About Us

Every Shelter is a non-profit organization designing shelter solutions for refugees.

Our Origin Story

It all began with a commitment to the fundamental purpose of architecture: providing humans with adequate shelter.

While working toward their Master of Architecture at Rice University in 2012, Scott Austin Key and Sam Brisendine participated in the Rice Building Workshop (now known as Construct). They began a shelter design project that led to their first innovation, Emergency Floor.

While still graduate students, they were invited to test Emergency Floor with IKEA’s BetterShelter in Sweden and were awarded a USAID grant in 2016 to further test and pilot it in Lebanon. The refugee camp that received Emergency Floor responded positively and showed significant, measurable improvement in health and well-being. Seeing first-hand the impact that good design can have in people’s lives, they pressed on to improve Emergency Floor and to seek new design ideas.

While testing and piloting Emergency Floor, both men worked full-time as Project Managers for large architectural firms, taking on various projects such as redesigning the San Antonio River Boats and drawing plans for multi-million dollar homes. But their commitment to serving refugees and the displaced never wavered. In 2018, partners Nicole Iman and Julia Wallin formed Every Shelter to focus on collaborative design and co-creation. Every Shelter is a growing team employing full-time staff and continually expanding our volunteer networks and partnerships with aid agencies and the displaced populations they serve.

Until every refugee creates home.

The phrase “creates home” may seem abstract, but it’s the powerful driving force behind what Every Shelter has set out to accomplish. “Home” isn’t just a place, but a feeling. Home is a sense of belonging and comfort. That is our vision for the future – a future where every refugee creates home for themselves. This empowered state of belonging is something we believe is possible for every refugee.