#HTE

To Help Improve the Refugee Experience, This Design Team Created a Tangible Welcome Committee

Hatch is a Student Winner in the Service Design category in the 2019 Core77 Design Awards.

Climate change is one of the greatest threats to human security and mobility. The UN Refugee Agency estimates that by 2050, up to 250 million people will be displaced by climate change impacts such as rising sea levels, floods, famine, drought, hurricanes, and desertification.

When a team from the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design was asked how and what they would do to support climate refugees who came to their city, they envisioned Hatch.

Hatch is a personalized, government-sponsored service that helps new refugees feel well-connected and optimistic about their future in Denmark. It hand-delivers a customized “welcome” kit of tangible objects that may help displaced people and families feel more comfortable in their new city, such as a metro card, or Legos for families with children. Hatch also connects refugees directly to a select network of service organizations, congregating information for them instead of them having to wade through an overwhelming amount of resource options without being sure which ones cater to their specific needs, or even how to get in touch with them.

The design process was extremely research-heavy, with the five-person team – made up of Raphael Katz, Abhishek Kumar, Rina Shumylo, Juliana Lewis, and Sareena Avadhany – exploring the complexities of climate refugee migration, government and city systems, and the operations and offerings of service organizations. The designers relied on first-hand stories to help develop the kits and Hatch’s accompanying app. For example, they learned that the general lack of emotional support throughout the migration process is just as challenging as the difficulty of navigating a new city’s aid options. This allowed them, in their design, to prioritize the personal as much as the administrative.

The two Hatch touch-points — the app and the welcome kit — have been specially created for Denmark, but the design is ultimately scalable. It feels timely that other cities follow suit in exploring models of better relating to the refugees they’re hosting, and Hatch offers a design pathway to do so. Reducing friction for these people and families in new cities or spaces may be one of the most important ways we support the world in its planet’s current state of environmental precarity.

Learn more about Hatch on our Core77 Design Awards Site of 2019 Honorees.