2012 UC Berkeley Branner Traveling Fellowship, Marcy Monroe

I would like to express my gratitude and give thanks to both the Branner family and the College of Environmental Design for providing me with such an enormous opportunity. Much of what I experienced and learned on my Branner journey has in various ways changed my life.

The printed document is a collection of all of the written work, diagrams, animations, and several photographs from my travels. All mediums were used in order to attempt to understand the experiences I was having on the ground in several disaster sites around the globe.

Most of what I experienced and learned during my journey this past year surrounded the various ways in which architects are becoming more involved in the professions that are global relief and international development.

During moments on the ground in my three focused disaster sites of Port-au-Prince Haiti, the Central and Rift Valley Provinces of Kenya, and the Tohoku Region of Japan, I witnessed both the direct need and enormous opportunity for architects to begin to redefine the definition of their services and directly saw the world, as well as architects, begin to revalue them. I witnessed this via on the ground involvement alongside disaster-affected communities, agencies, and other professionals.

As a result of such instances, it has also become clear to me that such topics, geared specifically at humanitarian aid and issues surrounding international development, should no longer be simply categorized alongside design for social change, public-interest architecture, or a subtext of architectural design that many have entitled as humanitarian architecture. This is the conversation surrounding the serious business and profession that is international development. Architects are becoming more in demand in this arena and will be required to be trained in such fields. Such proofs will become even more evident in the developed world as the frequency of disaster events continues to intensify with the onset of global warming, as our population grows, and as our planet continues to fight over its resources.

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Lastly, understanding the intangible layers that dominate the world of relief and development was amongst my greatest challenges while traveling to such locations. During my initial trip to Haiti in January, I immediately struggled with how to articulate the basis of what services architects could provide beyond drawing, how I would begin to document a world that is directly managed and run by metrics in economics and policy, and I instantly had to question my own ethical involvement in such contexts. The direct result of my uncertainties, discomforts, and choice to sustain my focus on strengthening an architect’s role in such scenarios, have led me to discover the direct need for an empirical method in architecture that will push for our profession to better engage themselves in the arena that is disaster response. I truly believe that as our world continues to become more technologically advanced, architects will begin to realize the benefits of clearly identifying the limits of what they do. In knowing our limitations, we will be able to expand each of our necessary set of tools to not simply provoke change, but in order to directly take part in solving some of the most challenging issues of our time on the ground alongside other professions and people.

Exisiting Solutions Envelopes

Focused Sites

Structures

Previous Sites Additional Sites

Earthworks Method

Paris, France Barcelona, Spain

Boston, MA

Hesperia, CA New Orleans, LA

Rome, Italy

TĹ?hoku Region, Japan

Tokyo, Japan

Bertie County, NC Newbern, AL Sichuan Earthquake, 2008

Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Nairobi, Kenya

Nakuru, Rift Valley Province

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Pisco Earthquake, 2007

2010 Haitian Earthquake

Minamisanriku, Japan

2010 Cholera Outbreak

2007 Kenyan Post-Election Violence

2011 East African Drought and Famine

2011 Great Eastern Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami

Photo taken in Villa Rosa Port-au-Prince, Haiti, January 2012 00:06

“Modern architecture does not mean the use of immature new materials; the main thing is to refine materials in a more human direction.”

Alvar Aalto

“I believed humanitarianism--with its principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence--to be outside of politics, in some ways even superior to it, and a way of avoiding its messy business.

But I would come to see humanitarianism not as separate from politics but in relation to it, and as a challenge to political choices that too often kill or allow others to be killed.”

Dr. James Orbinski, former President of Médecins Sans Frontières

“Shelter is often the primary need in the post-disaster phase, but the delivery of immediate shelter needs must be undertaken within a longer-term shelter strategy.”

UN-Habitat

“The stability of synergetic structures does not rest on the strength of their individual sections, but on the balanced interaction of their elements.”

Synergies

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Port-au-Prince, Haiti

An Introduction to Haiti University Pilot Mini Local Solutions

United States of America

Part:Page

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Studio H Theme 01 l Design Systems

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The Rural Studio Theme 02 l Design Grey Space

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Cal-Earth Institute Theme 03 l The Expert System

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The Make It Right Foundation Theme 04 l The Leapfrog Architect

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Western Europe

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Part:Page

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The Central and Rift Valley Provinces, Kenya

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Kounkuey Design Initiative Theme 05 l Social Space as Social Enterprise Muungano Support Trust Theme 06 l Synergy

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2007-08 Kenya Post-Election Violence Dadaab Refugee Camps

Japan

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The Great Eastern Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami Archi + Aid Theme 07 l Design is Dialogue MIT 3.11 Initiative Theme 08 l Architecture is Recovery

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Nikken Sekkei House for All

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Theme 09 l An Empirical Architecture Sources

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Port-au-Prince, Haiti

2010 Earthquake and Cholera Outbreak Part One

Photo taken in Petionville Port-au-Prince, Haiti, May 2012

[January 13th-February 13th, 2012] “Our system is one of detachment: to keep silenced people from asking questions, to keep the judged from judging, to keep solitary people from joining together, and the soul from putting together its pieces.”

--Eduardo Galeano, “Divorces”

“I believed humanitarianism—with its principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence—to be outside of politics, in some ways even superior to it, and a way of avoiding its messy business. But I would come to see humanitarianism not as separate from politics but in relation to it, and as a challenge to political choices that too often kill or allow others to be killed.”

–Dr. James Orbinski in An Imperfect Offering

“Man now turns to beauty not to illuminate temporal reality so that he might feel more at home in it, but to be relieved of it: to abolish time within time, if only for a time.”

--Karsten, Harries, ‘Building and the Terror of Time’, Perspecia: The Yale Architectural Journal, 19, New Haven, 1982, pp59-69.

As a researcher, I gathered statistics. I was able to accumulate handfuls of mega overviews exclaiming agenda-driven needs and ambiguous points. As an architect, I documented space. I recorded movement, materials, and systems at multiple scales ranging from agent to user. As an artist, I was inspired by the wealth of Haitian talent and admired each artist’s ingenuity and consistency. But as myself, I was paralyzed. In my sketchbook rests the phrase, ‘I have absolutely no idea’, on a blank spread with no neighboring etches. I knew this topic was going to be difficult and understood it to be confronting a lot more than rows of tarps, perfectly designed sewerage, or the general know-how about funding cycles and response team sectors. There is something else. A topic that is more human and less distant. It presented itself through the rows of blue and white tarpaulins, mangled and managed in every which way alongside rows of garbage and rubble. It lingered between the advertisements of agencies and their funders as they scattered across Port-au-Prince. This something was manifesting itself in the infamous t-shelter, as homogeneity infected the mountainsides and narrated the tale of short-term industrialized answers colliding with long-term realities.

This is a place defined and affected by political, economic, and physical destruction, turmoil, and loss. Billions of dollars are being spent in response as thousands of expats, mercenaries, and missionaries continue to flow in and out of the city center. Go to Google Images, type in Haiti, and brace yourself. This space is paralyzing. I am at fault for entering an architectural thesis through Agency, when what was really lost, misguided, or even sold, was human identity.

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“Intentions are well meaning, practical, realistic, engineered, and planned. Controlled chaos is impossible. People must fend for themselves. This is not about a housing strategy. 650,000 plus are living under tarpaulins. Zero government is really the issue. Old hat temporal funding cycles have caused fractured responses. The white men with machine guns and tanks delivered cholera. There are no resources here. Even the water is imported. Hurricane season brings more ‘emergencies’. See past the Republic of NGOs. How long are you here, because if it is short-term, there is no sense in getting to know you. The Deadly Sins have found their cancer cell. Haiti has always been a mess; you cannot blame colonialism, external interventions, and etcetera. I hope you take the time to see the beauty that does exist in Haiti“

Photo taken in Villa Rosa Port-au-Prince, January 2012

One could get lost forever in this impossible space. I approached Haiti with no specific agenda or microscope. The intention was never to recreate an existing paradigm nor was it to solve everyone’s problems. This time around I listened. I wanted to know where a thesis could emerge and how agencies operated, what determined success, and how to better understand their context. The problem space was always refugee/idp camps, but the spaces were seen as filters. There is a difference between a project and thesis. If my concern is regarding an architect’s role in international relief/development, then at what scale, in which context, and under whose guidelines? The original proposal began with camps and fusing some ‘synergized’ knowledge and technologies, but is a one-size fits all solution, in all disaster response scenarios, what this project was aiming towards? What would be the benefit of deploying an architect if we were handing out the same technologies and providing identical anti-contextual services everywhere? What my original itinerary lacked was a set location, where this issue of monotony, detachment, and lack of accountability could be exclaimed through human narratives. Where you could put a face to the statistic, tent number, and funding cycle.

Synergetic Aid was not only about promoting departmental conversation between response sectors and professionals, but most of all it was about people, individuals in spaces deemed apolitical and free of culture, tradition, and emotional recovery. Where practical measures had conquered emotions, place, and the self.

“All the hoopla about having the right plan is itself a symptom of the misdirected approach to foreign aid taken by so many in the past and so many still today. The right plan is to have no plan.”

–William Easterly in The White Man’s Burden, Chapter One

““The poor,” I said, “are very creative. They know how to earn a living and how to change their lives. All they need is opportunity.

Credit brings that opportunity. Perhaps our two societies are different and thousand of miles apart, but I don’t see any difference between the poor of Bangladesh and the poor of Chicago. The problems and consequences of poverty are the same.”

–Muhammad Yunus in Banker to the Poor: Micro-lending and the Battle Against World Poverty

“…Towns and buildings will not be able to become alive, unless they are made by all the people in society, and unless these people share a common pattern language, within which to make these buildings, and unless this common pattern language is alive itself.”

--Christopher Alexander in A Pattern Language

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I now understand my sub-title to be in search of another type of agency. Where professionals simply provided the tools, based on local needs and patterns, in order to leapfrog individuals into their next phase of survival and development. Is it possible to hack into controlled camps? Ask questions in an attempt to figure out what tools, soft (services) or hard (technology), individuals might need to escape aid dependency? This question is directed specifically towards internally displaced situations such as Haiti, where structural systems of power, both local and international, have directly impacted individuals’ need and dependency on aid, resulting in constrained agency of the self. There are a few ways to clarify this. Again, the explanation exists in the grey space between specificity and generalization.

Some have put it simply, such as “why teach men to fish if the river is polluted and there are laws against fishing?”

One must understand the rules of the game and know which fishing bait works best for that specific river. Dr. Paul Farmer, medical anthropologist and co-founder of Partners in Health, relates this grey space to liberation theology and structural violence; “Structural violence. The term is apt because such suffering is “structured” by historically given (and often economically driven) processes and forces that conspire—whether through routine, ritual, or as is more commonly the case, the hard surfaces of life—to constrain agency.”

-Paul Farmer in Pathologies of Power

Basically, one must have a sense of the greater structural forces that constrain agency, in this case freedom from the larger determinants that lead to aid dependency, as well as discover what tools are needed on an individual level.

Utilize tools from both planning and engineering.

So how will this link back to architecture? I am not convinced that spatial sketches of campsites or diagrammatic maps of informality are necessarily the ‘tell all method’ that will lead to tools for development (collecting materials, textures, and narratives, in this case seem more constructive in regards to gearing this towards an architectural inquiry). In a conversation with a MIT medical device engineer, who specializes in hacking the traditional to recreate the accessible and affordable, I was guided to believe that sometimes the best way to find out what people need is to simply ask. For the worm’s eye view, observe daily rituals and ask what tools people may need to improve their situation. At the same time, gather the larger overviews and try to put together the pieces. At a larger scale, there are parametric variations and tracked relationships, such as those between elementary political and economic freedoms to individual agency, but these are typically guidelines used in an attempt to gain general understandings of poverty

and personal freedom (1). As much as these indicators are useful, the only way to really find any solution or clarity is to dive into a specific context. For these reasons, I plan on focusing my thesis project in a specific Port-au-Prince idp camp that is directly controlled and run by an international aid agency. From my month introductory stay in Port-auPrince, I have been able to gain a sense of which camp locations to lean towards for my next visit in May. I have a few design methods in mind, based on this past experience, but will save the architecture charrette for the next visit!

Notes: 1. In Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom, he highlights the parametric relationship between social, economic, and environmental circumstances to personal freedoms: “…The relationship between income and capability would be strongly affected by the age of the person (e.g., by the specific needs of the old and the very young), by gender and social roles (e.g., through special responsibilities of maternity and also custom-determined family obligations), by location (e.g., by proneness to flooding or drought, or by insecurity and violence in some inner-city living), by epidemiological atmosphere (e.g., through diseases endemic in a region) and by other variations over which a person may have no—or only limited—control. In making contrasts of population groups classified according to age, gender, location and so on, these parametric variations are particularly important.” Chapter 4: Poverty as Capability Deprivation

“If only outsiders could invest in building back our resources and stop importing temporary ones.”

The rest of the week there were presentations from the Italian Development Cooperation (COOPI), Catholic Organisation for Relief and Development Aid (Cordaid), and the Cooperative Housing Foundation (CHF). Each organization painted a picture of all the coordination and funders involved to sustain projects. After the presentations, the students and I were able to shadow one of the organizations on the ground. A few of us chose to follow Cordaid to one of their shelter development projects in Villa Rosa.

As one of the major 16-6 Projects in Port-au-Prince, the Villa Rosa community was subject to a large amount of international media attention and aid.

I was also able to follow the International Organization for Migration (IOM) as they dealt directly with smaller uncontrolled camps throughout Port-au-Prince (uncontrolled camps is referring to the temporary camp spaces not directly run by an international aid agency). I was able to follow someone from the camp eviction and management team during their process of deploying donated Shelter Box supplies to a small idp camp near the city center. IOM acted as the middleman between the camp families, the Haitian government, and informal property renters in order to provide one-year land titles to families in destitute and eviction prone camps. We went from the United Nations log base camp, to the tent storage site, and then went on to hand out the supplies. What I found to be quite shocking was that agencies were still only capable of providing short-term solutions, even though it has been two years since the earthquake. I later discovered, in a conversation with another Berkeley alumnus that happened to be a part of IOM/USAID’s funding team, that the reason people were handing out short term solutions was simply because of funding guidelines. No one was going to sponsor any projects or supplies that were going to last longer than a year and funding cycles happen around every three months. The organization had to operate on a short-term basis.

Photo taken at Quisqueya University Port-au-Prince, January 2012

University Pilot Mini

[January 17th-January 24th, 2012]

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During the first few days in Port-au-Prince I was fortunate to be involved in an university ‘mini pilot’ project organized by Anna Konotchick from the World Bank Group and MIT planning professor Cherie Abbanat. The original idea behind the Haiti project was to share planning and policy materials with Haitian planners and architects in response to the lack of information access following the 2010 earthquake. The Haiti project then transformed into an 8 day pilot involving myself and other Haitian students studying engineering and architecture. The course went through a general overview of the disaster response and reconstruction process/players in Port-au-Prince and gave a brief history of traditional Haitian Architecture and culture.

At the start of the course, Professor Abbanat, the students, and I took a tour of Port-au-Prince with professor/architect Alex Duquella from Quisqueya University. We visited traditional Haitian ‘gingerbread’ architecture, observed the physical separations between the urban extreme poor and hillside wealth, and noted some of the international shelter interventions throughout the city-center. What was really fascinating was how some of the traditional architecture was over a hundred years old and still standing but the concepts and traditions behind the gingerbread, unfortunately, had been lost in modern day Port-au-Prince. The majority of the buildings that fell during the earthquake in 2010 were made of overwatered concrete instead of wood frame gingerbread construction. Deforestation and political blindness over the past century was noted as a major contributor to this happenstance. There were many other varying determinants, such as lack of building code or specific geological locations that led to the large death toll (estimates range up to over 250,000 deaths). For example, the majority of Port-au-Prince was densely populated on soft limestone, which resulted in more violent shakes. Most of the people living in these areas were living in extreme poverty and did not have access to proper construction techniques or materials. Some of the wealthier homes, on the other hand, were built on the hillsides on top of bedrock, which ultimately blocked many of the violent shocks. The tour shone light on how all the problems that exist within Haiti are clear, yet answers seem to be hidden and disjointed. There were also many frustrations expressed towards the temporary shelters and other imported packaged solutions brought from foreigners.

“Welcome to the world of AID.” At the end of the course, the students and I had to present a photo collage and give a short presentation (part in Creole/ French/English) that highlighted some positive and negative themes within the disaster response process. I chose to highlight some of the informal material transitions and emerging public spaces while some of the other students focused on other topics such as sanitation or housing. Another architecture student, Reynolds, spoke about how many of the communities were building back the way they had before the earthquake and highlighted some of the risky buildings he saw during his shadow trip. Prior to presentation day, he expressed to me that architecture school in Haiti was very traditional and he was really adamant about learning new tools to express his design ideas. Students wanted to learn new tools and design techniques, but there had been both a technology gap and lack of culture geared towards reinventing traditional building techniques and learning. He was amazed that in school a professor promoted me to rethink structures and materials with rubber bands and cardboard (in one of Lisa Iwamoto’s installation courses). I agreed to help him learn new tools and the day prior to the presentation, gave him a short photoshop/illustrator lesson. Reynolds came back the next day with a super clear presentation and was complimented by the other students on his graphic design skills. His full presentation can be seen to the right.

“Could the untapped tool be design thinking? Maybe design is part of the equation to assist individuals and inspire others to take the lead in rebuilding back their own communities/lives?”

-My sketchbook

(01) Photo taken in Villa Rosa, Port-au-Prince in January 2012 during a project site tour with Cordaid.

(02) Photo taken by Anna Konotchick during University Pilot Mini.

(03) Pictured, from the left, is Professor Duquella, MIT planning professor Cherie Abannat, Anna Konotchick, and students.

(04) Photo taken during tour of Port-au-Prince given by Professor Duquella.

(05) Image of presentations by agencies working in the city center.

(06) Pictured on next page is a series of images taken while shadowing the International Organization of Migration’s Camp Management team in January 2012

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Photo taken at AMURThaiti’s school in Delmas 32 Sinayes Camp, Port-au-Prince

Local Solutions

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Although there are several international aid agencies and ngos on the ground in Port-au-Prince today, there are only a handful that are locally driven and concerned with bridging the gap between immediate relief and longer-term solutions. These three organizations, Haiti Communitere, AMURThaiti, and Give Love are three positive examples on the ground today. Haiti Communitere is working on solid waste collection and building envelope technologies while Give Love is inserting their natural composting toilet technology with AMURThaiti’s school near the Sinayes idp camp in Delmas 33.

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Site visits l [February and May 2012]

Photos to the right: (01) Photo taken in AMURThaiti classroom (02) Photo of vegetable garden grown by the staff and students at the camp. The compost seen in image (03) is used to grow the food for the students during school.

