The story
Temporary refuge designed to restore choice and privacy.
Home Sweet Home Safe House was proposed in Zvimba in response to sexual and gender-based violence affecting women and girls, especially in rural and marginalized communities. The program provides temporary stays of up to 40 days alongside psychotherapy, life-skills training, and planning for longer-term support. Architecture cannot produce healing, but it can protect the conditions in which survivors make their own next decisions. The proposal therefore prioritizes discreet arrival, secure boundaries, private sleeping and counseling rooms, shared spaces that do not force interaction, and outdoor areas where residents can move without public exposure.
Staff oversight and emergency response must remain available without making the house feel carceral. Developed through Journeyman International with an Anant Fellowship Live-Action Project team, the work is a design proposal rather than a documented completed refuge. Its guiding principle is trauma-informed dignity: safety should increase control, not remove it, and a temporary home should support rest, connection, and a path forward without defining anyone by the violence they survived.
