PhD on ECD in refugee camps

PhD studying the built environment as an added educator in Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya - 1 initiative

During my PhD (2015–2018) at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, I investigated how the built environments of long-term refugee camps in East Africa shape early childhood development, with a particular focus on children’s spatial agency and participation.

The research examined seven refugee camps across Rwanda (Kiziba, Kigeme, Mugombwa), Uganda (Nakivale, Kyangwali, Kyaka II) and Kenya (Kakuma), analysing how young children (aged 3–6) and their—predominantly female—caregivers perceive, use and transform their everyday environments.

Rather than treating learning as confined to formal educational facilities, the research conceptualised refugee camps as “learning assemblages”, where cognitive, social and emotional development emerges through interactions across a wide range of spaces: ECD centres, primary schools, religious buildings, playgrounds, marketplaces, circulation routes and domestic environments.

Methodologically, the research combined architectural analysis with participatory and child-centred approaches, including drawing, mapping, model-making and co-design workshops. These tools enabled young children—often excluded from decision-making processes—to articulate their spatial experiences, preferences and imaginaries, positioning them as active knowledge producers rather than passive subjects.

A key contribution of this work is the notion of the built environment as an “added educator”, later developed in the monograph Architecture as a Way of Seeing and Learning (UCL Press, 2021). This concept reframes architecture not as a neutral backdrop, but as a dynamic agent that shapes learning processes, social relations and developmental outcomes.

The research also advanced the concept of “proximity of care”, developed in collaboration with the Bernard van Leer Foundation and Arup (2021), which emphasises the spatial distribution and accessibility of caregiving infrastructures—ECD centres, health services, safe play areas—as critical determinants of early childhood wellbeing in vulnerable contexts.

Importantly, the work foregrounded the gendered dimension of care, highlighting how women—mothers, caregivers and teachers—mediate children’s spatial experiences, and how spatial interventions can either reinforce or alleviate existing inequalities.

The findings were disseminated through a wide range of academic and professional outputs, including:

Learning in and through the Long-Term Refugee Camps in the East African Rift (UCL Press, 2020) The impact of humanitarian shelter and settlements on child protection (Forced Migration Review, 2017) Child’s Play: Designing for Early Childhood (Architectural Review, 2022) forthcoming chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Migrant Children (2024)

and presented at international conferences including the Child in the City World Conference (Vienna, 2018), the World Conference in Humanitarian Studies (Addis Ababa, 2016), and UCL’s Hospitality and Hostility in a Moving World conference (2016).

Parallel to the PhD, I developed and led participatory design studios in refugee camps (e.g. Kiziba and Kigeme, 2017), where architecture students, refugees and local stakeholders collaboratively analysed and redesigned learning environments. These studios served both as research platforms and as mechanisms for capacity building, reinforcing the role of participation as both a methodological and ethical imperative.

Overall, this body of research contributes to emerging debates at the intersection of architecture, early childhood development and forced migration by demonstrating that:

children’s learning is deeply embedded in spatial and social environments beyond formal education; participatory, child-centred design methodologies can produce new forms of knowledge and more responsive environments; and architectural design, when understood as a relational and situated practice, can play a critical role in supporting equitable early childhood development in contexts of displacement.