(03) Compost used to treat waste inside the school and to later use to grow crops for the AMURT food program. The technique employs a haitian worker from the Delmas 32 camp and later provides each child one meal a day.

(04) Image of an Ubuntu block designed by architectural designers at Haiti Communitere.

(05) An image of the Ubuntu block that was used as insulation in a t-shelter, or the common deployed framework for housing used by agencies in th city center. The Ubuntu blocks and their construction have been tested in the United States both for their insular properties and as under lateral stresses.

(06) Image of an earthship built on the Haiti Communitere work site.

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United States of America Existing Solutions Part Two

Photo taken during Cal-Earth Workshop in Hesperia, CA. March 2012

Themes 01-04 Studio H l Design Systems Rural Studio l Design Grey Space Cal-Earth Institute l Expert System Make It Right Foundation l Leapfrog Architect

Design with, not for.

A constant struggle our world has with architects, vise versa.

Design Directive #2 l Studio H

“This is not about making change, but creating the conditions in which change is possible.” #3 Design systems, not stuff.

Emily Pilloton l TED 2010 Existing Solutions l Theme 01 Inserting a product network into an existing market context versus Inserting skills and services into a locally existing market context and system of people

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“Girl, you mean to tell me someone gave you a free world ticket, and you ended up here in good ole Bertie County, North Carolina? Well isn’t that somethin’’! We must be doin’ somethin’’ right.”

–Smokey Project H high school student/hunting enthusiast.

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It took about five minutes to become attached to Studio H. The original plan had been to stay for a couple days to tour the town and the school, but soon I realized I needed to extend my stay. Once I stepped into the old grey barn behind Bertie High School, I was instantly greeted with a hug and smiles. The students had been immersed in piles of cardboard and cutting mats and before I knew it, I too was envisioning the next set of farmers stands in Windsor. It was a small design studio, full of enthusiastic students and two passionate educators, discovering ways to encourage design for change within Bertie.

So how exactly did I end up at Studio H?

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Studio H l Bertie County NC

Last fall, I stumbled upon Emily’s Ted talk and was instantly struck by a few main points. One of those points, to design systems and not stuff, resonated with me the most. During the Branner proposal process, the majority of my research time was spent looking into the international aid and development context as well as topics surrounding the correlation between physical space and its impacts on public health. Around this time, I had also been involved with a collaborative slum-upgrading project in Nairobi, Kenya with the planning and public health department at UCBerkeley. From this experience, walking through the Mathare Valley community, I witnessed some of our worlds most extreme, yet preventable, health injustices and saw the direct impact of physical space on human wellbeing (wellbeing referring to both physical and mental health). During this experience, it became increasingly clear that creating change, in this case providing the Mathare community access to basic infrastructure services, i.e. clean water, sanitation, electricity, and road systems, was only possible through the collaboration of multiple parties, from the Nairobi Water Company to conversations with the United Nations and families on the ground. The message was to understand the systems and groups of people that can directly effect change, insert your skills, and then redefine the role of design as it directly impacts people. This strategy, geared towards the high school public education system within Bertie County, is the driving force behind Studio H. Design systems, not stuff, were the exact words I had been searching for in my lengthy proposal and months of preparation.

In addition to the animated students, access to a college level design education, fabrication technologies, and building experiences lays another critical story. Studio H is the first example of utilizing design education as an agent for social change in a public high school setting. Emily and Matt, co-founders of Project H, adamantly expressed an emphasis on working with

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students to help provide them with practical life skills and not simply architecture training. This is the critical difference between the Studio H model and other Rural Studio based models where the goal is to provide architecture students with design-build experience alongside any designs created with and for communities (1). Through education, Studio H is working with Bertie students and providing the tools to address their own locally driven design issues.

Although Windsor is a prime location, has a ton of open space to build, and a handful of local design opportunities, Studio H still confronts many logistical issues. For example, the organization is working inside one of the poorest public education systems in the state, which ultimately has added to the demand for external funding (2). As important as it is to see the outcome of the studio’s infamous farmers market, or the physical manifestation of change within a place, I believe it is as equally important to also note the entirety of the process, funding, and overarching systems strategy it takes to implement such change.

In Emily’s Ted talk, she examples the overarching structure strategy and how Project H responded to some of the initial struggles in creating a platform for change within Bertie. It is through conferences, such as Ted, that Project H is able to raise money for funding some of the student projects.

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[March 16, 2012]

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Existing Solutions l Theme 01 Design Systems Inserting a product network into an existing market context versus Inserting skills and services into a locally existing market context and system of people

Existing Solutions l Themes Part of my journey was spent driving through the southern part of the United States, from my hometown in Apopka Florida, to Asheville and Windsor North Carolina, and onto Newbern Alabama. Along the way, while speaking to several individuals engaged in design for social change, it became clear that aside from any inspiring design-build techniques or community build projects to learn from and observe there seemed to also be several messages and themes emerging in recent years. Similar to what Project H refers to as a list of Design Directives, it became clear that I needed to gather overarching themes for any future design implementation in a refugee or internally displaced persons camp setting. The idea is to use these themes, discovered through the trial and error of various existing scenarios, and fuse those lessons into a new approach towards international relief and development.

References (1) Rural Studio. Oppenheimer Dean, Andrea, and Timothy Hursley. Rural Studio: Samual Mockbee and an Architecture ofDecency. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002. 2-81. Print.

(2) See Project H website, www.projecthdesign.org, or Architectural Record’s March 2012 Article on Design for Social Change, http://archrecord.construction.com/features/humanitariandesign/united-states/Windsor-Super-Market.asp

[April 19th, 2012]

This is about taking architectural design outside of itself in order to rediscover, redefine, and restrenghten what we do as professionals. It is about containing the re emerging themes of design activism, design for social change, and/or creative capital and inserting them into an existing framework that directly impacts human life and survival.

After my experience in Nairobi and recent adventure to Haiti, I am still convinced that an architects design skills can be applied to more than just a spatial-structural-aesthetic application, and that our systems thinking, practical skill sets, and integrity as professionals are mandatory to integrate into such settings as international relief and development. For now, the plan is to study two parallel conversations, design activism and the world of international aid, highlight their intersections and discover how a systems-based design approach can be used to lessen the impact of human suffering in refugee/IDP camps. This conversation is in every way political, complex, and yet entirely necessary for several reasons that I anticipate will emerge in-between the lines of this journey.

Photos Studio H: (01) Photo of Emily speaking during her TED global talk can be found here: http://images.ted.com/ images/ted/16d6949c4dc8acdbd82a7e03929efbee19cdd661_389x292.jpg (02) Photo taken during class at Studio H in Bertie County (03) Photo of students working on their farmers stands (04) Photo taken during the class presentations on farmer stand ideas (05) Photo of the old grey barn behind the high school (06) The result of the previous studio, of the local farmers market that is used by the local farmers association in Bertie County.

Inserting a product network into an existing market context versus Inserting skills and services into a locally existing market context and system of people

Ayiti note: The information provided was driven by a reflective compilation from various sources, directed by informal interviews, discussions, and experiences on the ground alongside Haitians, agencies, and people in Port-Au-Prince over a seven week period. It is important to note that directive knowledge is hard to come by in such a complex context and inserting myself, as an independent researcher or student, provided many challenges regarding perception, safety, and access to particular modes of information. Exactitude and correctness of information from such experiences has also proven to be quite relative. Although information is ambiguous, it does not lessen its value within the process of redefining a systems approach to longer term sustainable relief strategies. “I am trying to better understand the mechanisms that cause the creation and longevity of camp spaces and not just document the physical places themselves. I started looking into funding cycles and the basic principles behind relief and how that addresses and creates longer term situations in an idp situation such as Port-au-Prince.�

-An email ecerpt from myself to an anonymous independent journalist stationed in Port-Au-Prince

What we do not see. The intangible and layers of perception that determines place.

-sketchbook

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The existing market context l The Humanitarian Space Photo taken in Villa Rosa, Port-au-Prince, Haiti January 2012

Theme 01 l Design Systems, Not Stuff

As more natural and man-made emergencies continue to strike and later heighten through media, the surfacing of new organizations, campaigns, and initiatives run by various public-interest groups, celebrities, and every day citizens emerge alongside such events. Now, more than ever in human history, it is in the public’s interest to save lives, demand change, and give hope to those impacted by unjust matters of circumstance. It is with this conviction and global consciousness that the demand for disaster-driven capital has been raised and consequently provided for a neoliberal platform that has eluded itself from local, national, and international humanitarian laws (1). It is through the path of least resistance, or direct action through donor gifts and funds, which everyday people continue to act in response to humanitarian disasters.

This straight path to provide help, unfortunately, is exactly the platform that has created more damage than productive longer-term assistance in Port-Au-Prince today. The lack of coordination between the multitude of relief actors, an overabundance of short-term NGO agendas, and ultimately the regularity of international profiteering through disaster capital and direct action are exactly what has perpetuated a constant state of emergency for Haiti (2). Over half a million people continue to depend on short-term international relief two years after the earthquake, cholera has continued to spread, and consistent tropical rains have sustained the re emergence of more emergencies. Such crisis have continued to perpetuate the creation of more short-term and unsanitary humanitarian spaces. This systemic cycle of ill-monitored humanitarian relief, as dominated by independent NGO actors, has done nothing more than provide temporary and often haphazard solutions within a context in need of longer-term infrastructural assistance.

l principles l RESPONSE THROUGH TIME l solutions FORM SPACE

Local disaster-affected SPACE PLACE

Humanitarian

SPACE

PLACE

IMMEDIATE 1

TEMPORARY 2

LONGER TERM 3

CREATE PLACE

The exiting relief market context, as it played out in the years following the January 12th, 2010 earthquake are as follows: Some facts: -According to the UN Special Envoy, 53% of the $4.5 Billion dollars pledged for relief and reconstruction at the International Donors Conference on March 31st 2010 have been delivered in the allocated timeframe (3a).

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-86% of the pledged emergency funds have been materialized (3b).

-Of the pledged funds, only 6 percent has gone through Haitian institutions and one percent through the Haitian government (3c).

Excerpt from the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Society’s publication, IDRL in Haiti: a study on the legal framework and regulation of international disaster response in Haiti: “In order to be granted domestic legal personality and the related rights and privileges, non-governmental organizations must register with the unit responsible for coordinating the activities of NGOs (UCAONG) at the Ministry of Planning and External Cooperation. The procedure is established in the 1989 decree on international and local NGOs. After the earthquake, international actors were unable to register promptly following the existing procedure, as it is intended for NGOs carrying out long-term development aid activities in the country rather than those responding to a short-term emergency situation. In order to expedite the registration process, which can take up to six months in normal times, the Ministry of Planning and External Cooperation established a procedure provided for in the 1989 decree, which considerably reduced registration times. In spite of this, many NGOs did not apply for registration or complete the registration process and operated outside the established coordination and control mechanisms. The lack of administrative capacity in the months following the earthquake meant that the Haitian authorities were unable to prevent unregistered NGOs from carrying out operations in the country.” (4) “What strikes me from Port-au-Prince, apart from the enormity of the disaster, has been the magnitude of the response among those unaffected, whether within Haiti or without -- the simple desire to help -- and the difficulty we will face in seeking to match that goodness with the surpassingly enormous need.”

-UN Special Envoy and Co-Director of Partners in Health, Dr. Paul Farmer Posted in the Miami Herald January 17th, 2010 (5)

The market context, or humanitarian space inserted into Haiti following the 2010 earthquake, was simply overwhelmed by an overabundance of unregistered international organizations and people.

More facts:

-There is a direct correlation between humanitarian space (i.e. systems of people, funders, and products), the place humanitarian space creates, and ultimately its longer term impact on people, livelihoods, and human health.

-Independent organizations alone simply do not have the capacity to assist in longer-term demands. Groups of organizations, or clusters, are organized in order to coordinate information between relief actors. At a global level, the Shelter Cluster is led by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) following natural disasters (6a).

-The coordination of multiple relief actors is universally understood as one of the biggest struggles in emergency relief today (6b).

-Reconstruction begins the day of the disaster (7).

-Proper infrastructure and issues of land tenure and/or housing are not capable of being addressed without the presence of multiple parties. Without the collaboration and cooperation with the local government, policy makers, funders, communites, and other actors on the ground, longer-term solutions such as sewerage infrastructure, housing tenure, or clean water, are not capable of becoming realized (8).

-There is no functioning sewerage system in Port-Au-Prince.

-The day of the earthquake on January 12th, 2010, there had not been a single case of Cholera in the country. The lack of coordination between relief actors, alongside several other environmental, geographical, and socio-economic factors allowed for the disease to spread. Cholera is a treatable and controllable disease. In Haiti, over 6500 people have died from cholera and over 500,000 were diagnosed over the past two years. This additional man-made catastrophe has brought to light the lack of coordination between relief actors, donors, locals, and policy makers as well as the unsanitary conditions on the ground (9).

-Historically, Haiti has endured centuries of political instability, corruption, and governmental absence as well as external interventions and exploitation of local resources and haitian people. The extremities of economic and social power dynamics that exist in Haiti today are by no means a recent happenstance (10a).

Inserting a product network into an existing market context l The Humanitarian Place To begin, it is vital to acknowledge who you are designing with or for. In recent history, many architects and engineers have chosen to design shelter prototypes for organizations and companies in order to deploy immediate housing solutions for disaster-affected populations (11a). The issue? Well, as stated in the introduction, these ideas are not taken up as a universal solution for relief and reconstruction. Why? There are multiple perspectives on this. Here are three: One, a one-size fits all solution for disaster housing is not the answer. This is exactly the message architects have attempted to portray throughout history as exampled through the multitude of solutions, where unfortunately, such suggestions were masked through the marketing of well-designed industrialized objects (11b). It is also an underlying reason as to why the international relief marketthrough the years of the post-war period and on through our recent global journey through political conservatism, has avoided architects for immediate relief solutions. It is through the polarity of two conflicting ideals, or the economic efficiency of industrialized temporary solutions versus slower moving yet locally determinant longer-term alternatives, that architects have continued a separate association from relief. International relief, thoughout recent history, was not looking to replace their mastered system of deployed articles. Deployable strategists or architects as consultants, on the other hand, are still preferred in the immediate relief phase (7b).

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“In the post-war period, housing was seen as merely a social concern and categorized as a pure cost with a negative effect on economic growth. Further, aid workers found the international building industry to be archaic, unskilled and unable to adapt to their methods of working. Consistent with the times, large-scale production methods like prefabrication were preferred. Thus, from whichever prospering nation they happened to be headquartered, aid agencies would ship one giant kit of design documents, engineers, workers and building materials. This practice effectively prevented construction from engaging the local economy of the recipient country (12).�

Jeffery Inaba and C-Lab l Columbia University, GSAPP World of Giving l Page 212

Two, if one were to replace the relief tarpaulin they would endure major backlashes from one of the largest and most efficient deployment-systems in the world. To be clear, it is not the item that is the issue, as the tarp has been proven time and time again to be a useful relief article. The problem lays in the misconception that there are three consecutive stages between relief and reconstruction. The most efficient of the three, immediate relief, uses a strict deployment system, operates apolitically under its own international mandate, and functions with its own separate set of services and people than that of development (11c).

The traditional chronology of disaster response and reconstruction:

1. Immediate relief sweeps in, offers temporary solutions and services to disaster-affected communities. Success is typically gauged by the amount of measurable temporary products/solutions given. In Port Au Prince, I observed and shadowed agencies as they marked off spreadsheets of disbursed tent items per camp, a process that determines the productivity/successfulness of the operation (also see IFRC cluster chart in images). Immediate relief then continues off to the next disaster-ridden location after temporary solutions and other trauma related services are no longer needed.

2. Temporary/transitional services and/or products are provided by another wave of international NGOs, agencies, and institutions and are often disbursed in parallel to the immediate relief and development phases. This transitional phase often operates in a similar fashion to short-term relief and is to be considered the grey space.

3. Development steps in.

Google Earth images of Port-au-Prince before (top) and months after (bottom) the 2010 Earthquake

“Humanitarian aid is material or logistical assistance provided for humanitarian purposes, typically in response to humanitarian crises including natural disaster and man-made disaster. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity. It may therefore be distinguished from development aid, which seeks to address the underlying socioeconomic factors which may have led to a crisis or emergency.”

DigPlanet - Humanitarian Affairs -http://www.digplanet.com/wiki/Humanitarian_aid

order to assist in holistic response strategies. Who we work with, and how we choose to define our services and skill sets, will ultimately define our demand as professionals.

But what services can architects provide? Especially in a situation or context where top-down housing or construction strategies are not the initial need or demand? Would designing infrastructural systems be a better insertion point for architects at the onset of disaster? Should we design infrastructure without addressing the need for sustainable housing and should the two be considered separate in the humanitarian space?

Humanitarian relief should always be the priority and initial focus within the first 72 hours of a disaster. The world of humanitarian aid/relief is an efficient and effective system of professionals from around the globe that work together, beneath international humanitarian law, to tend to people in immediate crisis. Humanitarian aid is both a business and a profession.

Individuals whom work with humanitarian aid agencies continue to devote their lives to causes grounded in humanity and the alleviation of human suffering. Higher education and degrees are also now available around the globe, surrounding topics in international humanitarian assistance and development. There is a difference between humanitarian aid as it operates collaboratively between major actors and international relief as it is driven by a global public agenda and every day individuals.

In cases like Haiti, where the country had been in a state of humanitarian crisis prior to the earthquake, relief and development should have occurred simultaneously as many of the humanitarian needs are directly related to and caused by systemic issues directly relating to development.

And finally, number three. Those who have inserted their design products on the ground did so through local markets alongside agencies (13). Again, they were also unable to disseminate such products on a global scale, because of the absence of a system that could provide support and the means for a multitude of locally based housing alternatives and methods, but also because such solutions did not offer more benefits than that of the tarpaulin. To produce local alternatives, for each separate disaster scenario, architects must work alongside local policy makers, project managers, institutions, and people on the ground. Housing is not the primary need in disaster response (11a). The strength in deploying an architect should never depend solely on our ability to design functional objects or tangible systems, but also on our ability to provide holistic longer-term solutions alongside effected communities, agencies, and other professionals.

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“People affected by a disaster are not victims; they are the first responders during an emergency and the most critical partners in reconstruction.”

Image of Graffiti done by Jerry Rosenbert in Petionville. May 2012

-#3 Community members should be partners in policy making and leaders of local implementation.

The World Bank Group’s Safer Homes, Stronger Communities: A Handbook for Reconstructing after Natural Disasters. pp. 1

“Donor-driven, instant housing ‘solutions’ are notoriously inappropriate in layout and technologies, particularly in relationship to habits and lifestyles...The location of sites for resettlement have displaced communities in many instances, and are often at some distance from schools, shops and other facilities, placing further burdens on family budgets. Sites are poorly integrated with other settlements. Ownership options in relation to titles or other forms of social organization are poorly explored. Attention to livelihoods is sporadic.”

