Issue 01Open call · September 2026
Designing for
Displacement
From Emergency Response to Mobility Systems and Belonging
Where humanitarian practice, design, research and lived experience meet. We invite grounded ideas, cases, studies, visual arguments, dialogues and critical resources.
routes thresholds commons belonging
Time to proposal deadline
50days
14hours
32mins
01 / Proposition
Displacement is not a single emergency moment.
It is a system of routes, thresholds, waiting, housing, services, data, memory and belonging. Design is already present in every decision. The question is: who gets to shape it—and to what end?
Issue 01 · ten lines of inquiry
From shelter to systems.
Route-based support and temporal infrastructures
Planned relocation, retreat and mobility governance
From shelter to dwelling: habitability, tenure and service ecosystems
Shared urban commons and host-community infrastructure
Urban protection and civilian infrastructure in conflict
Habitability under climate and public-health stress
Information design, GIS and remote sensing without harm
Co-design under constraint and participatory decision architectures
Measuring dignity, agency and belonging
Live research layer
Signals from the field
A changing editorial radar of public-interest design, humanitarian practice and displacement research. Sources are live; inclusion does not imply selection or endorsement.
Public interestReading room
From uncertainty to insight: open R&D for sustainable development
Six years of locally grounded experimentation across a globally distributed innovation network.
UNDP Accelerator Labs
Displacement categoryReading room
Dangerous journeys
Practice-oriented perspectives on migration routes, rescue, disappearance and regional cooperation.
Forced Migration Review
DesignReading room
Casa Azul: a design playbook for ethical spaces along migration routes
A modular system that combines culture, information, services, beauty and welcome.
IIHA · IOM · TAMassociati
TechnologyReading room
Next practices: signals of change for a more sustainable future
Learning from grassroots signals to build actionable intelligence and innovation agendas.
UNDP Accelerator Labs
Many ways to contribute
Rigour without one fixed form.
Research & Innovation
3,000–6,000 words
Methods, references, limitations and a plain-language summary.Case Study / Field Report
1,500–3,500 words
Context, actions, outcomes, trade-offs and ethics note; visuals encouraged.Dialogue / Interview
1,500–2,500 words
Clear framing, consent and a practice takeaway.Design Showcase / Visual Essay
800–1,500 words + visuals
Captions, permissions, context, provenance and a visual-ethics note.Emerging Voices
800–1,500 words
A clear contribution and relevance; developmental support where feasible.Reviews & Resources
500–1,000 words
Accurate description, critical assessment and practical orientation.02 / Lineage
Summits became a playbook. The playbook becomes a journal.
First D4H Summit
More than 350 people and 40 innovators gathered at Fordham to bridge design and humanitarian action.
Open the Yearbook ↗Design in the Time of Displacement
Two lenses—camps to communities, and data to stories—expanded design from objects to systems.
Visit the Summit ↗Casa Azul
A flexible, modular system for culture, information, services and welcome along migration routes.
Read the playbook ↗D4H Journal · Issue 01
A continuing, open-access home for research, practice, visual inquiry, dialogue and critical resources.
Explore the lineage ↗Open invitation
Bring the hard parts.
We are interested not only in what was designed, but in who shaped the decision, whose knowledge counted, what trade-offs were made, what effects became visible and what others can responsibly adapt.