TINDOUF, Algeria — For 40 years, the harsh Hamada desert in southwest Algeria has punished Western Sahara refugees with its merciless environment. One man thinks it's finally possible to change that situation.

There is little available in the camps from which to build durable shelter; adobe houses and tents are all the refugees have been able to erect. But Tatah Lehbib is demonstrating what he says is a viable alternative that is stronger and more affordable than mud bricks.

Lehbib earned a master's degree from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canarias, where he specialized in energy efficiency. He got his bachelor's degree from the University of Tlemcen in Algeria, where he studied renewable energy. Lehbib has been living with his grandmother in a Tindouf camp. As a child, he went to school there even when temperatures exceeded 50 degrees Celsius (122 F) and played barefoot in the dusty streets. As a university student, he would return home in the searing summers.

“When I started my undergraduate studies, I began dreaming of constructing a home that resists heat, rain and storms," he told Al-Monitor. Lehbib was granted a full Erasmus scholarship. By the time he was researching his thesis, which focused on the suffering he and his grandmother endured, the refugee camps were struck by the heaviest rain in four decades. “I had to include that catastrophe in my research as well," he said.