Nabeel Hamdi Forward in Building Back Better, pp. viiii

Some main points: Architecture’s intersection with humanitarian aid is not in the form of providing housing solutions for relief agencies. Inserting a product into an already mastered and efficient system will not, and has not worked. The relief system itself is imperfect. Millions of people are still living in refugee/IDP camps today, and often for periods that last longer than 17 years (14). In such situations where governments are absent or unstable, there is but one response stage, and that stage is typically understood as a state of aid dependency. Architects must act alongside agencies that address and work with local government and communities in

Inserting skills and services into a locally existing market context and system of people l The Local Disaster-Affected Space January 12th, 2010 The first 72 hours.

“At 4:53 P.M. a massive earthquake struck nearby Léogâne. Within fractions of a second, all of Port-Au-Prince was shaking violently. Walls jerked erratically, roofs collapsed, and cracks ripped the pavement apart. The sound was indescribable: falling concrete crushing anything in its path, people crying out in terror, the earth rumbling deep within—then, after thirty-five interminable seconds, the eerie silence of a collapsed metropolis that in an instant had lost over two hundred thousand souls. Some people fell to their knees to pray. Others frantically dug through the rubble with their bare hands to search for relatives, but before the damage could be assessed with any precision the Caribbean sun set abruptly, leaving survivors to endure an agonizing pitch-dark night pierced by the wails of the mourning and the moans of the injured.”

-Phillipe Girard Haiti: The Tumultuous History-From Pearl of the Caribbean to Broken Nation

The magnitude of disaster within the initial moments of the Haiti earthquake was unlike any other in recent human history.

Over 230,000 lives were lost in a single moment. As the days passed, hundreds of thousands of bodies and millions of cubic tons of concrete, garbage, and rubble filled the streets of Port-Au-Prince. Millions of people took shelter under tarps in any and all available open areas. Doctors, both local and international, operated in open tents for days and hours on end as the size of patients only grew in numbers. The majority of the national, local, and international governmental infrastructures within the city had also collapsed. Food, water, and shelter were absent alongside trauma, chaos, and suffering. The enormousness of the moments following the earthquake is far beyond any personal comprehension and any words, facts, and figures simply do not do justice to the impact of such a moment as it belongs solely to the people who experienced it. The only thing that has become clear to me is that no human should ever endure such sufferable instances within a lifetime.

Moments of immense crisis such as those experienced in Haiti following the earthquake are a prime example as to why humanitarian aid must operate as an independent body and is to be guided under its own international mandate and law. Within minutes of the event, major global international relief actors responded and began shipments of hundreds of thousands of relief articles, food, water, and other supplies. Over the course of the first 72 hours, both people and supplies moved in by air, land, and sea. Individuals were stationed for duty and assistance at major warehouses around the globe and worked around the clock to provide the fastest relief assistance for those affected. Major actors in global humanitarian aid worked together, both internationally and through the coordination of clusters alongside locals on the ground, in order to relieve the immediacy of suffering for those devastated throughout Haiti’s devastated regions.

Here Comes Everybody The proceeding months.

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In the months that followed, tens of thousands of journalists, missionaries, public-interest groups, and the like began flowing into Port-Au-Prince. Thousands of organizations handed out more and more temporary survival items alongside Haitian communities and local organizations. People continued clearing rubble and providing immediate relief. In the first six months, over two million people were living in temporary idp camps throughout the capital. The city was turned inside out, with camps filling all open spaces and rubble replacing what was left of Port-Au-Prince.

“People began throwing rubble, garbage, and human waste into the ravines. The ravines act as the sewerage drainage for the entire city and were instantly blocked by the waste. As rainy season began, the ravines would overflow and the majority of the people living in low lying areas were flooded. People began getting sick; especially the families living in the camps. International aid would send in more relief items to assist those getting sick and relocate the families in low lying areas. Shortterm ravine clean up was also a priority for humanitarian actors. The main water source runs beneath the ravines. The two, open sewerage and water, are one.”

-Over Two Billion dollars has been spent thusfar on immediate relief.

-Zero funds have been used to implement a sewerage strategy for the city.

Statement by Medecins Sans Frontiers medical advisor for diarrheal diseases, Dr. David Olson, in an October 25th, 2011 interview on MSF’s website:

“Money is another big issue. The vaccines alone would cost up to $40 million if everyone were vaccinated, to which must be added logistics and human resources. Let’s not forget protective immunity appears to decline after only two or three years and be efficient for two-thirds of the people vaccinated. Money spent on vaccines should not come at the expense of money spent on permanent water and sanitation measures (15).”

Main Point: The Local Disaster-Affected Space was predominately overwhelmed by ill-monitored international immediate assistance and relief. The majority of the money spent and projects implemented were short-term and often not transparent. Many groups had not operated under International Humanitarian or Haitian law. Those whom were trained individuals and groups that had worked under humanitarian law endured additional complications and hardships because of the overabundance of unregistered organizations and people.

Two years later still in crisis.

Inserting skills and services into a locally existing market context and system of people l The Local Disaster-Affected Place January 13th-March 1st 2012 The first blog attempt during and after my initial trip to Port-au-Prince.

Travel blog, nope…Research Site, maybe.

Chaos. Suffering. The purest form of a Laissez-faire state as it thrives off of human suffering and extreme inequality. Giving that hurts. A system of detachment. Inserting myself, a female, bearing witness to other females. Rape. Slavery; both women and children. Avoidable disease and illness. The international community existing in a bubble separate from those who suffer.

Mansion home, to private car, to expensive restaurants, and back again. Where did the money go? Everyone wanting to help, yet the system has created a lack of accountability. No one feels they are making longer-term positive change. The thought of designing another deployable object fills me with rage. Why focus on solutions if you can’t address the problem? Don’t quote anyone, they keep you alive. All I can think and write about is the human condition.

Many have questioned whether or not this topic is an issue for architects to solve. If we are the missing link or if we should just step aside and allow for the international development and humanitarian aid professions to continue their work. This is my response after months of shadowing, interviewing, and observing in Port-au-Prince. Architects already are and definitely must be part of the conversation. We no longer are simply designing building systems but are also strategists and the only profession with a grasp of physical space, planning, and engineering. Agencies do hire architects and planners to solve issues surrounding relief and development. There is currently a Berkeley Branner fellow, for example, working for a major United Nations agency as an architect in Port-au-Prince today on one of the most pressing development projects in the city center. I also had the privilege to meet another architect working for a relief agency whom is actively encouraging his organization to include local building markets and people into their next logbase design. Our training and skills are needed and useful in a disaster context such as Port-au-Prince.

But should we work for institutions that are notorious for profiting off of disaster? Would we not just be just part of the problem? Can we really create change in a world run by short-term contracts and people? On the other hand, if we dismiss such large systems of power, are we not simply alluding to them through our own apathy?

I spend a lot of my down time reading books and articles by Dr. Paul Farmer from Partners in Health, a charity organization focused on providing free health care to the poor in the developing world. What fascinates me is Dr. Farmer’s ability to articulate the connection between providing medical care and its connection to poverty alleviation and political advocacy. Why provide medical care and Band-Aids without addressing the fundamental circumstances that create such situations? The Institute for Health and Social Justice, or the advocacy branch of Partners in Health, is focused on “analyzing the impact of poverty and inequality on health, and to use such findings to educate and train students, academics, donors, policy makers, and lay people (16).” The same concept must be applied here, why find solutions without a fundamental understanding of the problem and how do we define our skills sets and use our agency as professionals to help create change? Why search and design solutions without fully understanding the problem space and the people who are aiming to help create positive change within it?

Who actually is striving for the longer-term? Space and Place?

Among the long list of organizations and people in Port-au-Prince today, two particular groups, or AMURThaiti and Haiti Communitaire, have caught my attention. Both groups touch on providing holistic strategies for the internally displaced families in the city center. Both organizations are striving to employ Haitians for the longer term and are utilizing longer-term solution strategies and are attempting to work with the major international relief agencies on the ground.

What exactly do I mean by this?

Lets take AMURThaiti as an example.

The hard technology or solution (the physical things that create place)?

Sanitation and organic matter composting strategies.

The synergetic collaboration that sustains such a solution (the intangible or space that creates and sustains place)?

The People: The families in Delmas 32 Sinaes idp camp, Patricia Arquette’s organization Give Love, and Haitian ran agency AMURThaiti.

The compost is made of local resources and organic matter and later used for urban agriculture and a food source for the students in the camp. This is an inserted program focused on local collaboration, solutions, and local sustainability grounded in people and environment.

I am sure there are a few more hidden gems attempting to integrate local and international; projects that bridge agencies, communities, and professionals and I am still on the hunt for them. For now, it is safe to say that the insertions and physical designs or projects that have occurred or are occurring in Port-au-Prince have begun on smaller scales. Such projects are often independent and are collaborations for smaller insertions.

Overlooking one of the many displaced camps in the city center.

January 2012

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Image of one of the many large ravines that act as the city sewerage infrastructure in PAP., May 2012.

Some local soccer stars in Villa Rosa January 2012

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Notes: (1.) See the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent’s (IFRC) publication on the principles of international humanitarian law.

Excerpt or example: Human rights law applies at all times and in all circumstances, and it concerns all persons subject to the jurisdiction of a State. Its purpose is to protect individuals from arbitrary behavior by the State. Human rights law, therefore, continues to apply in times of armed conflict. However, human rights treaties, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the European Convention and the American Convention on Human Rights authorize derogations under stringent conditions from some rights in time of “public emergency, which threatens the life of the nation,” of which armed conflict is certainly an example.

(2.) Refer to the Report by the Director-General on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Post-Earthquake Response in Haiti. The report emphasizes the fact that prior to the earthquake, Haiti’s economy was driven by international profits and that any strategy for reconstruction should emphasize local craftsman and the arts as well as include all public and private local and international sectors as well as large figures in Haitian society.

For more on UNESCO see their site http://www.unesco.org/new/en/. Also refer to Laura Zanotti’s article entitled “Caconophonies of Aid, Failed State Buildings and NGOs in Haiti: Setting the stage for disaster, envisioning the future, Third World Quarterly, 31:5, pp. 755-771.

(3.) See the Guardian’s article entitled Haiti Earthquake: Where Has the Aid Money Gone? http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/datablog/2012/jan/12/ haiti-earthquake-aid-money-data#data (4.) See the IFRC’s publication, IDRL in Haiti: A study on the legal framework for the facilitation and regulation of international disaster response in Haiti. This publication also emphasizes the overabundance of unregistered actors in Port-au-Prince following the earthquake.

(5.) Article and quote can be found on Partners in Health’s website: http://www.pih.org/news/entry/building-back-better-op-ed/ (6a.) See the IFRC’s publication on the Shelter Clusters for diagrams and text on how organizations work collaboratively.

(6b.) See same publication for the different key players in response.

(7.) Reconstruction begins the day of the disaster is a guiding principle within the World Bank’s publication, Safer Homes, Stronger Communities. Pp.1 (8.) This is stated as a response to my experience working on a slum-upgrading infrastructure project in Nairobi, Kenya. Sewerage Infrastructure is simply not possible without local and international collaboration and multiple parties. Designing sewerage without multiple housing strategies is also an impossible task. For these reasons, architects must be involved in the conversation.

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(9.) There are numerous publications on disease and space. What is important here is not how cholera came into the country, but how the complex disaster space (politics, economy, and environmental conditions) allowed for it to spread. There are numerous estimates on the amount of deaths, but not all have been recorded. See John Hopkin’s School of Public Health’s publications for some examples on the correlation between space and disease: http://www.jhsph. edu/research/centers-and-institutes/center-for-refugee-and-disaster-response/publications_tools/publications/_CRDR_ICRC_Public_Health_Guide_Book/Public_Health_Guide_for_Emergencies (10.) Phillipe Girard’s book, Haiti: The Tumultuous History-From Pearl of the Caribbean to Broken Nation, is a great historical piece to reference major moments in Haiti’s political history leading up to the earthquake. Also see Dr. Paul Farmer’s book, the Uses of Haiti.

(11a-c.) Refer to the book Rebuilding After Disasters by Gonzalo Lizarralde, Cassidy Johnson, and Colin Davidson. Some main points extracted: How can we, as professionals, react to a disaster situation? How can we improve post disaster reconstruction? What are the roles of architects, engineers and development practitioners after disasters? What are the roles of government actors and non-governmental organizations (ngos)? What is the role of local communities and how can it be respected? In order to answer these questions, it is very important to distinguish common misconceptions or myths from factual realities or reconstruction. This book challenges, among other subjects, the following myths: 1.The fact that disaster are natural (though they do follow natural events); 2.The common belief that effective rebuilding depends on the speed of construction; 3.The notion that housing reconstruction should be separated into three separate type—emergency, temporary and permanent 4.The idea that there are two dominating paradigms—bottom-up and top-down 5.The belief that community participation holds the key to successful reconstruction; 6.The preconception that prefabrication and industrialization should be avoided 7.The idea that centralized decision-making is the key to effective housing provision.

The field of reconstruction –both theory and practice—is filled with concepts that together amount to evolving paradigms; they sometimes help to clarify the real problems and assist the search for systemic plans of action, and sometimes their effect is exactly the opposite.

(12.) Refer to Jefferey Inaba’s book, The World of Giving. Pp. 212 (13.) To compare Persian architect, Nader Kahlili and Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, both have inserted their designs and technical knowledge for refugee camps around the globe. At this point in my travels and having participated in a Cal-Earth workshop it is clear that agencies were hesitant to deploy specialized designs. I hope to learn more about Shigeru Ban’s experience later in the year on my journey to Japan.

(14.) “According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the average estimated length of stay for refugees increased from 9 years in 1993 to 17 years by 2003.” –Un-Habitat, see http://www.unhabitat.org/categories.asp?catid=286 . For information on the global refugee and internally displaced populations, see the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee’s Global Trends Report 2011.

(15.) Refer to Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF or Doctors Without Borders) publication entitled, Haiti: Cholera Treatment, Prevention, and Vigilance Continue. http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/article.cfm?id=4815&cat=field-news (16.) See Partners in Health’s website: http://www.pih.org/pages/advocacy/

Photo taken at the Anderson’s house, in Newbern AL. March 2012.

“Not what we have, but what we see.

Not what we see, but what we choose.

These are the things that mar or bless.

The sum of human happiness.”

-A quilted quote from the Bailey dinning room.

Somewhere in Western Alabama

“Architecture is about shelter for the spirit.

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Proceed and Be Bold!”

-Samuel Mockbee 1944-2001

Photo taken at the Rural Studio pod projects, in Newbern AL. March 2012.

The Rural Studio l Newbern AL

Existing Solutions l Theme 2 Design Grey Space [That grey space between with and for, ownership and handout, old and new, reuse and import, tradition and moving forward.]

This story never started with architecture. It began with people. With time, the narrative transitioned into creating place. It evolved into a tale described through recycled carpet tiles, cardboard, and tires alongside an enthusiastic musician, energetic families, and academia. There is not an architect today who is not familiar with the Rural Studio and as the first benchmark for architects designing with and/or for underprivileged communities, the place has become a historic landmark in architectural history.

My original plan in visiting Newbern was quite simple. Tour the projects, from the Samuel Mockbee era to today’s Freear generation, document and speak to those involved as well as some of the locals, then later drive on to my next location. But, like most Branner travel experiences, things did not pan out as I originally planned. I ended up staying with a very special couple, the Baileys, in their guesthouse down the street from the pod projects (the stacked cardboard being my ultimate favorite), and of

course stayed much longer than expected. Instead of accumulating another summary of existing projects, which most of us are quite familiar with anyway, I had the privilege of getting a first hand narrative of Newbern and the studio from their biggest fan and lifetime Newbern resident, Anne Bailey.

Anne and her husband Whitelaw have been running a local hardware store, Sledge Hardware, for many years now and had spent their entire lives in Hale County. Whitelaw is a dairy farmer and Anne writes for various local newspapers. She has published a book, Buildings of Greensboro, and is more familiar with the Hale County historic architecture than anyone else in town (01). From the origins of the Rural Studio, Anne had been a big advocate and continues to write positive articles in support of the projects. She was a friend of Mockbees’, is quite familiar with the Andersons, and has interviewed the music man on various occasions. I immediately realized that if I were to get a sense of what the studio meant for Newbern, it was going to be through the Baileys.

It was Anne who encouraged me to meet the Andersons, visit the newer organization entitled Hero, and befriend some great people while in town. In many ways I am honored to of come across their bed and breakfast ad and to have gotten to know such great people. Such informal experiences are actually what have shaped much of my direction and research within this travel year.

This issue regarding ‘gifts’ or ‘handouts’:

March 19, 2012 l Original blog during my trip to Newbern

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I drove past the butterfly house, the rammed earth chapel, and ended up in a large yard in front of the Lucy House. Mr. Anderson and his two sons were spending the afternoon together on the patio and instantly greeted me with a smile. I suppose by now they were used to strange visitors coming to visit, and had been familiar with individuals coming to ask the same nerdy questions regarding the upkeep of the carpet tiles and architecture. So, as I approached the house I wondered what I might say and if I should be somewhat embarassed that I am yet another architecture student coming to invade their privacy.

To my surprise, Mr. Anderson instantly greeted me with a smile and commented on my Duke basketball t-shirt. Our conversation inescapably led into my thirteen years of basketball and my prior life track of pursuing college sports (I must ad that the pointless conversation of Lebron versus Jordan also came up as one of the sons had been a Tarheels fan. But, I am sorry Lebron fans, there is no competition, no one will ever surpass Jordan). After about thirty five minutes of sports talk, I finally confirmed that yes, I am but another architecture student interested in documenting their home. Mr. Anderson granted me access around the property to take some photos and ensured me that there have not been any issues with the construction.

They love their home and are to this day proud to show it off.

When I returned to the Bailey residence I asked Anne if such gifts actually helped lessen the hardships within the neighborhood. After various long conversations, with both the Baileys and a few friends living in the 20k houses and working with Hero, it became clear that such an answer is not clear. What began at the Rural Studio as working with the community to build better living situations has turned into a bigger production, with more imported materials and people, resulting in much larger scaled projects. What used to be individual families working with the studio, like the case of the Andersons, has become an agenda geared towards public scaled projects like Lions Gate Park.

The immediate question was then who is valuing the success of these projects and how are they determined as Design for Social Change if the financing, people who design and construct such projects, and the materials are predominantly imported?

