AzuKo: an architectural not-for-profit Jo Ashbridge (2009) reports on a scheme she has helped found to inspire communities across the world to create their own ideal architectural environments
in the International Phonetic Alphabet, is a nod to the ethnographic genocide we are currently witnessing: UNESCO estimates that, if nothing is done, half the 6,000-plus languages spoken today will vanish by the end of this century. With the disappearance of unwritten and undocumented language comes an unquantifiable loss of cultural wealth.
t was Christmas 2012 when conversations with Ryder Architecture began. On yet another visa run, this time back to the UK, I found myself presenting my research and experience to date in a typically stark, beautifully detailed, glazed break-out space. This architecture was quite removed from that which I had come to know as home for the previous seven months. I had been living and working in rural Bangladesh. The aim there had been to document and analyse earthen vernacular and shelter provision in areas with limited assets; areas witnessing a barrage of water-related concerns.
“What could be more lonely than to be enveloped in silence,” explorer and anthropologist Wade Davis said in 2003, “to be the last of your people to speak your language, to have no way to pass on the wisdom of the ancestors or anticipate the promise of the children? And yet that dreadful fate is indeed the plight of somebody, somewhere on earth, roughly every two weeks because every two weeks some elder dies and carries with them to the grave some ancient tongue.”
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Over the years the focus of my architectural education has been cemented in international development. My passion is to work with socially and economically disadvantaged communities, offering them the driving seat so that they may enact positive change within their built environment. Perhaps at odds with the stereotypical architect ego, I hope to use my expertise as a facilitator for sustainable development and poverty alleviation. This approach, which is increasingly referred to as “public interest design”, or PID, recognises the capacities of local populations. It is dignity in design.
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Early discussions with Ryder involved the possibility of project expansion, which led to the idea of an initiative involving works similar to those with which I was involved in Bangladesh. However, this soon resulted in a desire to create an independent organisation with the sole focus of undertaking research in this architectural dimension—a portfolio of projects that would push the boundaries of our understanding within the focus areas of community, health, housing, materiality and outreach. AzuKo began operations in September 2013 and is currently applying to register as a charitable incorporated organisation. The name means “everybody” or “all of humanity” in the Bili dialect of Mono, a Ubangian language of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and symbolises our intent. AzuKo seeks to achieve democracy in design and give a voice to those who are rarely granted the platform, while celebrating diversity. Our logo, written
The AzuKo approach is based on gathering the right data, and understanding that there are no universal answers and that significant progress can be made through an accumulation of small steps based on careful analysis of unique situations. Research initiatives, pilot projects and architectural interventions support local communities on their sustainable journeys while acting as a testing ground for innovative solutions. AzuKo believes in open source: universal access and distribution. This not only means freely downloadable publications on project completion; we also hope to open our doors to the processes, challenges and successes of our work. Public interest design is more than the end product and certainly in an architectural context is more than the built solution. It is about the people who live, work and inhabit the space: the life that pervades in and around it. Ryder’s founding and continuing support is invaluable, and we are proud to have such visionaries backing our efforts. In the coming months we are keen to connect with individuals, organisations and companies that would be interested to start a donor dialogue so that we can continue operations and expand to create an interdisciplinary team of PID champions. We are in our infancy but as I have found on every adventure I have taken, support for such participatory development is overwhelming. The media may portray a national sense of charity fatigue but I am constantly reminded of the innate generosity of the human spirit. www.azuko.org