Can Portable Shelters Replace Traditional Refugee Camps?

August 21, 2025

When I think of refugees, images of endless tents come to mind, rows and rows of makeshift tents laid out beneath unforgiving terrain. Refugee camps have always been the number one option to accommodate immediate displacement on a massive scale. Camps provide the immediate security for survival but they are also associated with a range of significant deficits, uneasiness, crowding, poor sanitation and safety. No privacy and a discomforting sense of ‘foreverness’, even though they are classified as temporary.

Aid agencies and design organizations are innovating around modular, mobile sustainable shelter technologies that could provide radically different humanitarian housing solutions for displaced populations. In a context of increasingly complex and protracted humanitarian crises, it raises the question: Are portable shelters as good as refugee camps?

This article explores the differences between portable shelters and camps, the benefits of portable shelters and whether camps will be replaced or supplemented.

Table of Contents

The Limits of Conventional Refugee Camps

Refugee camps have traditionally been constructed on one principle, i.e., “pace”. When a crisis breaks, the first priority is to offer mass shelter. Lightweight tents and emergency shelters can be erected rapidly, providing havens almost overnight. But pace carries a price tag.

Crowding makes it difficult to support sanitation and diminishes the quality of life.
Dependency increases as camps become semi-permanent communities with no work and no independence.
Environmental pressure arises from land overexploitation, deforestation, and litter.
No privacy destroys dignity and families often live in crowded and messy places.

As noted by the Financial Times, most camps turn into long-term settlements, but most do not have the infrastructure or urban planning to be able to act as sustainable communities. Rather than presenting an opportunity, they ensnare residents in limbo.

The Rise of Portable Shelters

These modular shelters serve as more than improved tents; they represent an evolution of humanitarian shelter. Designed with aspects of modularity, sustainability and dignity. These shelters are capable of providing safe and dignified living spaces that can accommodate crises.

A few examples stand out:

IKEA’s Better Shelter: A solar-powered, flat-pack shelter that will last years, not months. It’s insulated, lockable and provides families with a sense of security that tents never can.
Norman Foster Foundation’s Essential Homes, developed with Holcim: Quick-assembling, low-carbon homes that balance speed with longevity.
AllSpace (Nigeria): A project that constructs homes out of used materials, providing affordability and sustainability to migrant families.
Paper-tube shelters from architect Shigeru Ban: Light but durable forms that demonstrate how accessible, local materials can deliver critical housing quickly.
Woven shelters from Abeer Seikaly: Weather-adaptive textile designs that collapse and bend, merging mobility and comfort.

These designs prove that portable shelters are no longer experimental; they’re real and in use.

What Portable Shelters Can Do Better

Portable shelters represent some of the most important refugee housing innovations in recent years, offering clear advantages over conventional camps. Portable shelters offer a number of obvious benefits over conventional camps:

Rapid Deployment

They can be quickly assembled, even in hours, making them perfect for immediate post-disaster use.

Dignity and Privacy

Portable shelters again felt like home and secure, with lockable doors, insulated walls, and clear privacy.

Sustainability

Most new designs introduce recycled or biodegradable materials and deliver truly sustainable refugee shelters that reduce the global environmental impact.

Adaptability

Portable shelters exist in expandable formats that can be transported or can be integrated into city buildings, mitigating the isolation factor of prior camps.

Resilience

In contrast to collapsible tents in bad weather, these shelters are built to last through storms, scorching temperatures and prolonged occupation.

Challenges to Full Replacement

Portable shelters face certain hurdles before they can fully replace camps:

Cost: Complex designs cost more to set up initially than tents. For mass disasters, this can be prohibitively expensive.
Logistics: Assembling and moving to modular homes involves training, infrastructure and supply chains.
Gaps in Infrastructure: Shelter isn’t sufficient water, power, health care and schools are also required.
Scale: Centralized delivery of aid is still possible in camps. Portable units deployed on a large scale could make logistics difficult. These issues imply that portable shelters will not necessarily displace camps but rather convert them into more habitable, resistant environments.

The Hybrid Humanitarian Future

Housing during displacement may not be one or the other in the future. Rather, a hybrid approach is taking hold:

Stage 1: Emergency Relief Tents or immediate-response shelters address immediate needs.

Stage 2: Transitional Housing Portable shelters substitute for tents, providing families with stability while long-term solutions are developed.

Stage 3: Integration or Settlement. Portable modules can be considered part of city neighbourhoods or semi-permanent settlements and can reduce the distance between camps.

This phased approach respects both urgency and dignity as a response to immediate needs while creating pathways for future outcomes.

FAQs on Portable Shelters and Refugee Camps

What are the kinds of portable shelters being used?

From IKEA’s Better Shelter to AllSpace’s recycled-unit shelters and paper-based models, there’s a broad range of models tailored to various climates and requirements.

Is a portable shelter a less expensive alternative to a tent?

Yes, they are expensive, but more durable, usable and sustainable, so they are consequently less expensive in the long run.

Are they useful in extreme conditions?

Yes. But most of the new models are insulated, weather-tight and designed to withstand long-term environmental extremes, unlike canvas tents.

Do they eliminate the use of conventional camps?

Not necessarily. Shelter tents enhance living conditions but big camps remain necessary for logistics and organizational requirements during mass displacement.

What is the role of sustainability?

An increasing one. Designs today included some consideration of using recycled, low-carbon, or biodegradable materials so that all can assist in dispelling climate improvements for the planet.

Conclusion: What Would You Pick?

Portable shelters are no panacea, but they’re an improvement on the way displacement is managed. They marry speed, dignity and sustainability, all assets lacking in conventional camps.

So here’s the question: If you were to have to start over again in one night, would you wish for a tent in an overspill camp or a modest, decent shelter of your own?

The response answers the question of why temporary shelters might not only supplement refugee camps but eventually redefine them.

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