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During 2000/ 2001 when I was briefly in Belgrade with Red Cross we visited refugee centres / camps which had been set up using surplus housing associated with large industrial complexes - in some cases the construction housing used for the complexes. This had advantages in some cases such as steam heating and even hot food supply from the factory / complexes ... as I recall these were at the time housing Croatian refugees ..... they were basic and in some cases not ideal, but in other cases provided adequate winter shelter - we were there in January. It may be worth finding out what is the status / use of such sites now.

You will be hard pressed to beat traditional housing in terms of dealing with the cold winters and variances to summer ..... simply put you need the tradition construction for heat mass ... so the question is given Serbia has had and will have refugee / returnee need for sometime .. why not challenge the "temporary" paradigm ... also refugee situations are vary rarely "temporary" ......... why not more solid basic housing that can be allocated temporarily to returnees for fixed periods based on need and reasonable transitions.

Temporary / short term may well not be that ... and with the patch up to winterise summer accommodation that has to have longer life, or upgrading temporary winter accommodation that needs to see more than "temporary" use ... could be more expensive, less suitable and culturally less satisfactory than challenging the "temporary" paradigm ....... alternative use of existing facilities (as first para above) or a more planned medium term solution may be desirable.

Regards,

Chris