At what point is a project considered a handout and how intimate or public must a project be to be considered a success or failure? In both cases, of Mockbee and the Freear eras, Newbern has accumulated various beautiful and useful architectural interventions. From chapels to skateparks, Hale County continues to be a testing ground for architectural invention. But, when many of the issues in Hale County stem from racial divides and dependencies on handouts like welfare, a culture of gift giving, speaking solely on my own behalf, appears to be the wrong approach. There is value in recreating place with low cost recycled materials, but how such interventions are financed, incorporated into a community, and sustained are of greater importance. If architects are truly designing for social change, we must find ways to fund and work with communities locally. Period.

Photo taken with Anne and Whitelaw Bailey in front of Sledge Hardware, Newbern AL. March 2012.

short note:

To the distant observer, this trip may seem random as it may or may not apply to an architect’s role in disaster. But I would argue that it is completely related, simply because architects continue to struggle with how we are to design with lower income and disaster affected communities when our profession is still in many ways driven by the client-architect model. The Rural Studio is at the core of this conversation in various ways, both in providing low cost solutions and confronting the very dilemma that

the architectural profession faces, or Designing With the Other 90%.

Photo of 20k houses Newbern, AL March 2012

Rural Studio and an architect’s role in disaster and camp contexts:

For the sake of applying the Rural Studio to my actual focus, or an architect’s role in disaster and the humanitarian context of camps, I think it will be best to narrow this down into the most obvious theme, something I would like to call designing grey space. The ability to reinvent how to construct place, with recycled materials and found objects with love and much consideration is something the Rural Studio has always been quite famous for. The founder, Samuel Mockbee, had the special gift of motivating others to build with the most estranged items and to find inspiration for solutions in the most unexpected places. This skill, or creating both functional and beautiful creations out of what others would typically consider as garbage, is quite rare. The act of inserting an architect into a place with minimal resources to create such solutions, is yet another prime example as to why an architect would be useful in disaster settings.

The obvious difference here is that in order to create solutions in a refugee/idp camp setting, we would have to begin creating not simply for beauty, but with an overarching agenda to lessen both environmental and human health related issues.

Populations affected by disaster, political or natural, are in many ways vulnerable and such interactions should never be seen as a testing ground but as providing full hearted and utilitarian solutions much like those provided by the Rural Studio. So, utilize Mockbee’s tool, building with recycled objects, and apply this McGiver-type skill and toolkit towards a specific set of issues within a disaster or refugee/idp camp context.

Stacked Cardboard house

Hero, the community rebuild organization: I would like to also highlight a local organization, Hero, which is directly influenced by the Rural Studio and partners with Habitat for Humanity to rebuild after the horrible devastation of the past years tornados that swept through Hale County. I have had the priveledge to get to know two staff members while touring the 20k houses, and have since learned much about their organization as well as seen some of their rebuild projects in Newbern.

Please take the time to see their website: http://www.herohousing.org/index.php The Grey Space in disaster response: 02:50

Note: I am skipping over the topic of preparedness, as in many ways this is another subject to be investigated independently and directly. When dealing with refugee/idp camp situation, we are assuming that little preparation or warning has taken place, thus creating a demand for external intervention and aid. Lets start from the moment an event takes place.

Also, see diagrams under Theme 2 l Design Grey Space

Mason’s Bend Rammed Earth Chapel

Disaster strikes!

First, people begin to move. As groups flee the disaster situation, new groups enter to assist populations in immediate need that were unable to evacuate the devastated area. This period is called immediate response and is the area where humanitarian aid operates. As defined by those within the profession of humanitarian aid, the period of greatest need for immediate relief is within the first 72 hours. Tarps, tents, food, water, and security are all provided by international relief organizations to as many individuals as possible.

Second, time goes by; say a week, a month, then a year. Humanitarian aid remains until international donations end/money runs out or local government officials and communities can recover independently. In the majority of the world, especially in the global south, this area is better understood as the grey space. As seen in situations like Haiti, where two years after the earthquake there are still organizations handing out immediate relief alongside longer-term development projects, there tends to be no on and off switch for humanitarian aid. This area is grey, because in addition to whatever humanitarian crisis the country endured prior to the earthquake, the additional layer of temporary spaces has caused the need for additional relief. This is the vicious cycle of more short-term assistance.

Lastly, if possible, the local government, private institutions, and other actors are capable of leading projects into development and long-term recovery. This is stage 3.

Backside of the Anderson’s house

Why I chose to focus on refugee/internally-displaced situations is as follows:

Any disaster, natural or man-made, that results in the creation of camp spaces is more directly a result of humanitarian crisis prior to any event. In areas where international profiteering, massive governmental corruption, or even when longer-term conflict crisis are front and center, much of what humanitarian actors have been able to provide over the past 50 years are simply not capable of sustainably supporting such disaster-affected populations in such make shift spaces. At the same time, architects and planners have only begun to integrate within the humanitarian aid and development contexts. There is a high demand for the architect willing to assist in such locations, learn on the ground, and implement utilitarian and process driven solutions. After the first 72 hours, while planning relocation and longer-term recovery strategies, an architect will be most useful. The services and technologies we implement, whether that is sewerage or local materials and building strategies, can directly impact the longer-term dependency on relief. Our ability to come up with multiple solutions, on the ground, is of our greatest asset in such situations.

A quote by architect/planner and disaster expert, Mitchell Sipus:

“Architects are trained to approach social space as a design space rather than as a social enterprise...Refugee camp design has more to do with legal systems, public interests, access to capital, then eventually skillful implimentation.”

References: (01) Here is a link to Anne Bailey’s book, Buildings in Greensboro: http://au.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2308206 (02) See Mitchell Sipus’s blog/website: http://www.thehumanitarianspace.com/ and his publication and Masters of Community Planning thesis from the University of Cincinnati on a shelter assesment within the Dadaab Refugee camp: http://etd.ohiolink.edu/view.cgi?acc_num=ucin1289937158

Hero reconstruction site

02:52

Photo of Lions Park Playground

Tornado damage in Newbern 03.12

Theme 02 l Design Grey Space

01 l

Existing Scenario

02 l

Deploy Architect Alongside Communities, Agencies, and Professionals

03 l

Immediate Relief is able to carry-on to next disaster

02:54

Immediate relief is an effective system that is providing short-term solutions around the world for the refugee and internally displaced populations. The issue exists in the more difficult phase, or sustainable development, and the transition to the longer-term. Currently, there is a major gap, or grey space, between immediate relief and sustainable development as a direct result of the two phases operating separately. There is currently no professional body that links the two locally, with both services and technology, alongside both phases and bodies of people. It is in this grey space that many people die from avoidable illnesses as a direct result of the lack of longer-term technologies such as sewerage infrastructure as well as the deterioration of the shortterm deployed environments.

Deploying architects into the humanitarian and disaster affected spaces will allow for a more efficient and effective bridge between relief and sustainable development. Depending on the type of disaster scenario and location, agencies should deploy a specific type of architect based on their skill sets. Architecture is a profession grounded in the collaboration between various professions, institutions, locals, and policy makers.

We are trained to problem solve and design systems of physical parts as well as strategies and systems of people. No other profession can build with their hands, design a city scale strategy, and connect how the two directly impacts and shapes the human scale and natural environment.

Through the implementation of solutions that generate longer-term conversation and collaboration, there is a direct flow immediately following the first 72 hours into longer-term spaces and environments. This will lessen the impact of preventable disease, save costs on immediate relief, and allow for humanitarian aid to focus their finances, attention, and people on another desperate location.

“We are focusing on earth because that is what is available to everyone in the world(01).”

Nader Khalili

architect and founder of the Cal-Earth Institute

Existing Solutions l Theme 3 the Expert System 95% Local, 5% Import

Nader Khalili 1936-2008

“When technology surges, the role of the architect is validated.

The last twenty-five years stand as an exception to the historical rule. Buildings have become enormously more complicated—in their systems and tectonic complexity, but more so in their financial, political, and legal trappings. The act of building is more complicated; there are increased numbers of stakeholders, all of them potential litigants. There is increased influence and involvement by the financial classes, because the money we use to finance buildings is borrowed, and subject more to interest rates than to capital constraints. As the act of building has become more complicated, architecture in many ways has shrunk from that complexity. This retreat has allowed the professions of project management and construction management to fully develop. It assumed, mistakenly, that there was something strategic in focusing on what we were really good at and/or really interested in: the professional production of schematic designs and construction documents. This latest surge in technology has only served to validate the existence of other professions(02).”

Down Detour Road: An Architect in Search of Practice Eric Cesal

Project Coordinator, Construction Manager, and Architect at Bati Byen or Architecture for Humanity, Haiti.

“This building system focuses on housing as a basic human right, and on the economic empowerment of people by participating in creating their own homes and communities, while at the same time addressing today’s global needs: preserving natural resources and energy, halting deforestation, slowing pollution and global warming, promoting health, healing communities and cultures shattered by globalization, sheltering the homeless and refugees(03).”

The California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture

02:56

On Superadobe Construction

(01)

Cal-Earth Institute l Hesperia CA

Among the few pieces of advice I have been given on this thesis journey, one statement in particular has stuck with me.

The statement goes something like this; “Simply designing new solutions to add to the bank of housing options for vulnerable populations is the easy way out. Anyone can do it, and everyone has. What is more challenging and extremely difficult is to look at the entirety of the issue, from the world of international aid and agency to the fundamental issues that exist within the architecture profession itself, and to discover small insertion points for change. Being an activist today does not simply equate to street protests and demanding change from the sidelines. Activism means to see a problem and use your specific skills and set of tools to encourage others to create change through understanding and optimism alongside all parties involved. Excluding the people who create the problems we see or experience is not the answer. These are the individuals that can directly affect and create the change we seek. By dismissing such groups we conspire to moments of injustice through our own apathy.”

Nader Khalili was both an architect and an activist. He believed everyone should have access to basic building principles and that constructing with the fundamental elements of life; ie earth, air, fire, and water, one could sustain a healthy and affordable lifestyle. The Cal-Earth Institute is not simply about building earth domes and promoting superadobe construction. It is a place to learn, experiment, and test new ideas behind the basic principles of earth architecture. As a result of Nader’s all-inclusive strategy, where all are welcome to learn and test building techniques with earth, tens of thousands of individuals from across the globe have been given the tools to build for themselves regardless of their educational, cultural, or economic backgrounds.

Khalili had created a multiplier effect, originating from one individual to tens of thousands; a process one could call the all-inclusive expert system.

(02)

“At what point did Khalili stop engaging with international relief agencies? Why had the United Nations not continued constructing superadobe structures in refugee camps across the globe after its success in Iran? Had the political landscape of international relief not fully understood the potential of building with earth? Maybe the system is too corrupt to really want to benefit people? For these reasons, maybe architects should solely focus on directly helping people one-on-one.”

02:58

Architects must no longer think this way. One architect with their singular tool cannot solve the multifaceted issues that the people in humanitarian aid, development, and communities affected by crisis face. The most important contribution Khalili made was his engagement with agency and his ability to simplify how to construct with the world’s most widely available tool; earth. The critical point is to understand that he knew what his particular tool was and was capable of initiating the conversation with the groups of people who assist and manage issues surrounding refugee and internally displaced populations. When we understand our limits and our specific tools, whether you are an expert in concrete or a planning architect, you are then able to use those tools towards a particular issue in a precise location.

“So through years of education and experience I then specialize in a particular tool but how then am I any different and useful in regards to the world of humanitarian aid and development? I can’t just walk into the United Nations and demand that I am useful to them and they hire me. Who says I even want to work for a relief or development agency. I just want to directly help people learn to build on their own after a disaster. Only small organizations can really make direct change.”

To such skeptical individuals, you are all definitely correct and this too was my initial reaction after my first visit to Port-AuPrince. Learning your specific tool is only half of the equation and working with small organizations will allow you to partake in any direct action and create immediate change and solutions. There is nothing wrong with this and many organizations around the world would probably hire you to build solutions on smaller scales. You will be able to bring to light how architects, through our buildings and designs, can partake in the current global agenda to eliminate global poverty, reach the Millennium Development Goals, or even succeed in designing hospitals to fight malaria or HIV/Aids(04).

But also know that these topics have become fashionable and we must understand when to respond with short-term direct action and when to respond with longer-term services and technologies in order to become part of any solution. The only way to do this is for every architect interested in ‘designing with the other 90 percent’ to become more knowledgeable about the systems of people and professions involved in both immediate relief and international development(05). It must be mandatory for students to take a course on global poverty, to have heard the term ‘structural adjustment’ and understand its consequences, and to know that no issue surrounding such topics can be done simply through an individual and their design. We have to readjust our thinking and processes to first acknowledge what the larger systemic issues are, attempt to highlight which collaboration would best fit that particular scenario, and then insert a particular tool or skill as it applies to the whole.

(03)

The Expert System l Khalili, Earth, and Other ‘Tools’ To speak only for myself, the best part of the Cal-Earth workshop was experiencing how simple architecture is and should be.

For years, I have personally struggled to define exactly what my tool was and how my interests might apply to the rest of the world. As a Florida Gator, I was trained to design, while as a Cal graduate student, I was drilled to relate and communicate how design relates to human and environmental issues. Yet even after six years of education, I still felt like there was no direct skill I could provide. Now I understand that my mindset was in the wrong place. The process of simplifying how to create material, building, and community scale systems as they apply directly to people, and knowing how to insert such creations into a particular scenario, is a skill that has always been architecture. I am extremely fortunate to have known my interests in international humanitarian assistance and development as well as to have an entire year of travel to explore such topics as they relate to architecture. Architecture is my skill, but to be honest, I am also convinced that another focus is in my future to further define what my ‘tool’ might be.

As hinted by the introductory quote by Eric Cesal, architects have begun to take on the role as masters of everything and experts at nothing. We are instructed to rely heavily on our ability to communicate what we may know through drawing and are relying more and more on technology to make for us. The craft is changing with technology as it always has, but technology has replaced our craft in many ways. Well, that is, if you see it that way. An architect’s skill is always their systems driven mind and the craft has always been problem solving and creating. Instead of following the expanding and globalized world, simply because it provided so much potential in recent years, we should also begin to focus on how we solve human problems locally and emphasize our ability to create without having to import from across the world or depend on multiple parties to solve what is right in front of us. As technological innovation continues to soar, so does the gap between everyday people and those who determine what technologies are needed. If we begin to insert architects into other professions, like humanitarian aid and/or development for instance, we will see how useful both our skill and individual tools actually can be.

The more technology and solutions the world creates, the more valuable the architect will be.

“Marcy, I am sure your skills would be very useful to our agency. If you have the appropriate insurance, you are welcomed to be airlifted into Southern Sudan to shadow our agency. Please let me know your options.”

-yes, this happened…and don’t worry dad, I am not going.

An email excerpt from an anonymous person in an anonymous international relief agency.

Today, there are more solutions and technologies geared towards solving problems in the global south than ever before.

Cellular attachment devices that test your eyesight, brilliant medical machines built from lego pieces, disposable sanitation bags that decompose in time, housing solutions made of paper tubes, the list will continue to go on (06). This idea of ‘leapfrog technology’, or the ability to lessen the impacts of poverty through technology, has only begun to flourish. But the question here is how has and will architecture continue to be part of this conversation? Does the architect become useless simply because technology is easier to disseminate and can solve problems faster than our profession has been able to react to such innovations? I mean buildings and sewerage systems do take longer to make than a PeePoople bag to disseminate(07). But anyways, the answer is no, architects actually are becoming more relevant. Why? Well, because fast solutions are only a part of the equation and are only capable of solving the now. The architect, or the local systems gatherer and solution provider, solves both the now and creates the platform for a better longer-term.

Lets look at Nader’s tool, building with earth, as an example.

In my particular workshop, we had a famous jujitsu fighter, a carpenter, people from at least four different continents, a retired construction manager, an artist, an ex army guy and now firefighter, a brilliant percussionist, and the list could go on. Every person in our workshop, regardless of his or her background, was interested in and capable of building with this tool. Every individual had come to the workshop to learn how to use earth and will be able to apply it to a particular situation. One person wanted to build an eco-village in Africa while another wanted to be able to afford and construct his own home. Each and every individual had their own agenda and Cal-Earth was simply there to give each person some skill sets and a particular tool to achieve their goals.

02:60

(04)

But does this make us less useful or cause us to give up our agency as professionals? No. Why? Because each person still will have to go through the political measures to complete their agenda. Although they now have essentially been taught to fish, they must still go through the political processes and building codes to create a superadobe structure. For those who want to build the Cal-Earth Eco-Dome, Nader had already gone through the California building department and seismic tests to approve its structural requirements(08). But in reality, not every individual will want to build a superadobe Eco-Dome structure.

For those individuals, the task may become a little trickier but would not be impossible. The point is that because of the need for professionalism, building codes, and testing, the architect and expert is and will always be needed to make sure that our built environment is safe for those who inhabit it. Workshops like Cal-Earth do nothing but allow for every day people to appreciate and participate in the art and skill that is architecture. We are more relevant because of such institutions and I thank the Khalili family, Ian, and Bridget for continuing Nader’s vision.

But how is a simple technology, or earth, more useful than a tarpaulin or t-shelter? I wouldn’t necessarily say that it is more useful, as that is a vague and pointless argument without applying it to a certain context and timeframe within disaster, but the process behind constructing with earth and its global availability definitely earns more bonus points than the costs of importing another boxed object. As for any competition with leapfrog technologies, there actually is no competition. Many of the people involved in creating today’s most innovative devices are inspired by architects and are also using their professional agency to spread similar ideas around the globe. They are also professionals, with innovative new ideas that want to work with us.

(05)

A final thought to sum this up. When deploying an architect, people can speak to another individual, shake their hand, and can actually learn something. The architect can also choose whether they want to use their agency as a professional to help encourage and work with others to change the longer-term political situations that surrounds a particular situation. With a t-shelter or tarpaulin, whether the affected community has the choice to pick between one type of shelter or another, they are still instructed that one of five ways is best for them and there is no real participation in this process. Architects, whether an earth expert or otherwise, can give individuals and families a basic human right that deployed designs never will; and that is the freedom to choose. People can have the choice to learn a specific tool and will have the option to learn how to build on their own. In a context like Port-au-Prince, where the demand for adequate and safe housing is greater than what a singular individual or a small organization can provide, deploying architects that can engage with the local building industries and people will have a much greater positive long-term affect than deploying an isolated and anti-contextual object.

(06)

(07)

(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

02:62

(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 27(09)

References (01). Refer to Cal-Earth’s website, www.calearth.org (02). See Eric Cesal’s book, Down Detour Road: An Architect in Search of Practice, pp.33-34 (03). Refer to www.calearth.org (04). Refer to the UN’s website for publications on the MDGs, http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ (05). Design With the Other 90% is a global campaign by Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and the Smithsonian, http://www.designother90.org/cities/ home (06). To check out some new innovative technologies see Berkeley’es CITRUS lab or MIT’s D-Lab or Media Lab: http://citris-uc.org/, http://d-lab.mit.edu/, and http://www.media.mit.edu/ (07). Check out the PeePooplePeople here: http://www.peepoople.com/ (08). Information on the Eco-Dome and codes see http://calearth.org/building-designs/eco-dome.html (09). All 30 Articles in the Declaration of Human Rights can be found here: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

Photos Cal-Earth: (01) Photo taken during brick laying session for curved domed vaults.

