Adia Sisson

Adia Sisson

Paul Nowicki

ARCH 100

18 June 2018

What is Shelter?

Shelter is protection. It can mean many things in many contexts. Shelter can be figurative or literal. However, its universal purpose in every sense is to protect. Shelter often refers to protection from exposure, predators, or disasters such as bombs, earthquakes, etc. It can also be used figuratively to describe someone not exposed to something for the purpose of protecting them, i.e. a sheltered child.

When talking about undeveloped areas or peoples, shelter refers to simple structures whose only purpose is protection from the elements, designed to help one survive. When humans were in their primitive state, they gravitated toward open, shallow caves that were elevated from the ground. This allowed them to have somewhat of a roof and walls for protection from the elements, while providing a large view of their surroundings to watch for predators, but these shelters weren’t comfortable or advanced in any way. As humans evolved, their shelters became more closed off, creating more of a barrier between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. This allowed them to create their own spaces that were specialized for their own wants or needs. With this new mindset came simple furnishings and the birth of personal style, elevating the shelters from simple cover to real homes, allowing people to begin living rather than just surviving.

Because shelters like these homes are significantly advanced in our society, the use of the word ‘shelter’ nowadays more often refers to protection in extreme circumstances. Examples of this include bomb shelters, tornado shelters, shelter-in-place scenarios, or even doomsday and apocalypse shelters. However, understanding of shelter can vary due to culture or class, leading to different ideas on what it means and what should be provided at minimum. An example of this is what shelter means to homeless people and villagers in undeveloped areas. To these people, shelter is often a simple covering to protect from exposure and predators; sometimes this is a tent, and other times it could just be a small piece of cardboard to deflect the rain. Members of the upper class in highly developed countries often consider the minimum acceptable shelter to be a studio apartment with a bed and a bath, most likely with multiple rooms for their other family members. With this difference in understanding comes the question: what is being protected from? In the case of Medieval castles and the lavish homes of The Purge, the shelter is a barrier between the inhabitants and the people outside the walls.

In summary, shelter is protection. The question which defines shelter in context is ‘what needs protecting from?’