through exploration of the potential of new alternative forms of integration, social constellations, locations and connections, the project is developed in order to generate ideas that benefit both asylum seekers and the Danish society.
The project proposes that we should start thinking of the asylum seekers and the asylum centres in a different way. Thus, it puts forth the approach of splitting the traditional asylum centre into smaller units and instead create decentralised centres inside existing towns in peripheral Denmark.
