A Barraca (in French: baraque 'country cabin' and in Italian: baracca) is an improvised dwelling, characterized by having a light single-story structure, without a basement and especially made of wood.[1]​ The term in English refers to a military barracks "Barracks (militia)") (in English: barracks).

A set of barracks can also be used as temporary buildings for the temporary accommodation of a large number of people, such as: refugees, victims of a natural disaster, the sick, soldiers, workers, expelled people, refugees, victims of bombings, prisoners of war, internees or forced workers.

The first documented record of a barrack for the sick is that of Richard Brocklesby from 1760, corresponding to an improvised hospital with wooden planks.[2]​.

Concentration camp prisoners during the National Socialist era were housed in concentration camp barracks.

In the post-war period, many people who had been bombed, refugees and expelled lived in Nissenhütten (type of shed), in prefabricated corrugated metal huts.

The barracks are built from simple materials such as wood, corrugated iron or cardboard, with walls partly brick or partly plasterboard. They are mostly single-story and are often poorly insulated and do not have sanitary facilities.

Colloquially, barracks are also improvised dwellings made of any available materials, which serve as permanent accommodation in irregular settlements, called slums.

The barracks are also built by the local population, after natural disasters as primitive and basic protection against the elements.[3]​.

• - Ernst Seidl (ed.): Encyclopedia of building types. Functions and Forms of Architecture. Felipe Reclam Jr. Verlag, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-15-010572-2.

• - Axel Dossmann, Jan Wenzel, Kai Wenzel: Temporal Architecture. Barracks, pavilions, containers. b_books, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-933557-66-6.

• - Irregular settlement.

• - Territorial planning.

• - Urbanization process.

• - Mediagua.