(02) Photo of one of the instructors giving a lecture on earth content.

(03) Emergency shelter in the works (04) Photo of the superadobe emergency structure my workshop made in less than 15 hours.

(05) Photo of one of the Cal-Earth Interns demonstrating brick form making.

(06) The “eyebrow” technique in superadobe construction (07) Photo taken inside Mars 1, built by Nader Khalili for NASA research in the early 1980s.

01 l

02 l

Humanitarian Aid

Theme 03 l The Expert System When focusing soley on superadobe construction’s relation to agency: Superadobe is a very useful technology for housing homeless populations across the globe. The technique is simple, environmentally friendly, and uses the most widely available material in the world. The issues Nader faced dealt a lot with the politics behind relief agencies and the fact that in emergency relief the tarpaulin is the article for shelter. Although his intentions to house the homeless and refugee populations were in the right place, the world of architecture and the world of relief/development had acted as two separate disciplines. As the architecture world focused directly on technologies like superadobe and earth architecture to house the poor, the relief system was strengthening its tarp deployment system and services.

72 hours

Isafhan, Iran people

Materials

Other Professionals

Result:

How architects should begin to address issues surrounding relief/development: Nader Khalili’s interaction with others and his ability to specify his particular tool is the greatest asset in superadobe construction. The workshops at Cal-Earth that were run for the UNDP, the implementation of earth shelters in Iran, and the thousands of individuals who now know how to build on their own are a testament to his success. It is because of precedents like Khalili that architects need to begin to see that not only is their individual tool important, but also one’s ability to understand topics surrounding humanitarian aid and development. If we educate ourselves to design with the changing world and not remain centrally focused on architectural design, we will be able to strengthen our demand as professionals. Solving some of the world’s greatest problems today can only be tackled through mutual processes, as design not only can change the world but the world must also change design.

E

United Nations Development Programme

Nader Khalili

Deployed Nader Khalili after Bam Earthquake in Isfahan, Iran.

Engineering

structures

Built superadobe structures with over 20,000 community members.

EA Components and Systems

The structures protected the community from future seismic events, were cost-efficient, and remain in the longer-term.

Architecture

envelopes

Superadobe principles and materials

A

EAP Buildings

02:64 earthworks

Town

Engineering

Architecture

Components and Systems

structures

envelopes

Planning Town

Metropolis

earthworks

sanitation

Nader Khalili l

Scales

**The chart above, although minimized and solely focused on scale, was influenced by both Richard Llewelyn-Davies 1967 and Eric Cesal’s 2009 diagrams on architecture’s relation with other professions. See Eric Cesal’s book, Down Detour Road: An Architect in Search of Practice, figure3.2

Superadobe

**If one were to focus on the superadobe design as it applies to agency

earthworks

Sustainable Development

Materials

implemented wherever agency could allow

Nader Khalili

Time

Time

Metropolis

02

Scales

**If one were to focus on the benefits of deployign an architect into a disaster scenario.

Development Aid

AP

Urban Design/ Planning

Earth Architect l

Deployed Design Humanitarian Aid

sanitation

P

Humanitarian Aid 72 hours

Engineering

Deploy Architect(s) here to work alongside C, A, + P

Tools Prioritized based on local parameters l SYNERGY MODEL

Note: All Architects must focus on local employment and economies while solving issues surrounding public health. 95% local : 5% import ratio is the only way to link relief to development.

structures

E

Materials

EA

The Expert System Components and Systems

envelopes

Toolkit

of knowledge and solutions

EAP

Architecture

A

Buildings

If improving people’s lives is to be at the center of any agenda, then any and all conversations must never revolve around a particular profession. During my travels through Europe, I realized that my original itinerary and agenda had been guided through solely an architectural agenda and lens. My itinerary, after my second trip to Haiti in May, has since been focused on both understanding the humanitarian and development spaces as well as defining an architects’ role in assisting such professions and people. After my recent experiences in Port-au-Prince and in conversations with individuals throughout East Africa, I am convinced that our profession would benefit tremendously if we were to reposition our mindset and approach to seeing how we fit into a larger system of people.

earthworks

Town

Sustainable Development

sanitation

**Any argument as to why the world should **Any argument as to why world should deployapplys deploy architects intothe a disaster setting architects into a refugee/idp camp situation applys firstwith withthethe built environment’s intersection first built environment’s intersection with public health. health. with global

AP

Metropolis

Urban Design/ Planning

“ ...If, then, the earth too moves in other ways, for example, about a center, its additional motions must likewise be reflected in many bodies outside it. Among these motions we find the yearly revolution. For if this is transformed from a solar to a terrestrial movement, with the sun acknowledged to be at rest, the risings and settings which bring the zodiacal signs and fixed stars into view morning and evening will appear in the same way. The stations of the planets, moreover, as well as their retrogradations and (resumptions of) forward motion will be recognized as being, not movements of the planets, but a motion of the earth, which the planets borrow for their own appearances. Lastly, it will be realized that the sun occupies the middle of the universe. All these facts are disclosed to us by the principle governing the order in which the planets follow one another, and by the harmony of the entire universe, if only we look at the matter, as the saying goes, with both eyes.”

-Nicholaus Copernicus in De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (1543 )

P

Scales

Time

(02)

1) The built environment alone cannot and will never be able to address the fundamental issues surrounding disasters.

(2) Architecture, by itself, can only provoke the public’s attention to regard policy.

(3) Architecture, although unable to directly change policy, is never separate from it.

(4) When politics fail and larger scale solutions are far from becoming realized, architects can provide the longer-term housing and other small-scale solutions alongside affected communities and other professionals. We can use our knowledge, skills, and individual tools to help ‘leapfrog’ affected communities back to pursuing their everyday lives.

(5) In order to strengthen our role as professionals, architects must continue to go beyond the client-architect relationship in order to assist in disaster scenarios. Otherwise, we will simply restrict ourselves to pro bono work or will only be capable of serving the select few who are able to afford our services. Gifts in the long run, especially when regarding the link between humanitarian aid and development, will benefit NO ONE in the equation.

02:68

Existing Solutions l Theme 04 The Leap-Frog Architect

(01)

The Make It Right Foundation l New Orleans LA

During my stay in New Orleans, I had been very fortunate to be hosted by a family friend and long time New Orleans resident.

Over some shrimp Po Boy’s and a drink, we spoke about her experience working for the New Orleans homeless service organization entitled Unity, her evacuation and process of returning home after the levees failed, and the complex political failures and environmental issues that led and contributed to the devastation that we Americans entitle as ‘Katrina’ (01a). Our conversation inevitably led into why I was interested in traveling to New Orleans and how it would apply to my research in camp situations or other areas of the globe with worse financial and political situations than that of the United States.

“An underlying interest of mine is defining an architect’s role in disaster situations. In regards to New Orleans, I have in recent years been skeptical about the star architects that flew in from around the world to build in the Lower 9th Ward. Where do the children there even go to school? How do they get services? Have you read the Shock Doctrine(02a)? The Storm(02b)? Why are architects rebuilding in a site that will flood again? New Orleans is the most blighted city in America, with over 55,000 abandoned residential and commercial buildings with between 6000-8000 homeless people residing in them (01b). Is there anyone focusing on that?”

I was instantly silenced. Then, I was instructed that the Make It Right Foundation was one of the few successes that had actually occurred in New Orleans after the levees failed. The people of New Orleans had completely embraced Brad Pitt and the project. Pitt had moved his entire family to New Orleans, devoted years of his life and millions of dollars to help a community that was to be completely abandoned by the state. When politics failed, it was community, charity, and professionals that had pulled through. My inclination and initial thoughts were beyond wrong. As a housing project or solution, the Make It Right homes are a positive example.

Architecture can provoke change: “Make It Right builds safe, sustainable and affordable homes for working families. We aim to be a catalyst for change in the building industry in New Orleans and beyond.”

“In addition to building 150 new homes in the Lower 9th Ward, Make It Right is also engaged in innovative efforts to repair and improve the infrastructure, the storm-preparedness, and the beauty of the community.” www.makeitrightnola.org (03) From an architect’s perspective, the Make It Right homes are both an inspiration and great example to how our profession can provoke change. Although a singular organization is incapable of solving the fundamental issues surrounding ‘Katrina’, I think it is safe to say that such a grassroots approach was the right one. The fact that each home was owner driven, predominantly bought and owned by the families, as well as ensured that each affected individual had the proper paperwork and insurance coverage for the next disaster, MIR should be seen as a great solution example in the aftermath of Katrina.

Also, the focus on sustainable building and the use of advanced green technologies are another positive component of the project. The use of such technologies, from solar panels to green roofs, have lessened the costs generated by each of the homes. So not only can an architect utilize leap-frog technologies, but we can put multiple solutions together to address a singular complex problem (04). The Lower 9th Ward is soon to become a community of 150 unique examples that will continue to provoke change in New Orleans.

02:70

The leap-frog architect This skill, or searching for solutions and defining what a solution might be, is very difficult in disaster scenarios. To see suffering, relate to other people, and be proactive as both another human being and as a professional is something that you can only learn how to do through experience. It is also important to note that determining whether one is being proactive versus reactive may not always be clear when both immediate and longer-term assistance is needed. Deciding which is right or wrong, or immediate versus longer-term solutions, in reality will always be decided after the fact as the success of such projects often are initially determined by those who pay for them.

Who really determines success?

In the case of Make It Right, the clients, or Brad Pitt and the affected families, defined the success of the project. I am entitling Brad as the ‘leap-frog architect’ because he used his agency, as both a public figure and an aspiring designer, to provide and work alongside families and other professionals to rebuild the Lower 9th Ward. The issue? There unfortunately is only one Brad Pitt in this world and not every client has similar values or agendas. Nor is every client also passionate about architecture.

This case is in every way unique.

Now to address the giant elephant that sits in just about every design activism rant: Who’s paying?

Humanitarian aid and camps: In regards to refugee and idp camp situations, donor contracts and budget sheets drive projects. Much of the metrics in humanitarian aid is focused directly on the alleviation of immediate suffering and is subsequently concerned with services and short-term or temporary relief articles. To the best of my knowledge, there is no general budget for longer-term services or technologies and as a result, issues of safety and health are a direct concern for agencies as many of these camps operate for decades. Relief workers and deployed professionals are often having to design individual programs to address specific issues within a particular camp setting as there is no set of ‘best practices’ that are applicable to such dynamic spaces.

It is possible to positively impact complex situations in a camp setting, within budget constraints, through design. But, how to determine the value or success of a particular program or design project, will change on a case-by-case basis. Deploying

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the leap-frog architect, or the individual whom can both communicate with affected communities on the ground as well as assist and work with the groups that control and operate such spaces, will only help lessen some of the longer-term issues. The ability to design grey space, or propose several types of physical and strategic solutions within the same complex location, is a skill an architect is already trained to do. Through experience working in disaster scenarios, such a professional would be both trained in humanitarian assistance and design, and be able to communicate between the multiple groups involved.

Also, aside from the Sphere Mandate and a few United Nations handbooks, which are seen typically more so as guidelines than actual rules when in a disaster, there is no definitive human designed metric, aside from amount of items given, which defines the success or failure of relief assistance. I think it is safe to say that a model set for the urban internally displaced, or a situation like Port-au-Prince, will be starkly different than one geared towards a longer-term refugee crisis as seen at the Dadaab or Kakuma camps in Kenya. Both are receiving similar relief articles, yet the two are extremely separate contexts in need of unique and separate longer-term solutions. Where metrics and data can no longer determine a response, people must be deployed to find longer-term human geared solutions alongside affected communities, agencies, and other professionals.

Some thoughts: Can we learn from overarching human development objectives to begin how to rethink how aid assesses relief projects, specifically in refugee/idp camp settings? Will this even matter if the donor does not allocate for such funds geared for the longer-term? If an architect is to insert his or herself into a disaster scenario alongside multiple parties, and break outside the client-architect role, how can we assist in figuring out a human driven model to set variables and gauge the success of our insertions? Who will determine what success will mean? I am not Amartya Sen or Dambisa Moyo, nor do I hold a degree in urban planning or economics, but I do plan to ask as many individuals as possible involved in humanitarian aid/refugee camp contexts how to approach such an idea. From recent experiences and conversations, with building professionals working in Dadaab to individuals at the UNHCR, it has become clear that I am not the only one concerned and/or interested with these issues.

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“If freedom is what development advances, then there is a major argument for concentrating on that overarching objective, rather than on some particular means, or some specially chosen list of instruments.

Economic unfreedom can breed social unfreedom, just as social or political unfreedom can also foster economic unfreedom(05).”

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-Amartya Sen in Development As Freedom pp.03-08

Note: I am aware that development and refugee camp situations hold two completely separate objectives and political statures. I am refering to Development As Freedom to highlight the need for an overarching longer-term freedom-based objective for areas driven by short-term agendas and direct action. If the focus of camps are to alleviate human suffering, yet the physical place creates additional human unfreedoms, such as violence, rape, or human health catastrophe, then there must be an additional objective set in place for the adaptation of such environments that are independent of external economic and political restraints.

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References: (01a) Refer to Unity of Greater New Orlean’s website: http://unitygno.org/ (01b) Statistics on issues surrounding homelessness and the blight issues in New Orleans can also be found on Unity’s website: http://unitygno.org/homeless-resource-directory/ (02a) See Naomi Klein’s book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism for a more in depth explanation of the wide spread loss of public services following the aftermath of Katrina.

(02b) The Storm: What Went Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina -The Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientist by Ivor Van Heerden gives an in-depth narrative of what went wrong and some of the more complex issues surrounding the levee, political, and environmental failures that resulted in the loss of thousands of lives.

(03) See the Make It Right Foundation’s website: www.makeitrightnola.org (04) Leap-frog technologies are generally understood to be innovative small-scale solutions that lessen the impact of poverty on affected populations. A leap-frog architect, in this sense, would both utilize leap-frog technologies as well as act as a midiator between the parties of people whom are both affected by poverty and disaster as well as those whom can promote or create change.

(05) Refer to Amartya Sen’s, Development as Freedom. pp.03-08.

Photos Make it Right Foundation: (01) Photo of Make it Right home (02) Photo of students from the MIT planning class taught by Professor Abannat. I joined in on class tours in order to get a better sense of what was happening on the ground.

(03) Image of Make it Right history board located in the Lower Ninth Ward.

(04) Photo of one of several abandoned homes throughout the Ninth Ward.

(05) Home designed by David Adjaye and Associates (06) Home designed by Constructs Architects (07) Home designed by Morphosis Architects.

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Theme 04 l The Leapfrog Architect

As an architect, I was trained in basic engineering, construction, and design principles. I am capable of taking complex issues and providing a multitude of solutions at any number of scales. Yet, the skill I simply do not have is the ability to see such spaces via policy and other intangibles. Through solely architecture, there is no set of tools to measure or value the success of our insertions outside of the client-architect model. In disaster response, experiences have shown that the result of ill-guided metrics and economics is often the cost of human life, additional environmental catastrophe, and ultimately the platform for future disaster.

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How does a project impact Environment? Human health? Safety? All of the above at an affordable cost and in relation to a multitude of scales? How do we link funders and a project’s occupants in addition to designing to such multi-faceted topics?

How are policies shaping our built environment and if such policies are steering us in the wrong direction how can metrics begin to sculpt a brighter path? How can architects deploy themselves, utilize an empirical based method to address complex issues and clearly define how we, as professionals and not simply our designs, can take part in solving it? Basically, how do architects fit into the larger whole that is international development?

The diagrams are a reflection of my experiences and were used during my travels as a tool to better understand an architect’s role within the complex world of disaster response. It has become clear that there is now an opportunity to design and measure our own project prompts alongside communities and other professionals via existing global development indicators. We now have the technology, knowledge, and collaborative networks to utilize our skills in the disaster space in order to shape policy while taking part in the creation of social enterprises and assisting residents in reshaping their own communities and future environments.

As architects continue to discover our profession’s intersections and impacts on global public health, environment, economics, and policy, we will need to publicly document an empirical method that clearly defines the impacts of our services as they relate to and can adapt with affected communities and other professionals in disaster scenarios.

Based on these tools, which have been combined to inform some sort of spatial design, will affected communities, agencies, and other professionals understand an architect’s value?

Not unless we can measure the impact of our services as they apply directly to those same networks of people.

01 l

What exactly is in the architect’s toolkit?

This is in every way an oversimplified diagram, as there are many types of architects with specific tools, but overall I believe we have defined our services as spatial designers. Our spatial sensibility, or ability to grasp material to urban scale systems as they impact people, is a rare skill that is highly needed in shaping both the built and natural environments. All we are missing, is the ability to measure this service/skill as it impacts health, economics, environment, and policy in disaster response/development.

02 l

The Whos and the Whys that create the Whats

Who are the actors in global relief and development that are utilizing metrics to define their agenda?

Why are these actors measuring? So, what documents are available to the public that speak about each groups overarching agenda or measuring tool?

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Note: The diagram is only an example of a small group of people. There are tens of thousands of organizations and people involved in disaster response and development, at multiple scales, and in various political/economic contexts. The United Nations branches and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies are the two main international relief/development players. I am using FEMA and the Salvation Army in order to example community based and national based institutions/organizations involved in a particular context. Each location will have a different set of players, but the overarching point is that Millennial Development is now a global agenda, so it is now the professionals role to make sure the equation is balanced and communities have a real part in this process.

The full animation can be seen on travel site l http://www.synergeticaid.net/themes#!__themes/vstc19=eek/vstc17=4-the-%27leapfrog%27-architect

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03 l

What are we measuring?

There are four main indicators in development. Typically, we hear of three, or environment, economics, and health. From my experiences, shadowing and speaking to hundreds of relief/development workers this past year, it is clear that policy is also a main indicator of development. If policies are hindering the growth of the other three indicators, metrics of the three are used to push policy. All four are parametrically related.

How do the trends in relief and development relate to the building professions?

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Engineers and Urban Planners have already been directly involved with this conversation for some time.

If architecture is the intersection of urban planning/design and engineering/construction principles at the human scale, we should embrace our position as mediator and begin to learn how both professions are measuring. Through their intersections we will be able to redefine how we value architecture, begin to address problems surrounding disasters directly alongside other professionals, and become proactive professionals in the disaster space.

