Hassell set to unveil Uganda’s Bidi Bidi Refugee Music & Arts Centre at the London Design Biennale 2023.

A pavilion dedicated to Bidi Bidi Music & Arts Centre in northern Uganda’s Bidi Bidi refugee settlement will debut at the London Design Biennale which takes place at London’s Somerset House from 1-25 June.

The project, which is currently under construction, is being delivered by to.org, a platform operating in venture capital, philanthropy and the creative space, in collaboration with international design practice Hassell, Arup and Kampala design studio LocalWorks. Once complete it will provide space for creative expression, training and performance in Africa’s biggest refugee settlement, which is currently home to over 270,000 refugees who have fled violence in neighbouring South Sudan.

The structure will take the form of a sheltered, semi-open-air amphitheatre that can double as a performance venue or community gathering space. The centre will provide classrooms, a recording studio, and spaces for music training, as well as a tree nursery, vegetable garden and freshwater facilities – all essential for a community where food and water shortages are rapidly worsening due to climate change.

Its construction uses low-cost low-carbon local building materials, with a labour force comprising refugees and host-community Ugandans. The walls of the building employ compressed stabilised earth brick, as opposed to fired brick, using soil excavated from the site itself. This traditional local technique offers lower construction costs and dramatically reduces the impact on the environment, as the blocks are pressed in situ by hand and cured in the sun, with no need for fuel.

The structure further benefits from a large lightweight funnel-shaped roof, naturally cooling the inside of the building and collecting rainwater which is then filtered to provide potable water to the community. This elliptical plan allows the building to have two centres, one allowing for daylight and rainwater and the other forming a stage for the amphitheatre.

Visitors to the Bidi Bidi Pavilion at the London Design Biennale will be able to explore a life-size construction detail mockup of the project alongside a 1:100 scale wooden model, building plans and details and a specially commissioned video produced by To:Studios, presenting stories from the refugee and non-refugee communities whose collaboration is bringing the project to life.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a panel talk on 20 June at King’s College London to mark World Refugee Week as part of the London Design Biennale talk series.