The Office of Displaced Designers (ODD) is a collaborative platform for skills sharing and the co-production of knowledge for designers who have been forcibly displaced. ODD supports small multi-disciplinary projects related to and/ or impacting: architecture + planning, protection issues, social cohesion, integration, or cultural understanding. Through these design projects, the office provides professional development training opportunities for participants according to identified needs. We are currently based in Lesvos, Greece.
About me:
My name is Buri Ganbat, 23 years old. German architecture student, trying to figure out what kind of work is fun and gives back something to people.
My previous experience in volunteering with refugees and working field of design:
I always did volunteering primarily out of curiosity for the job and the organisation. Most of the volunteering work was about helping out displaced persons in accompanying to different kind of appointments (translation in offices, hospital) and helping out in learning a new language. Taking care of a displaced persons can get you involved in different kind of situations and emotions. The experience showed that it is best to come always with sympathy and good knowledge about the persons ethnical and social background and have a deep understanding for all sides of arguments. But in many situations it was just best to mitigate the arguments instantly. My experience showed that sometimes arguments ...
About me:
My name is Buri Ganbat, 23 years old. German architecture student, trying to figure out what kind of work is fun and gives back something to people.
My previous experience in volunteering with refugees and working field of design:
I always did volunteering primarily out of curiosity for the job and the organisation. Most of the volunteering work was about helping out displaced persons in accompanying to different kind of appointments (translation in offices, hospital) and helping out in learning a new language. Taking care of a displaced persons can get you involved in different kind of situations and emotions. The experience showed that it is best to come always with sympathy and good knowledge about the persons ethnical and social background and have a deep understanding for all sides of arguments. But in many situations it was just best to mitigate the arguments instantly. My experience showed that sometimes arguments caused by ethnical background could not be solved at all. From my previous working experience in the architectural field I felt anxiety and some kind of negative awareness towards the relationship between the employer and employee because it showed that often there´s a hierarchy which led to misuse of power. It could lead up to situation where you would just do boring work or be pressured to be in time.
What had you hoped to get out of your time volunteering at ODD?
I hoped to learn a lot about projects which would give me an insight into the struggles and chances of working with displaced persons. Without really being conscious about it I probably hoped for some positiveness in volunteering and in designing that I somehow lost during my last experiences and during my studies.
Did you get what you hoped out of your experience?
Yes, I got so much more than anything than I expected. I received so much encouragement and love, and especially a lot of good vibration. This was so much more than I ever had received from any kind of work. The team leaders let me choose how I wanted to approach the project and helped me in the beginning in a very creative and abstract way when I found myself stuck with details. This was a very mind freeing and inspiring experience for me through out the whole volunteering time. To formulate my own ideas in an abstract and positive way and imagining where it could lead to, but also knowing that it is good enough at the moment to not know how the outcome looks like. This was a method which lifted a lot of pressure for me for the whole work and made it absolutely every day fun to anticipate the future. Shareen, Delanay and Kimberley were always very considerate and kind to me and open for every kind of my ideas. It was a very warm and loving atmosphere to work with the team as they took every kind of insecurities away from me. On a daily basis there were small discussions when someone noticed something interesting and wanted to share these things with the others which led to the very light and fresh atmosphere in the office I mentioned earlier. It was the safest working environment I´ve ever been when it comes to feeling complete empathy, complete understanding, and complete love, no matter what.
ODD also practiced a non-violence policy on every one who was involved with our projects. It didn´t matter if it was also done in a playful and “harmless” way by young displaced persons during one of the drawing sessions. The team members took it serious and made clear that the slightest act of doing harm can´t be trivialised which made me realise that the team´s core value was respect for each other. Which is one more reason to love ODD. They treat everyone equally.
My perspective about architecture shifted from a some sort blind alley hopelessness due to my previous experiences from my internship and study to some sort of positive realism.
Often the team engaged themselves with the participants of projects in discussions about difficult topics. No one was pretending to know what was morally correct or wrong or tried to impose their own opinion on someone. It was sincere interest and sympathy of the team in the problems of the people who lived in the camps and worked on the island which opened up to interesting questions and also to moments of rethinking the situation of the others. And most of all this attitude showed that it is best to give everyone time to adapt and learn out of their new situation.
What did I learn from working with ODD?
Primarily the motto of the ODD was to formulate anything you wanted to say or ask in a positive way which caused me to change my attitude towards everything related to the project or anything that came on my mind. I would like to thank Shareen, Delaney and Kimberley for sharing this mindset with me. It gave a much more better outlook on the future. And I will be forever grateful for them for this opportunity they kindly gave me. I learned how to approach my project in an abstract way and that it is okay to not know where it will lead you. What I learned was that you can turn an actually pretty dry and boring task to a beautiful and mind fulfilling project for everyone. It was the question of how the abstract idea was realised which made the important difference at the end. Also I learned that there is no prepared path to go in the fields of design. As long as you are convinced that design can change something, a tiny room, or even the living condition of an entire group of people, it can lead you to refreshing unexplored fields in life. And what I learned was that love, honesty and curiosity which came from the firm belief in everyone´s uniqueness can lead to a warm and nice atmosphere to work.
I recommend anyone who is interested in working with humans who care sincerily for others and their own work to join ODD.