Leros:Island of Exile looks in detail at Leros in the Greek Dodecanese as a case study into the history of rationalist architecture of the fascist Italian regime and its continued legacy and impact on urban and architectural form and the local community into the present day. The research spans from the Italian occupation of Leros, and follows its transformation into notorious mental health care facilities, camps for political prisoners and violently displaced children from mainland Greece, to detention centres for refugees today. Hitherto the island remains relatively un-researched or discussed within architectural scholarship and almost unknown as a case-study within the larger body of literature about Italian colonial projects. The majority of academic research on the island is from within the medical community, psychology, social and political sciences.

The paper focuses on the re-purposing of previous military infrastructures from the Italian regime, also used as mental health institutions, for current day refugee detainment and processing centres as part of the Greek government's response to the Mediterranean refugee crisis.