Note: The model at the end of the animation is to be completely adaptable. It is intended to be dependent on ground-up metrics and require the architect to deploy themselves in order to assist other local professionals and people until the deployed architect’s assistance is no longer needed. As this is all still in the works and I plan on attempting to utilize this model in a particular scenario in my final thesis project, the information provided is mostly providing basic questions and is connecting basic relationships.

The full animation can be seen on travel site l http://www.synergeticaid.net/themes#!__themes/vstc19=page-2/vstc17=4-the-%27leapfrog%27-architect

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Humanitarian Aid

Engineering

E Urban Planning + Landscape l ULP

Engineering + Construction l EC P l EC

H l EC

Materials

72 hours

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En l ULP 100%

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[Maintenance, Origin]

envelopes

En l EC

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A

Buildings

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Ec l ULP 100%

earthworks

En l ULP 100%

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0%

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En l ULP 100%

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0%

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P

P l EC

H l EC P l EC

H l EC

100% H l ULP

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Ec l ULP 100%

En l ULP 100%

100%

100% P l ULP

Ec l ULP 100%

100% P l ULP

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Ec l ULP

100% H l ULP

En l EC

P l EC

Ec l EC

Urban Design/ Planning

En l ULP 100%

[x3] Community P l EC

H l EC

100% H l ULP

Ec l ULP 100% H l EC

AP

Ec l ULP 100%

P l EC

H l EC

100% H l ULP

[x2]

Ec l ULP 100%

P l EC

0%

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Scales

Time

03 l Toolkit

100% H l ULP

0%

Ec l EC

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Economic (EC)

[Code] Policy (P)

H l EC

sanitation

En l ULP 100%

Development Indicators [Building-City]

[Impact] Enivornment (En)

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P l EC

H l EC

H l ULP

100%

[Safety] Health (H)

Architecture

100%

P l ULP

[Materials-Building] Development Indicators

EAP

100%

100%

Components and Systems

Toolkit

0%

En l EC

Ec l EC

of knowledge and solutions

Ec l ULP

100%

100%

0% structures

Architecture

Ec l ULP

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En l ULP 100%

0%

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Evaluation l Current Context Severity

En l EC

Ec l EC 100%

P l ULP

Evaluation l Impact Growth Live-Feed

Photo taken during the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya’s Masters thesis presentation day.

July 2012

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Photo taken at La Defense in Paris, France.

Western Europe Part Three

My original itinerary in Europe had been focused primarily on immediate relief technologies and construction techniques.

Regardless if the solution was related to a part of the tent or a particular tool, if the solution was not related to an architect’s role in disaster or offered locally based material solutions or services, I decided to drop the visit and use the time to think and prepare how I was going to guide the remaining site locations in my trip. During the few weeks I spent traveling around Western Europe, I was able to visit the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya’s Masters in Sustainable Emergency Architecture’s thesis projects in Barcelona Spain, some ancient Roman city water systems and study the narrative of Pompeii, as well as take the time in Paris to shift my focus and visit some urban agriculture and original tensile structure interest sites.

What became most apparent in this part of my travels was that this topic of Emergency Sustainable Architecture has become quite popular in recent years. There are now many degrees offered throughout Europe, as an additional degree for individuals in the building and humanitarian aid professions, which have begun to merge the two fields into a single discipline. This topic is no longer a type of architectural design, but becoming a new professional field for architects, planners, and engineers to engage and deploy themselves into disaster response and scenarios.

July 30th, 2012

Photo of Roman Aqueducts

Kenya Part Four

2007 Kenyan Post-Election Violence l Internally Displaced 2011 East African Drought and Famine l Refugee

Existing Solutions Themes 05-06

Kounkuey Design Initiative l Social Space as Social Enterprise Muungano Support Trust l Synergy

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Photo taken by architect Wesley Gideyi from Save the Children in Dadaab Refugee camps, Kenya. August 2012

2007-08 Kenya Post-Election Violence

Internally Displaced l Political Violence and Crimes Against Humanity

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

-The Golden Rule

“When you are riding in a train, and the train gets derailed, you are well advised to look backwards at the twisted rails to find out how you got to where you are, and then look ahead to find out how you now get to where you want to go.

For Kenyans today, it is a question of doing just that: looking to the past to determine when and where the country got derailed. Once that is determined, you must fix and adjust the rails towards the direction of peace, justice and prosperity.

(01)” –Kofi Annan

“Marcy, imagine. You accumulate multiple degrees, gain years of field experience, and you finally reach sixty. It is now that you are able to see the real issue here and solve everyone’s problems, right? Absolutely not. It is not the technical but the human driven issues, grounded in otherness and greed, which reek havoc in this world. The most important skill is how you, an architect, can create synergy. You do not need decades of experience and expertise to understand solidarity and bring peace to a room. The biggest issue surrounding the relocation of the displaced from the 2007 Election Violence is social integration. Figure this issue out, and you would have contributed a lifetime of work.”

–The Anonymous Kenyan Academic [September 4th, 2012]

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On a small television set in a Nairobi gallery I watched a man be stoned to death. I was overtaken by the live clip and simply could not keep looking. I motioned toward the next display room. The narrator stopped me and insisted that I kept my attention on the television. He wanted me to watch the man be murdered, to see how humans are capable of behaving as animals.

He then told me that acts such as what I just saw, that were scattered all over the building in photographs, film, and newspaper articles, were why he had been ashamed to call himself a Kenyan. The look on his face was overwhelming. The entirety of the gallery, focused on the 2007 Kenyan Post-Election Violence, was just devastating.

In recent months, after my experiences in Haiti, I had somehow convinced myself that no human would inflict harm on another without cause. I came to terms with the fact that in this world there are individuals whom directly benefit from those who suffer. That in working or researching within the world of international development and humanitarian aid, one is instantly subjected to the realities of the inexcusable and immoral behaviors that exist in our human condition. I can handle systems of detachment, mega problem spaces with centuries of inequality and systemic cancers of otherness and greed, and even structural conditions of spatial exclusion that create additional human suffering. What I simply cannot accept is man turning on a neighbor, brother, or best friend. To go as far as butchering the people we once cared for, grew up with, and loved, with our bare hands via machete or ax, in the name of tribalism and corrupt politics. This I simply cannot handle.

The point is this. Laws are but a few words written on a sheet of paper unless governments, institutions, and societies choose to enforce and follow them. One can only hope that the words pledged on the 2010 Kenyan Constitution are promoted, believed in, and followed in the coming months before March 2013s election.

Photo taken on September 11, 2012 in a displaced persons settlement near Nakuru in the Rift Valley Province, Kenya.

“We, the people of Kenya—(02)“ 2010 Kenyan Constitution

There are many narratives surrounding the crisis that occurred between Dec 27, 2007 into late February of 2008.

Amongst the stories I have heard and read, it appears that overall this particular event had much to do with decades of emotional build up between tribes that were in direct relation to the inequities that have accumulated prior to and since Kenya’s independence. Certain prejudices in land rights and ownership, wealth, and social priveliges given to particular tribal groups that both generated and was later provided by higher social and economic classes. In August of 2012, during my stay in Nairobi, the International Criminal Court had been holding continual legal proceedings against six of the Kenyans accused of instigating the violence almost five years before. The six involved were amongst high political officials and a radio newscaster transmitting hate crime messages against select tribes. All six are being accused of crimes against humanity.

While in Nairobi, I depended heavily on the direct experiences and narratives of friends, professors, and mentors in order to try and fully understand the complexity that surrounds the violence that led to over a thousand deaths and upwards of 250,000 people to be displaced throughout the country. To this day, I can honestly say that there are still several subjects surrounding this event that I may never fully grasp or come to terms with as such acts of violence are simply incomprehensible.

A mentor of mine had suggested I study the Post-Election Violence both because of the proximity of the displaced settlements to the city center as well as the subjects underlying insight and relation to current Kenyan politics and events that are leading up to the March 2013 Elections.

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Mega disaster events where hundreds of thousands are relocated also include those displaced from violence, famine, and war.

If architects are to become part of the conversation to assist in either relief or the transition to recovery, we will need to assist in identifying how underlying issues relate to the relocation of the particular groups involved. From my experiences on the ground with Planners at the Kenyan Ministry of Lands, it is clear that the proximity of newly relocated settlements directly impacted the social integration and safety of particular tribes. To this day, there are still fears over the possible reoccurance of another crisis following March 2013s election.

Some general facts to know:

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-Kenya’s population consists of most major ethnic, racial, and linguistic groups found in Africa. The Bantu peoples are of the single largest population division, followed by the Nilotic, Cushitic, and Non-African groups. There are separate tribes within each group. According to the 2009 Kenyan census figures (from the population count of 38.6 million), the most populous tribes are 17% Kikuyu, 14% Luhya, 13% Kalenjin, 10% Lou, and 10% Kamba (03).

-Widespread displacement and issues regarding land rights can be directly related back to 1899 when the British decided to build a railroad from Mombasa to Kisumu on the edge of Lake Victoria under the British East Africa protectorate. Both the Maasai (2.1% of Kenya’s population) and the Kikuyu tribes were forcibly displaced during this era and increasingly so as Nairobi grew and became the hub of East Africa (04).

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-In 1915 the British passed laws restricting the ownership of land to whites and later implemented high taxes and low wages.

Blacks were forced to carry identification cards, similar to other African nations during the colonial era (05). After World War 2, contentions escalated resulting in the Mau Mau uprising. In 1963, Jomo Kenyatta, a Kikuyu and part of the Kikuyu Central Association, became the first prime minister and later Kenya’s president. Immediately following Kenya’s independence, Nairobi’s city center continued to grow rapidly and much of the formal infrastructure was unable to support the rapid growth in population (06).

There is a direct connection between the colonial city, displacement, and particular tribal groups having access to certain land rights. Definitions surrounding landrights still cause tensions between tribes today even after the declaration of the 2010 Kenyan Constitution, which declared access to landrights as a fundamental human right.

- Beginning in the 1980s, the World Bank Group began lending its first series of Structural Adjustment loans to Kenya. This led to the transition from a government controlled system to a free-enterprise and multi-party government. Part of the goal of the loans was to eliminate the monopoly enterprises that had emerged via the original government controlled system. The result of the loans caused for major companies to spend less on salaries, economic, and social services and more on repaying the lenders.

Structural Adjustment Loans provided by the World Bank and IMF through the 1980s and 1990s were given to National Governments directly. Today, AID, in the form of massive loan transfers from the developed world to the global south, still go directly into the hands of National Governments. It has become widely known that high levels of corruption stem from the immense amount of funds given directly to National Governments and towards salaries of higer officials. The organization Cities Alliance was

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founded to mobilize local governments and work with the World Bank in order to demand more transparency in funding and allow for the funds to reach local areas. See Dambisa Moyo’s book entitled “Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa” for more information on how Development AID has impacted large portions of Africa. The point behind this reference to Structural Adjustment is that certian groups had maintained a stronghold on the Kenyan government since independence then later received large quantities of external funds. Particular groups were given additional priveledges and the stakes for winning office increased tremendously over the last few decades (07) (08) (09).

-Most of the violence occurred in Nairobi’s urban slums, in Odinga’s homeland of Nyanza Province, and into the Rift Valley Province in many Kikuyu settlements.

-Since Kenya’s independence, the country’s political arena was heavily influenced and dominated by the Kikuyu tribe. Arap Moi, the country’s second president, was Kalenjin, but his influence and original integration into the political arena was heavily tied to Kenyas separation from colonial powers in order to bring together the country’s two largest peoples, the Bantu and the Nilotic.

Arap Moi was also known for running his election based on tribal boundaries, casuing widespread fear amongst other tribes.

Current President, Mwai Kibaki, is part of the Kikuyu tribe.

-As a result of the violence, over 1,000 people were brutally murdered and 250,000 were internally displaced throughout the country (12). Today there are still thousands of people, mostly Kikuyu, whom still remain in displaced camps and fear re-integration back into the Nairobi city center.

-The Post-Election Violence surrounds both Mwai Kibaki and his opponent Raila Odinga, a Lou and member of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). The ODM is a political party in Kenya that represents several peoples and emphasizes principles of equality grounded in the 2010 Kenyan Constitution (10).

-Although Raila Odinga held a steady lead on the elections up until the day of the final voting count, the final count projected Mwai Kibaki as the winner. Most news stations had also blacked out during the final count, causing several people to believe the election was rigged. Non-violent protestors took the streets immediately following the announcement of Kibaki’s win.

-The protests suddenly turned violent in the coming hours and days following December 27, 2007. The violence was known to be instigated by the following six men, most of which were all high government officials and one newscaster accused for projecting hate messages in the Kalenjin language toward the Kikuyu people (Kibaki’s tribal affiliate) (11):

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-Major General Mohammed Hussein Ali: The Chief Executive of the Postal Corporation of Kenya and at the time the Commissioner of the Kenya Police.

-Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta: The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. At the time, Kenyatta had also held the chairman position for the KANU political party, Kibaki’s Party of National Unity.

-Henry Kiprono Kosgey: Ministy for Industrialisation and chairman of the Orange Democratic Movement -Francis Kirimi Muthaura: Head of Public Service, Cabinet Secretary and chairman of the National Security Advisory Committee.

-William Samoei Ruto: Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology and ODM member of the National Assembly for the Eldoret North Constituency.

-Joshua Arap Sang: the head of operations at the Kalenjin language radio station KASS FM

Photos from GoDown Arts Centre publication: (01) Officer amongst the chaos. Several officials were paid by Members of Parliament to rid of certain tribal groups.

(02) A supporter of Raila Odinga chearing as a large Kibaki sign burns.

(03) A woman crying over her lost home and neighborhood. Kibera and Mathare slums were greatly impacted and burned during the violence.

(04) A man and his family displaced from the event (05) A displaced camp. It is also important to note that humanitarian assistance directly adheres to the immediacy of human suffering and is not guided to address longer term systemic problems. In several locations I have noticed that the apolitical nature of humanitarianism in many ways adds to the complexity of such longer term issues.

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-Around a month after the election, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan flew to Nairobi in order to negotiate a peace keeping deal between both Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga and their parties. The result of the deal was a new Coalition Government in addition to Raila Odinga’s swearing in as Vice President.

-The 2010 Kenyan Constitution was created as a direct response to the corruption and violence that occured from December 27 2007-February 2008. The document demands equality amongst all of Kenya’s people in regards to land rights, housing, and all basic human freedoms (02).

The gallery exhibit I visited in Nairobi, put together by the GoDown Arts Centre entitled “Kenya Burning”, is an attempt to remind the Kenyan people of the horrors of 2007-08 in order to emphasize the principles pledged in the 2010 Constitution and to prevent the reappearance of tribal-based electoral campaigning in the upcoming March 2013 elections (13). The Kenyan people are amongst the most politically active and knowledgable people I have ever met. Several generations continue to engage themselves in activism against political corruption and continue to remind themselves and others of the horrors of 2007-08.

A very aware and proactive generation of Kenyans are emerging in Nairobi today. Several protests and strikes were going on during my stay in Nairobi. Muungano wa Wanavijiji, the federation of slum dwellers across the city center, had been fully engaged in a massive lawsuit against the Kenyan government pertaining land rights. This lawsuit is considered to be one of the biggest suits in Kenyas history, revolving around the displacement of hundreds of thousands of slum dwellers as major land deals are going to large companies around the city center.

Notes: (01) Quote found in a book published for the Kenya Burning exhibition at the GoDown Arts Centre in Nairobi Kenya. The book is entitled, Kenya Burning: Mgogoro baada ya uchaguzi 2007, pp.5.

(02) See an online version of the 2010 Kenyan Constitution here: http://www.kenyaembassy.com/pdfs/The%20Constitution%20of%20Kenya.pdf (03) Online version of the 2009 Kenyan Census can be found on the Ministry of Planning’s website: http://www.knbs.or.ke/Census%20Results/Presentation%20 by%20Minister%20for%20Planning%20revised.pdf (04) Online document pertaining to the British East Africa by Grant Sinclair: http://www.heliograph.com/trmgs/trmgs2/bea.shtml, 2009 (05) Identification cards were also used in the Rwanda by the Belgians. During the 1994 genocide, such cards led several Tutsi’s to be identified and murdered. http://www.preventgenocide.org/edu/pastgenocides/rwanda/indangamuntu.htm for more information.

(06) BBC article on Kenya’s Historical Profile can be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13682176 (07) Statistics on Structural Adjustment loans and credits for Kenya can be found on the World Bank Group’s website here: http://search.worldbank.org/all?qterm=structural%20adjustment%20kenya (08) Cities Alliance website here: http://www.citiesalliance.org/ (09) Refer to Dambisa Moyo’s book Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way for Africa (10) Reference BBC News Special Report on Kenya: A Political History: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/for_christmas/_new_year/kenyan_elections/41737.stm (11) Several articles pertaining to the six lawsuits and information regarding the 2007-08 Post-Election Violence can be found here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/ law/international-criminal-court+world/kenya (12) See Kenya Opposition cancels Protest article by BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7174670.stm (13) The Kenya GoDown Arts Centre’s website: http://www.thegodownartscentre.com/ Much of the news and information I obtained while in Nairobi to understand the narratives surrounding this event was from Kenya’s main news source, The Daily Nation: http://www.nation.co.ke/

On September 11, 2012, my escort Mr. Murano and I took a three and a half hour mutatu trip from Nairobi into the Rift Valley of Kenya. We were headed to Nakuru, the province’s capital, to visit a displaced settlement designed by Dr. Musoga, a former student at the University of Nairobi, and others at the Kenyan Ministry of Lands. The settlement, entitled Giwa, is one of many settlements the Ministry has been financing in order to safely resettle families displaced from the 2007 Post-Election Violence. Dr. Musoga had insisted I meet with the families that were living in the settlements and to see one of many solutions that the Ministry could provide. The main idea behind the Giwa settlement layout was for each family to acquire a small living plot in addition to an area of land to both grow and sell crops. The government would buy the land and give titles on each individual plot for every family located in the settlement. Each family involved in this program was selected randomly through a pool of applicants throughout the country.

Photo of Mr. Murano and Giwa’s community leader looking over the settlement map.

On our visit to the Giwa settlement, we were given a tour by members in their community and were able to see how the residents were able to sustain both their living arrangements and were utilizing their plot of land. Some families chose to use the agricultural land area simply to sell grains, corn, and other produce while others grew crops for themselves. The ministry provided each family with the appropriate building materials and guidance to construct their own home. It was only if the building reached over one story in height when the houses would need to meet specific building requirements. The role for an architect, in such projects working with the ministry and displaced populations, would be to provide conceptual design layouts in new settlements, basic guidance and principles in construction techniques for residents, to take part in decisions on material selection, and to use communication drawing skills to assist both the ministry and residents.

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ADVISORY PLAN FOR L.R. No. 11673 (GIWA FARM) FOR SETTLEMENT OF INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS

Kids in Giwa showing our group their bean collection.

