Temporary Emergency Buildings: The Structures Used in Relief Operations

Q: How much covered space does a person need in emergency shelter?

UNHCR's minimum is 3.5 m2 of covered living space per person in tropical or warm climates, with a height of at least 2 m. This applies to dwellings, not to stores or halls.

Tony Miller

Oct 5

8 min read

Relief operations use five kinds of temporary emergency building: family tents, rub halls, frame tents, mobile storage units and modular or prefabricated units. The first houses a family. The rest house everything else a displacement site needs, from stores and clinics to distribution points. Choosing between them is a question of job, duration and who can erect it.

What counts as a temporary emergency building?

Any structure that can be put up in days, used for months or a few years, and taken down or replaced without a construction programme. That definition covers a lot, and the sector tends to blur two different things under one word.

The first is the dwelling. A family tent, a tarpaulin or a transitional shelter is where a household sleeps. UNHCR's Emergency Handbook sets the minimum covered living space at 3.5 m² per person in tropical or warm climates, with a height of at least 2 m, and says individual family shelter should always be preferred over communal accommodation.

The second is the working structure: the warehouse, the distribution hall, the clinic, the registration point, the school. This is what most people mean when they search for "emergency structures" or "disaster relief temporary structures", and it is the category buyers in procurement and logistics actually order against a specification. It is also where we work. Specialized Logistics Solutions (SLS) is the in-country authorised distributor for Hallgruppen structures, and this article concentrates on that second category while placing it next to the first so the choice is clear.

What are the main types of temporary emergency structure?

UNHCR's own guidance lists the shelter approaches an operation chooses between. The Emergency Handbook names family tents, plastic sheeting, construction kits, prefabricated shelters and containers, refugee housing units, rental subsidies and shelter rehabilitation, and describes the trade-offs of each as depending on climate, expected length of displacement and available resources. Tents are quick to install but inflexible in prolonged use. Prefabricated shelters are durable but expensive.

For the structures that serve a site rather than a single household, five types cover most orders:

Family tents. The dwelling unit. The IFRC and ICRC geodesic family tent is 18 m², sized for a family of five, weighs 48 kg and carries a five-year shelf life under normal storage, according to the catalogue entry last updated on 12 March 2025. It is a household item bought by the thousand, and it is a different purchase from everything below.
Rub halls. Large, clear-span tent buildings on a frame, typically used for storage, distribution, emergency clinics or communal use. Walls are fabric, the floor is whatever you prepare, and a crew can raise one without a crane.
Frame tents. Smaller frame structures used where a rub hall is oversized: offices, registration points, screening areas, a site's administrative cluster.
Mobile storage units (MSUs). The standard humanitarian answer to "we need covered storage by next week". A single MSU measures 24 x 10 x 5 m, which is 240 m² of floor with capacity for 840 cubic metres of food and non-food items, according to the Logistics Cluster. Our guide to what a mobile storage unit is, its specifications and when to deploy it goes further.
Modular and semi-permanent buildings. Panelled or framed structures with solid walls, lockable doors and an insulated roof where the use warrants it: a cold room, a clinic, a long-term warehouse. They take longer to erect and last longer, and they suit operations expected to run for years, not months.

A pop-up building for a flood, a ten-year warehouse for a protracted displacement site and a clinic that must keep its contents cool are three different procurements. Treating "temporary building" as one product is how buyers end up with a structure that is too light, too heavy or too slow.

Which structure fits which job?

Match the structure to the function, then to the duration.

Storing relief stock for weeks to months, in volume: an MSU or a rub hall. Both are built for pallet-loaded commodities and fast erection. Choose the MSU when you want a standard, recognised footprint; choose the rub hall when you need a different floor area or wall height.
Storing stock for years in a hub you will keep: a modular or semi-permanent warehouse. The extra erection time buys durability, security and a proper floor. Our comparison of modular and permanent warehousing in South Sudan covers that decision in detail.
Distribution points, registration and screening: a frame tent or a small rub hall. Throughput and shade matter more than security.
Clinics, cold storage and anything with a sensitive payload: a modular or semi-permanent unit with insulation and a lockable envelope. A fabric hall is the wrong envelope for a vaccine store.
Housing families: a family tent or the shelter option the shelter cluster has specified. This is not a warehouse purchase, and a hall is never a substitute for it. UNHCR ranks individual family shelter above communal accommodation in every case.

One view worth stating plainly: do not specify a structure by what it costs to ship. Specify it by what has to happen inside it and how long that has to go on, then compare delivered options. A cheaper hall that cannot hold its anchors in the first storm is not cheaper.

How much temporary building does a displacement site need?

