After having been granted protection by the arrival country, refugees can start settling again. Finding appropriate housing is difficult, however. To increase the availability of housing for refugees in Flanders several volunteers developed housing initiatives. We investigated to what extent these initiatives resonate with refugees’ lived experience. To gain insight into initiators’ intentions and refugees’ lived experience, semi-structured interviews were conducted, once with initiators of three housing initiatives and twice with nine refugees living there. In the timeframe between the interviews refugees were asked to further self-document their experiences by using cultural probes. Comparing intentions and experiences brings to light the social meaning of home and how it interrelates with a dwelling’s material appearance. Important for refugees to feel at home is a balance between connectedness and privacy. Finding this balance is not trivial, however. It is affected by preferred personal lifestyle, household structure, and the material environment at the level of the dwelling and living environment. Contact with other refugees and people from different cultures can be stimulated in order to establish and maintain a social network. Privacy inside dwellings creates the possibility to preserve aspects of one’s identity and lifestyle, and to personalize the often western houses to make them feel more familiar. Furthermore connectedness as well as privacy is mentioned as helpful to deal with traumas. The insights gained in our study can contribute to housing designs and design processes that support the integration of refugees, and therefore to a more inclusive built environment and society.

中文翻译：

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在难民住房的隐私和连通性之间寻求平衡

在抵达国得到保护后，难民可以再次开始定居。但是，很难找到合适的住房。为了增加法兰德斯难民的住房供应，一些志愿者制定了住房倡议。我们调查了这些举措在多大程度上与难民的生活经历产生了共鸣。为了深入了解发起人的意图和难民的生活经验，进行了半结构化的采访，一次采访了三个住房倡议的发起者，两次采访了九个居住在那里的难民。在两次采访之间的时间范围内，要求难民使用文化探针进一步自我记录他们的经历。比较意图和经验可以发现房屋的社会意义，以及房屋与物质形态之间的相互关系。使难民感到宾至如归的重要条件是联系与隐私之间的平衡。但是，找到这种平衡并非易事。它受到首选的个人生活方式，家庭结构和居住环境水平的影响。可以促进与其他难民和不同文化背景的人们的接触，以建立和维持一个社会网络。住宅内部的隐私保护可能保留个人身份和生活方式的各个方面，并使经常使用的西方房屋个性化，使他们更加熟悉。此外，人们还提到了联系性和隐私性有助于应对创伤。我们在研究中获得的见识可以有助于住房设计和设计过程，以支持难民的融合，