Land_Use Proposals Agricultural 444 Plots @2 Acres =888 Acres (Approx)

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Co-ordinator: Mr Augustine K. Masinde Team Leader: Herbert Musoga

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NAME OF PHYSICAL PLANNER.......................................................................................

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MINISTRY OF LANDS PHYSICAL PLANNING DEPARTMENT

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Copy of the Giwa settlement designed by Dr. Musoga and others at the Kenyan Ministry of Lands

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6/11/09

Date Prepared by

Physical Planning Department

Drawn by

Physical Planning Department

DEPARTMENTAL REFERENCE No. CERTIFIED .............................................................................

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04:92

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Date.......................................

APPROVED ..................................................................................................

Hon. Minister for Lands Nairobi

Date......................................

APPROVED DEVELOPMENT PLAN No.

Some of the community members have since their relocation been able to trade livestock for their crops.

In a perfect world, such places would not exist. Refugee camps are in several ways a violation against human rights and on many accounts I simply do not agree with their existence. Regardless of any opinions, it is because our world is in a constant state of global migration and displacement, as a result of global wars over resources, crimes against humanity, and the like, which refugee and internally displaced camps will continue to exist. Such areas are a direct result of populations in need of immediate assistance, safety, and basic materials for needs such as shelter.

The bullet points below are a direct reflection of sources I have read as well as accounts of several conversations with individuals whom worked in or are currently working on the ground in refugee settlements today. Genuine and particular thank yous to former camp programme director at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and current architectural planner at UN-Habitat Kibe Muigai, Dennis Mwanki at UN-Habitat in Nairobi, and Wesley Gideyi at Save the Children in Dadaab.

-Refugee camps emerge in an impromptu fashion. Relief agencies attempt to manage the layout of such settlements, but often such a task is too difficult to manage. Such was the case of the 2011 East African Famine and Drought, which resulted in the migration of over a million Somali refugees into Dadaab and camps throughout Ethiopia. At the height of the drought, Dadaab recieved over a thousand people a day for weeks at a time. In such situations, architects, planners, other relief worker, and professionals inside the camps designed programs to better adjust and assist particular issues that emerge as they occurred.

There is a huge need for professionals willing to address particular longer term environmental, health, and safety issues on the ground as such programmes they create can and would directly impact the policies that generate such issues.

-Longer term solutions are directly related to and determined by policies established by the host government and international humanitarian laws. Refugee camps are designed and managed in direct relationship to such policies, eleven pages in the UNHCR Handbook for Emergencies, and the Sphere Humanitarian Charter. On various occasions, both the Sphere and the UNHCR Handbook have been proven inadequate for supporting such refugee populations, while camps such as Dadaab have been in operation for decades.

See Dadaab’s facebook page: www.facebook.com/therefugee?ref=ts

“I learned that even for the neutral and impartial humanitarian, politics matters, and matters a lot. (01)” Dr. James Orbinski

“In Kenya most refugees are not supposed to be in the cities but are expected to live in camps far from urban settings. This restricts their freedom of movement and limits their access to many other human necessities. (02)”

04:94

Refugee Rights: Ethics, Advocacy, and Africa

“Recent years have also seen a revival of efforts to bring an end to the refugee cycle through durable solutions, with special emphasis on briging the gap between humanitarian and development assistance. (03)” “Abass learned to survive in one of the most violent camps in Africa, where rape, murder and armed robbery were almost daily occurrences. Physical and material insecurity have plagued the Dadaab camps for years. The refugees in these camps have existed with no legal status for well over a decade, compounding the challenge of finding a durable solution. In addition, they are required to remain within the camps and are, as a result, totally dependent on international assistance. This assistance is dwindling; refugees receive only 80 per cent of their food requirements and have limited access to water. Half the shelters in the camps are dilapidated. (04)” The Story of one Somali refugee, Abass, in Dadaab, Kenya The State of the the World’s Refugees Human Displacement in the New Millennium UNHCR 2006

I chose to focus my original proposal on refugee and internally displaced persons camps for a few reasons. It was not to design a better camp layout for agencies to apply everywhere around the world nor was it because I have the slightest desire to enter war zones. I simply chose camps because of a few things I had learned over the years when obtaining my minors degree in International Development and Humanitarian Assistance that sparked concern and interest towards such locations. My interest, first and foremost, lays in assisting and working with others who are denied the rights to assist themselves. I have no interest in helping those who are unwilling to go the distance to better their own situation, yet I know that there will always be a group of individuals that simply need the tools and resources to escape certain scenarios.

-All materials, food items, and related services are imported as a direct result of strict regulations regarding the principle that refugee camps are to be temporary settlements and such populations will not be considered citizens of any host country. The items deployed into such situations must be temporary.

-Over 600,000 people in Dadaab today are directly dependent on international relief assistance in order to access shelter, food, and water. Dadaab has existed for over twenty years and originated during the civil war in Somalia in the early 1990s. Since its origins, the environmental footprint of Dadaab has completely transitioned from marshland to harsh desert. This is a direct result of the lack of funding and resources to deploy longer term shelter strategies under such harsh conditions as well as the inadequacy of the tarpaulin lifespan. Refugee settlement communities inside Dadaab over the years began venturing out of the camps in order to cut down surrounding trees to create their own makeshift shelters and search for water. Such actions resulted in environmental degredation and desertification. When it rains, several areas inside the settlements flood causing widespread disease and often death. This is just one of many issues that are being directly addressed via architectural planning and design inside the camps.

See the following documents and websites for more information: -The UN Refugee Agency’s website: www.unhcr.org -The Sphere Humanitarian Charter: www.sphereproject.org -The UNHCR Handbook for Emergencies: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.unhcr.org%2Fpubl%2FPUBL%2F471db4c92.html&ei=U5PtUKHIB-quiALw0IC4DA&usg=AFQjCNEhb_Iwz3iIsLFTLq9q2r7NztiJug&bvm=bv.1357316858,d. cGE

-Reference architect and planner Mitchell Sipus’s publication on the assessment of the Sphere and shelter requirements in the Dadaab Refugee camp: http://etd.ohiolink.edu/view.cgi?acc_num=ucin1289937158

Notes: (01): See Dr. James Orbinksi’s book, An Imperfect Offering, pp. 7 (02): See Refugee Rights: Ethics, Advocacy, and Africa edited by David Hollenbach, SJ, Introduction: Human Rights as an Ethical Framework for Advocacy.

(03): See the UNHCR’s publication: The State of the World’s Refugees: Human Displacement in the New Millennium, Forward by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

(04): See the UNHCR’s publication: The State of the World’s Refugees: Human Displacement in the New Millennium, The story of one Somali refugee in Dadaab, Kenya.

04:96

Photos were taken by a friend and fellow architect, Wesley Gideyi, working for Save the Children in the Dadaab refugee camps.

Although I was unable to reach Dadaab, predominantly because of security and timing issues, it is through relief workers and professionals like Wesley that I was able to obtain a great deal of information pertaining to the real issues on the ground. The photos are images of a “Child Friendly Spaces� project Wesley took a large part in. This project was implimented in order to offer children an outlet from the daily stresses and issues that occur in the residential blocks of the camps. There is also a current building project, pictured to the left, that will be a multipurpose hall for Early Childhood Development and Education Classes.

“Designers think in terms of systems. As a result, we cannot conceive of small-scale projects like latrines or trash bins without also considering the sustainability of these elements and the roles they play in larger urban, regional, and global systems. In the traditional design world, successful design depends upon a deep understanding of a client’s needs, sensitivity to physical context, practical knowledge of the resources available to complete the project, and strategies for creatively relating the three. When these criteria are applied to a design challenge in a slum, in partnership with local residents, the result is a solution that is rooted in the community, contextually appropriate, technologically sustainable, and innovative in approach.”

“KOUNKUEY DESIGN INITIATIVE is an innovative partnership specializing in the practice of architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, and urban planning in areas where environmental degradation compromises quality of life. Our work brings together diverse participants—residents, local design students, private sector experts and government officials—to implement scalable, context-appropriate design interventions that improve the physical, social, and economic health of a community.”

Kounkuey: /con-coo-ee/ is a Thai word meaning to know intimately -Kounkuey Design Initiative www.koukuey.org When building professionals are inserted into a place with a variety of complex interconnected issues, the result is often the creation of multiple longer-term locally driven solutions that work together to create a sustainable and much brighter whole. The Kounkuey Design Initiative’s Kibera Public Space Projects are nothing but a testament to this fact. As a collaboration between the building professions, residents, local design students, private sector experts, and government officials, KDI has developed their own network of people in order to bridge the gap between larger forces and local residents to assist in the creation of a healthier and more sustainable Kibera.

Today, there are over 2.5 million people, or 60% of Nairobi’s population, who live on 6% of the land in slum settlements throughout the city center. One million of those residents live in Kibera on a site less than ¾ the size of New York’s Central Park, without access to basic services, i.e. formal water and sewerage system connections, electricity, or garbage pick up. The government owns the land and the majority of the population are tenants with no rights (01). Several polluted rivers run through Kibera and into the Nairobi Dam. The rivers act as open sewerage drainage and contain both garbage and human excreta.

Several human health issues, including typhoid and cholera are directly related to the lack of basic services and ownership.

04:98

(01)

Kounkuey Design Initiative l Kibera, Nairobi Kenya

In order to address the social, health, and environmental issues directly, KDI is utilizing participatory planning methods to engage with local residents to design, build, and manage what they call Productive Public Spaces (PPS). There are six principles that correlate with each of the PPS’s: “A PPS: -transforms an environmental liability to usable public space -is authored and operated by its end-users collaborating with outside groups -integrates income-generating, socially constructive uses to ensure its sustainability -adds value to a space without alienating the original community.

-is designed to address needs unmet through traditional channels -introduces strong design concepts to create beautiful places (01)” My first trip to Productive Public Space, Site One was in the summer of 2011 during the Nairobi Studio. Fellow Berkeley graduate and 2007-08 Branner Fellow Luke Perry had led our studio to visit the site to compare and contrast Mathare and Kibera. Since that last visit with the studio, the first public space has become completely managed, owned, and operated by local Kibera residents and much has been accomplished with Public Spaces 2 and 3. During my stay in Nairobi, a mass community clean up had also cleared a forth site. Step by step, KDI is assisting several Kibera residents and community groups

(03)

(02)

in obtaining land rights, providing residents with the technical skill and knowledge to realize their own local place, while also engaging and employing local designers in the process.

During a tour with main Kibera KDI members Joe and Wilson, it became clear that much of what the organization and projects were about had completely related to and provided insight into the world of disaster response. Joe, an architect from the United Kingdom, had also been to Haiti and was familiar with the same topics I had encountered during my travel year. Aside from conversations regarding the success and challenges of the Kibera KDI projects, we also spoke about the rise in demand for architects and building professionals in the arena of relief and development.

04:100

As we walked through Kibera, I immediately realized that if architecture’s intersection with international relief and development was inevitable and we were going to be deployed on the ground, architects, as we are currently trained, would not be prepared.

We have no set of tools or singular empirical method in architecture that will prepare future architects to create their own design prompts, allow them to engage and work with/for everyday people, and promote the use of location based metrics to engage with and change local policies. Essentially, we are trained to solve problems, not locate them. We are great at coming up with a multitude of solutions, building with our hands, and grasping concepts. Yet, what we are not trained to do is see the intangible layers, or the economic and political factors, that create such a place. Unless we understand everyone involved and work outside of the traditional client-architect model, we may never be part of the longer-term solution.

(04)

(05)

How do we work alongside the urban planners and engineers directly involved in this conversation in order to utilize our existing skills, expand our set of tools, and become proactive in the disaster space?

For more information on the work or history of Kounkuey Design Initiative, please see their website.

Notes: (01) See KDI website, http://www.kounkuey.org/Kibera_PPS1.html#, for the brochure and information regarding the context of Kibera, Nairobi’s Urban Informal Settlements, etc.

(02) See KDI website, http://www.kounkuey.org/Kibera_PPS1.html#, for the brochure containing all site and project drawings.

Photos Make it Right Foundation: (01) See KDI’s blog: blog.kounkuey.org (02) Photo taken in Summer 2011 during my first visit to Productive Public Space Site One (03) Photo taken during second visit in August 2012 of Site One (04) Photo of the multi-purpose community building made of local materials.

(05) Image of the composting and urban agriculture program. Photo taken by fellow Nairobi studio participant, Asiya Wadud, summer 2011.

(06) Front view of the multi-purpose community building.

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MIT 3.11 Japan Initiative Participant Profile: [10.07.2012]

Theme 05 l Social Space as Social Enterprise

“When standing in the devastated areas taken away by the tsunami, I am immediately paralyzed. As a UC Berkeley Traveling Branner Fellow, curious about an architect’s role in disaster, I have felt this paralysis in various contexts over my travel year.

The struggle to take a wounded social space and respond with more than simply design space is something I believe I will always strive for and expect from myself. All of the apparent noise that exists in disaster, from policy to global relief markets and even local contradictions on the ground, are inevitably all of the elements that will haphazardly create the future. Typically, the loudest group or deepest pocket will take the reigns and lead the way, but over time the silent ones are the individuals who will adjust such space in order to sculpt and create fukkou (new change). Because of such noise, it will always take academics and professionals to create synergy and allow for as many voices to be heard as possible. My interests lie in the ability to not simply design a building, which often is already taken care of by relief or political players, but to assist in creating a less haphazard and chaotic fukkou. To let the silent voices be heard sooner and pressure the louder ones to see how speed and efficiency is rarely the best solution for the longer-term. To not only create synergy, but to build and design a structural backbone in order to make such vulnerable places safer for those who will later inhabit and create their own future. (01)”

Social Space as Design Space Our role as architects in disaster is not to take a wounded social space and respond simply with design space. We must inform ourselves of the networks of people involved in disaster response and utilize our tools alongside the other building professions, i.e. urban planners, landscape architects, engineers, and construction experts collectively in order to create a less haphazard fukkou. We need to develop a metric system or model, involving both engineering and urban planning, which could guide architects to locally derive and design their own prompts and strengthen their role and agency as professionals within the disaster relief and development fields.

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Photo taken during MIT initiative in Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan.

October, 2012

After many conversations and experiences on the ground, it has become clear that a one-dimensional response to mega disasters, or solely operating in our traditional client-architect practice model, would never provide the platform for holistic and/or locally sustainable solutions in such complex scenarios. It also has become evident that the cost of ill-guided metrics and economics in disaster response is the loss of human life, environmental catastrophe, and the platform for future disaster. As master builders, designers, and collaborators within the building professions, architects must become avid researchers of locally derived metrics, which will address issues surrounding human health, our ‘glocal’ environment, policies, and economics collectively in order to design our own prompts alongside affected communities, agencies, and other professionals. We must create a track towards becoming multi-dimensional.

So is there a solution? Well, the thing is there isn’t one, there are many. I realized, after months of deploying myself, that it is not the how or the why, but when and what we measure that will make a difference. It is the period of time in the design process in which we allow others, as well as ourselves, to value both our services and designs, which will determine ownership, sustainability, and whom we are truly designing with or for.

The Prompt.

Lets take a step back to the origins of a design project, or the prompt. Whether it is a client or professor establishing the need for design, it is often an individual or group aside from the architect that will bring to light an issue in need of tackling via spatial design and/or architecture. Building codes, the professor or client, and typically some other restraint like cost will determine the limits of that intervention. Such indicators, i.e. those same restraints, will also become determinants of its success.

Well, what if a tsunami, for example, wipes out an entire region and those who live there cannot possibly afford your services, while those who can have an agenda that is not sustainable, locally minded, or environmentally cautious? The indicators and restrictions that you, the architect, have allowed for, will determine the success of your services. So how do we work with the people directly affected by the disaster and not simply an outside party who may not be familiar with local needs? What will be the point of post-occupancy measuring tools if there is no guiding methodology and measurement for design prompts before a project is implemented that is beyond post critical theories on thinking green? Is this just about being environmentally cautious?

People have nowhere to live, to work, and the entire region was washed away by water.

How can our insertions spark social enterprise? Address current environmental issues while attempting to avoid future environmental disasters? How can those same insertions be a reflection of, guided by, and push for or against local policies? What do we do once we deploy ourselves?

Social Space as Social Enterprise

“1. We seek out clients whose needs match our mission.

2. We work with the community to identify priority needs and develop the program and budget.

3. We assist in securing land rights, meeting with partners like a local government, and develop links with synergistic projects.

4. We not only design and build buildings, parks and infrastructure, but also the social and economic programs to support them.

5. Because we try and work for several years on multiple projects with a client group, we assist in adapting projects to changing needs. (02)” -Kounkuey Design Initiative “Approach” www.kounkuey.org For starters, architects are not alone nor are we the sole solution providers in disaster response. Every actor involved in a disaster situation, short or long term, is vital in long-term recovery. Our relationship in the equation of people is central to the building professions and alongside/between agencies and local communities. It is our job to provide technical expertise, spatial solutions on a multitude of scales, as well as a perspective of the whole picture. We must relate those skills to other professions involved. By incorporating a multi-dimensional model, utilizing participatory planning methods as well as technical expertise, we will open the doors to working with a larger variety of professions and people from public health to policy and economics.

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Kounkuey Design Initiative is a great example of the building profession’s relationship to local residents and larger external actors in the creation of their Productive Public Space Projects (PPS). Not only are they utilizing place-based metrics to voice and gauge the need for environmental change within Kibera, but they are also acting as the balance between larger forces and local residents.

In a disaster situation, where thousands are relocated into temporary housing and the original place is destroyed by an event, architects will be doing much more than designing buildings, parks, or infrastructure. We will be communicating between all the people involved, designing strategies and physical place with both public and private actors, and will be able to articulate how our designs impact all the groups involved. From designing social and economic programs to involving ourselves in town meetings, architects will become a vital part in the equation that is disaster response.

Ideas move people l People move ideas “Contrary to common belief, evidence shows that effective rebuilding does not necessarily depend on the speed of construction, and it does not always benefit from the usual separation into three different phases: emergency housing, temporary housing, and permanent reconstruction. Even more surprising, this evidence shows that the most important contribution of architects and other specialists does not come from where it is commonly believed to (design and construction) but instead from a proper understanding of the roles and capacities of the multiple actors involved. (03)” -Gonzalo Lizarralde, Cassidy Johnson and Colin Davidson From Emergency to Sustainability l Rebuilding After Disasters

“If freedom is what development advances, then there is a major argument for concentrating on the overarching objective, rather than on some particular means, or some specially chosen list of instruments. (04)” -Amartya Sen in Development as Freedom

Photo of MIT Professor Kanda-san speaking to a local fisherman in Isatomae, Minamisanriku

Pictured is a former resident of Minamisanriku, Kudo (92). Kudo spends his weekends taking care of an old Shinto shrine that has been abandoned since 3.11. He drives a couple hours every weekend, from Ishinomaki, to tend to the shrine and remember the town he spent his life in.