More than most first plans allow, and storage is the line that gets forgotten. UNHCR's camp planning standards give a storage area of 15 to 20 m² per 100 persons.pdf), alongside the broader planning figure of 45 m² per person for a camp as a whole, of which 30 m² covers roads, sanitation, firebreaks, water storage, distribution points, markets, relief-item storage and the shelter plots.

That ratio turns a population into a floor area. Applied to a settlement of 20,000 people, the standard implies 3,000 to 4,000 m² of relief storage. A single 240 m² MSU, at the same ratio, serves roughly 1,200 to 1,600 people. These are our calculations from the two cited figures, not a planning rule in themselves, but they show why a site of any size needs several units or a larger hall and not one structure placed where there happens to be space.

Two other planning figures from the same UNHCR source change how you place buildings. Fire safety calls for a 30 m firebreak every 300 m, with at least 2 m between structures.pdf), so a row of halls cannot be laid out wall to wall. Gradient and drainage matter too: the standard calls for site gradient of 1 to 5 per cent. Put an MSU in a dip and the first rains will tell you why.

Why does demand for temporary buildings keep rising?

Because displacement and need are growing while the physical infrastructure is not. In South Sudan, the 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan estimates that 6.7 million people need shelter and non-food item assistance, of whom 28 per cent face critical shelter challenges, and the cluster plans to assist 882,000, which is 13 per cent. The same plan names prepositioning of emergency supplies as part of the rapid-response approach.

Prepositioning needs somewhere to preposition into. That is the structural demand behind this article: every tonne of stock held ahead of the rains needs a dry, secure floor, and every distribution needs a covered point.

Access makes the timing hard. South Sudan has 20,000 km of roads, only 400 km of them paved, and during the rainy season most rural roads are inaccessible, according to WFP. A building ordered once roads have closed arrives after the need. The practical rule is to order and erect before the rains, and to hold the structure in-country rather than waiting for a container to come from origin.

What should a buyer check before ordering a temporary building?

Six checks save most of the grief that follows a bad order.

Function and duration. Write down what happens inside, and for how long. Everything else follows.
Floor area and clear height. Compare usable floor area, not gross dimensions, and check the clear height against the stacking or racking you plan.
Ground and anchoring. Fabric structures stay up because of their anchoring, not their cladding. Ask what ground preparation and what anchoring the manufacturer assumes, and whether you can provide it at your site. Our note on wind and snow load ratings for humanitarian warehouse tents explains how to read a rating.
Erection crew and time. Ask who erects it, how many people, and how many days. A structure no local team can raise is not a rapid-deployment structure.
Lead time to your site, not to the port. A building is only deployed when it is standing at your location. For Juba and the field sites beyond it, the delivery leg is a large part of the real timeline.
Authorised supply. Buy from the manufacturer's authorised distributor, so that specifications, spare parts and warranty are traceable. Our partnerships page lists the manufacturers we are authorised for.

For the wider picture of how temporary structures fit an emergency response, from the first week to the recovery phase, see our overview of the role of temporary shelters in emergency response.

What does SLS supply, and what does it not?

SLS supplies the structures category. Through our warehouses and structures page we offer Hallgruppen modular and semi-permanent warehouses, rub halls, frame tents and mobile storage units, held and delivered in-country from Juba. We quote per request, so lead times, floor areas and delivered pricing are confirmed on each RFQ.

We do not supply family tents, tarpaulins, plastic sheeting or shelter kits. Those are specified and procured through the shelter cluster and agency frame agreements, and the standards behind them are public. If your programme needs both, we can support the structures side, the stores, the distribution halls and the working buildings, while your shelter lead specifies the household items.

Frequently asked questions

What are temporary emergency buildings?

They are structures designed to be erected quickly and used for a limited period during a crisis, either as dwellings or as working buildings such as stores, clinics and distribution points. UNHCR lists family tents, plastic sheeting, construction kits, prefabricated shelters and containers, and refugee housing units among the main shelter approaches.

How big is a mobile storage unit?

According to the Logistics Cluster, an MSU is 24 x 10 x 5 m, with 240 m² of floor and 840 cubic metres of capacity for food and non-food items.

How much covered space does a person need in emergency shelter?

UNHCR's minimum is 3.5 m² of covered living space per person in tropical or warm climates, with a height of at least 2 m. This applies to dwellings, not to stores or halls.

How much relief storage does a camp need?

UNHCR's camp planning standards give a storage area of 15 to 20 m² per 100 persons.pdf), which for 20,000 people works out at 3,000 to 4,000 m².

How many people in South Sudan need shelter assistance in 2026?

The 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan estimates 6.7 million people need shelter and non-food item assistance, with 882,000 prioritised for assistance.