While having dinner in Port-Au-Prince with a couple working for one of the main relief camp management agencies, I finally realized the potential in deploying architects. The husband, also an architect with years of construction experience, had been actively promoting the use of local materials and employing locals in projects within the agency. He began running down the list of innovative ideas for adaptable foundations and housing options for displaced camps that were aimed at employing people and utilizing local skills and techniques. His ideas would impact thousands and were brilliantly innovative in many ways. As he continued on, I turned to his wife, one of the heads of the economic and funding departments within that same organization and insisted, “agencies should just deploy a thousand of him.” She smiled back at me, “this is why I need for you to talk to the head of USAID. No one has ever insisted on deploying people.”

Any empirical method, or set of local metrics, will assist in determining what to design, or a program. The combination of local people and external actors will always define how a project is implemented. Our ability to relate our skills to all people involved and communicate how a project will impact health, economics, environment, and local policies will only strengthen our role within the disaster space. The disaster space, which is run by economics and policy, determines what will be produced in the creation of the new place. Acting as mediators between larger forces and local people is the role of architects and building professions in disaster scenarios. Experience has proven that there is no such thing as bottom-up or top-down, but possibly a balance of the two, or synergy.

Notes: (01): See MIT 3.11 Japan Initiative website here: http://japan3-11.mit.edu/ (02): See Kounkuey Design Initiative’s website: www.kounkuey.org (03): Refer to Rebuilding After Disasters, Chapter 1 From Emergency to Sustainability by Gonzalo Lizarralde, Cassidy Johnson, and Colin Davidson.

(04): Refer to Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom, Introduction.

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The bottom half of the tool kit, geared specifically at valuing an architect’s services at a variety of scales, was directly inspired by the overarching method behind the Kibera Productive Public Space Projects.

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“In locations where it will be necessary to engage residents and gain local knowledge, I will spend an initial period of time working with local NGOs, Universities, and Community Based Organizations (CBOs) in order to understand both the surrounding context and organizational frameworks needed to implement each design. Overall, a three-part network, which combines technical expertise, local knowledge, and international aid principles, will begin to inform a framework I am entitling as “Synergetic Aid”. The goal is to engage in a process that democratizes knowledge in alternative building through a balanced collaboration between communities and professionals (agencies, organizations, building experts, etcetera). I will later use this acquired knowledge to develop a system or guidelines with which to structure my design process.”

-Excerpt from the methodology statement in my Branner Proposal

At the moment I applied for the Branner, I had been completely inspired by a group of individuals I met in Nairobi just six weeks prior to the application due date. Although I had only been formally trained as an architect, I saw the potential for our profession to include itself into an existing field focused on solving global development issues on the ground alongside other local professionals and people. I also knew that I was not yet ready to articulate more than techniques in alternative building because that was what both I and many of us within the architecture department are trained to see. Motivated, I used what I knew how to do and coupled it with something I had just experienced and turned whatever that was into my application. The methodology, or three-part network, was directly influenced and inspired by the group of individuals at Muungano Support Trust in Nairobi, Kenya.

MuST works alongside the Kenyan federation of slum-dwellers called Muungano wa Wanavijiji to facilitate each of the federation members in the process of obtaining their rights to acquire tenure security, services, improved livelihoods, and shelter.

(01)

Note: In Kenya over 3.9 million people, over 55% of the urban population, live in urban slums (01).

Kenya’s capital city Nairobi has some of the most dense, unsanitary and insecure slums in the world. Almost half of the city’s population lives in over 100 slums and squatter settlements within the city, with little or inadequate access to safe water and sanitation (02).

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Organizations, such as MuST, have emerged in Nairobi as a direct result of the inequity in opportunity and power dynamics within Kenya, which as a result, has subsequently prevented a large portion of the country’s population from obtaining thier basic right to access particular freedoms.

Short descriptions via 2012 Mathare Zonal Plan publication from the Nairobi Studio (03):

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Muungano Support Trust l Nairobi Kenya

Muungano wa Wanavijiji is the Kenyan federation of slum-dwellers, and by 2010 there were over 60,000 active Muungano members nationwide. Muungano’s fundamental local unit is the savings scheme, and more than 500 savings groups have been established to date. Members participate in daily savings, conduct regular community meetings, and receive loans to improve their housing or livelihoods. Muungano is also a longstanding member of Slum Dwellers International (SDI), a network of urban poor federations active in 34 nations and headquartered in Cape Town. Together with the national federations, SDI advocates for propoor urban policies and builds partnerships with key stakeholders to strengthen the voice of slum-dwellers. Muungano members often participate in exchanges with other SDI federations, helping to enhance learning and solidarity between slum-dwellers in different countries.

Muungano Support Trust (MuST) is comprised of activists, planners, sociologists, architects, surveyors, and organizers headquartered in Nairobi. MuST serves as a technical team to facilitate Muungano members in acquiring tenure security, services, improved livelihoods, and shelter. MuST and Muungano members also engage in advocacy for more equitable urban policies, while demonstrating their own innovative forms of low-income housing or services provision.

The synergy model concept, focused on valuing design via indicators of development, derived from conversations in a MuST meeting during my recent stay in Nairobi (04). A major topic of conversation in this particular weekly meeting surrounded design indicators. “How do we value the success of our services? If we implement sewerage into the Mathare Valley, how will this design

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insertion push residents closer to tenure? How will MuST act as a communicator, between government actors and external funders, for residents (Muungano) to fund such sewerage and how can we value the project’s success alongside multi-dimensional indicators beyond the physical implementation of the project? How will local residents and the government sustain this project? Will governance over the project become an indicator of its success? How about the projects environmental impact? Cost? Are the conditions set forth by external funders also an indicator?

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Obviously, much of what was talked about dove deep into urban planning concepts and practice. As the conversation diverted into their latest housing projects, I fully realized another key point. There is an enormous need, not just in Kenya but around the world, for an architect who understands timesheets and construction techniques as well as participatory planning methods and processes. There are two modes of thought that are meeting head on with the onset of a rapidly growing global informal sector as well as in the reoccurrence of mega disaster events. A world valued by speed and efficiency in construction is more often having to collide with another world that has become deeply rooted in mobilizing local people in order to sustain any design insertion. Faster results have met slower processes, with an apparent few, if no mediator in-between.

Architects are the only professionals with the appropriate skills and set of tools to become that mediator. Although much of our focus in architecture (especially in the United States) has been geared towards the creation of architectural designers, there will be a demand for and as a result a new generation of, architects trained to better understand issues that involve international development and humanitarian assistance. Essentially, there is a huge global need for architectural planners with a specialization in such fields.

For more information, please see MuST’s blog l http://muunganosupporttrust.wordpress.com/ And of course, a huge thank you to Irene, Methenge, Kimani, and all the others at MuST and the University of Nairobi for allowing me to take part in conversations and being such a great support group.

Notes: (01): See Homeless Internationals website: http://www.homeless-international.org/our-work/where-we-work/kenya (02): See UN-Habitat’s website: http://www.unhabitat.org/content.asp?cid=668&catid=206&typeid=13 (03): Refer to the Nairobi Studio publication here: http://nairobistudio.blogspot.com/2012/12/mathare-zonal-plan-product-of-2011.html (04): The original synergy model, focused predominantly on building materials and techniques, was directly inspired by Sumila Gulyani’s “Slum Development Model” at the World Bank Headquarters in Nairobi. See Gulyani’s report entitled Inside Informality: Poverty, Jobs, Housing and Services in Nairobi’s Slums, pp.

11, New York, 2006.

(05): MuST blog again:http://muunganosupporttrust.wordpress.com/

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Photos Muungano Support Trust: (01) Photo taken during a meeting with Sumila Gulyani, MuST members, University of Nairobi, and our Berkeley studio at the World Bank Headuarters in Nairobi. Sumila Gulyani’s “Slum Development Model” directly influenced the original synergy model in my proposal. Example of the “Slum Development Model” found in Gulyani’s report Inside Informality: Poverty, Jobs, Housing and Services in Nairobi’s Slums, pp.11, New York, 2006.

(02) Photo taken in Summer 2011 at the Huruma-Kambi moto community center in Huruma, Nairobi, Kenya.

(03) Photo taken during the Nairobi studio presentations in the Mathare Valley, Nairobi, Kenya.

(04) Photo along the Mathare river located at village 4b in the Mathare Valley. This photo is a direct example of the built environment’s intersections with global health. In order to implement sustainable solutions into such a context, architects will need to deploy themselves alongside the other professions and local people involved in order to implement various smaller-scale and longer term sustainable solutions.

Photo taken in Elizabeth’s home (pictured on the left) in an internally displaced settlement near Nakuru in the Rift Valley Province of Kenya September 2012

“In our choice to be with those who suffer, compassion leads not simply to pity but to solidarity. Through pity, we respond to the other as a kind of object, and can assume a kind of apolitical stance on the causes of and the conditions that create such suffering, as though these lie somehow outside the responsibility of politics, and as though charity and philanthropy are adequate responses. In being with the victim, one refuses to accept what is an unacceptable assault on the dignity of the other, and thus on the self. Humanitarianism involves an insistence that international humanitarian law be applied and a call to others to act as citizens to demand that governments respect basic human dignity. Solidarity implies a willingness to confront the causes and conditions of suffering that persist in destroying dignity, and to demand a minimum respect for human life. Solidarity also means recognizing the dignity and autonomy of others, and asserting the right of others to make choices about their own destiny.

Humanitarianism is about the struggle to create the space to be fully human. (01)” -Dr. James Orbinksi

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Photo taken in an internally displaced persons camp outside of Port-au-Prince January 2012

Theme 06 l Synergy

Nobel Peace Prize Recipient and former President of Médecins sans Frontières

The entirety of this conversation, surrounding an architect’s role in the world of disaster response and international development, has repeatedly come down to one unifying question.

Can architects take part in creating the conditions for individuals to obtain their human right to access basic freedoms?

To begin, I believe access to secure housing and basic services are fundamental human rights. Moreover, I believe that the equation of how such access is provided, where such housing ideas, materials, and basic services originate, as well as who determines where and when such accesses will be created, will directly impact every individual’s agency towards those same basic freedoms.

I believe architecture is the creation and study of our built environment as it is experienced at the human scale. Architecture is the creation of spatial designs ranging from material to city-scaled systems that in usage and application are directly applied to people. I also believe architecture to be the professional field directly concerned with how such physical creations impact those same people and their immediate surroundings before, during, and after a spatial design and system is created. Architecture is more than simply what we see, but moreover, it is what we do not see. I believe architecture is about designing the conditions of how, where, and who determines when access to such basic freedoms as housing or services are granted.

Throughout my Branner travel year, several instances have made it clear to me that there are now several opportunities to focus our services alongside global health experts and other building, relief, and development professionals in order to redefine the value of what we do. This is not to simply continue towards the trend in generating structural schematic applications or to inspire formal spatial design, but to put a direct human value on the impacts of our services before, during, and after we process and later generate them. A defined value that will be determined collectively by a projects impact via combined urban planning and engineering principles and scales. A valued architecture that communicates alongside other professions in global health, the other building professions, relief, and international development, which will push for evidence-based policy and allow for architects to take part in creating the conditions for individuals to obtain their human right to access basic freedoms.

Photo taken while shadowing IOM’s camp management team in an IDP camp in Port-au-Prince January 2012

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United Nations Headquarters in Nairobi August 2012

I believe that architects, with their skill sets and particular sets of tools, are capable of designing much more than the provision of housing and basic services in disaster response and development scenarios. I believe it is also the architect’s obligation to design the balanced framework of people that will sustain such necessities. I believe it is the role of the architect today, in a world where so many have been robbed of their rights to access basic human freedoms for the benefit of so very few, is to creatively construct the conditions in which a balance in power dynamics is possible in order to collectively benefit all.

It is only when an architect is actively present in a problem space that they are able to proactively search for the appropriate technologies in addition to locally generating a variety of sustainable solutions. It will only be when we relate our services to the other professions and people within that same disaster space, which we will then be able to create the conditions for individuals to obtain their human right to access basic freedoms before, during, and after a disaster emerges.

Architecture and Global Health

While working with the Nairobi Studio in the Mathare Valley during the summer of 2011, notably five years into my architectural education, it was finally confirmed for me that architecture does directly impact and is in complete parallel with global health. This realization happened predominantly through my own personal invested interests in humanitarianism and international development as a profession and the experiences that have resulted thus far in my life as a result of such interests.

It is also important to note that on several occasions throughout my architectural training, when conversations of global poverty and/or global health arose as a result of such personal interests, it was made clear to me that such conversations should be denounced as topics of concern in architecture.

Unless you have experienced or witnessed acts of structural violence that have led to moments of unjust health catastrophe and loss of human life, you may never fully understand the potential for architecture to become more than simply a provocation of change, reflection of culture, or gift of art. Urban slums, refugee settlements, and internally displaced persons camps are physical environments representative of and grounds for additional existing modes of such structured acts of violence. These are physical locations of direct socio-economic spatial exclusion with populations barred from their fundamental human right to obtain their own personal agency to access individual freedoms. Personal freedoms such as the right to secure housing, access to basic services, health care, socio-economic status, and so on.

From another perspective, one does not need to walk through the tight paths of Mathare or Kibera, the tsunami devastated region of Japan, or in an isolated displaced camp in Haiti to know that architects have been unclear about the definition surrounding what we do. At the moment of our global peak in human wealth and advanced technological evolution, we have chosen to limit our services to drawing. We chose this through our decisions to value ourselves in a particular way and as a result have limited our services to serve, at most, 10 percent of the global population.

It should also be noted that much of the policies that shape action within the disaster space and international development are determined by an evidence-based politics on research surrounding topics in global health as such proofs apply to our built and natural environments. Global institutions, world G8 and G20 summits, and current agendas such as the Millennium Development Goals, are all concerned with the state of our current human condition and how our environment impacts it, vice versa. Public health experts, from the lens of epidemiology to professions directed specifically at environmental health, are all measuring and identifying trends in the relationship between our environment we live in and its direct impact on people. It is in this already existing infrastructure and space, where architects will redefine their value.

“The basic principle of equity is that similar people should be treated similarly. Equity is not simply a humanitarian question, or simply seeing the dignity of the other and acting on the immediate relief of human suffering. Equity in global health is also a deeply political question. And I am hopeful, deeply hopeful, and particularly on the necessity of engaged governance research, in influencing evidence-based policy. (02)” -Dr. James Orbinski

Architecture is never separate from politics. By itself, it can only provoke policy. We can do a lot more when we deploy ourselves alongside other professions and people. As our global climate shifts, waters rise, and the earth continues to shake, the world will begin to look to deploy people with the skills and tools to solve the problems deployed technology simply will not.

I believe in the near future, it will be the architect who will become amongst the most vital collaborators in the equation that is international relief and development. The sooner our profession realizes the potential in our role and how to re-determine our own value, the sooner we will see ourselves becoming proactive in any disaster space. We already are trained to create synergy, we just don’t know it yet.

It is also important to note that it was not until I began promoting the inclusion of architects, not simply our designs, when I began to truly walk through the already opened doors along my journey. In architectural education, we must begin to promote the fields of relief and development as a viable career path for architects and not categorize the topic as a sub-text of architectural design.

“Synergetics is the empirical study of systems in transformation, with an emphasis on total system behavior unpredicted by the behavior of any isolated components, including humanity’s role as both participant and observer.

(03)” -R. Buckminster Fuller

Notes: (01). See Medecins Sans Frontiers former President, Dr. James Orbinski’s book, An Imperfect Offering. pp.7-8.

(02). See Dr. Orbinski’s talk on Global Health and Government through the pursuit of Equity, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLZs9fzqSv8 (03) See R. Buckminster Fuller’s full definition of synergetics here http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/s02/p0000.html

Animations/Diagrams on Architecture meets Global Health to come.

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Japan

March 11, 2011 Great Eastern Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami Part Five

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Archi + Aid l 07 Design as Dialogue MIT Initiative, Archi + Aid l 08 Architecture is Recovery

Photo taken of MIT teahouse project at a temporary housing site in Minamisanriku, Miyagi, Japan.

October 2012

The Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami 3.11.2011

The Great Eastern Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami has several multi-dimensional aspects that encompass both the event itself as well as the recovery process that is currently happening today in the Tohoku region. There is a struggle, as there is in every disaster site I have ever witnessed, to balance the current need of the people in the present while respectfully and thoughtfully designing the future. Of the top overarching relationships between what I have seen, there always seems to be one underlying reaction to protect populations via fast solutions. Whether the immediate response is to focus attention on blocking the approaching water with sea walls, to deploy 4 million bars of soap in a days time to wash away Cholera, or to demand for the deployment of more packaged food and water for isolated populations who had originally lived off of agriculture and herding, it is clear that there is an enormous need for a professional geared to create synergy between such advanced technologies and local longer-term sustainable solutions. In Japan, I have seen first hand several architects attempting to act as that professional. I feel entirely grateful to have been able to meet such individuals, as such experiences have given me a sense of reassurance of what I too had been experiencing prior to my travels to Japan.

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Decimated Highway from 3.11 Tsunami Photo taken in Isatomae, Minamisanriku in the Miyagi Prefecture, Japan.

October 2012

A very short list of the things people should generally know about the events of 3.11: -The Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami is a triple disaster. It includes the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that caused extensive physical and economic damage, the tsunami that at its peak estimated a height of upwards to 37.9 meters (124 ft), and lastly the disaster event also refers to the nuclear meltdowns in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant complex (01)(02)(03).

-The World Bank estimated that the total economic cost of the events surrounding 3.11 totalled to around $235 Billion USD, causing it to be the most costly natural disaster in world history (04).

-Tens of thousands of families have been relocated into temporary housing units across the region, several of such people are still struggling to find work as much of their livelihoods were lost in the event.

-Thousands have flocked to Sendai city since the events of 3.11 in order to find work.

-Several of the rice and agricultural fields in the region were destroyed by the salt content in the water from the tsunami.

-Japan is facing a crisis in a declining population, which their population count is expected to drastically decline by nearly a third by 2060 (05).

-Because of the combination of several complex situations and scenarios, how to rebuild such a huge area devastated by such an enormous series of events is way beyond one answer, project, or type of profession. It will take generations to recover from the events of 3.11.

Notes: (01): See USGS website for information pertaining to the Great Tohoku Earthquake on March 11, 2011: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/poster/2011/20110311.php (02): See information on the tsunami, heights and locations, via the Japan Meteorogical Agency here: http://www.jma.go.jp/en/tsunami/observation_04_20110313180559.html (03): Information on the Fukushima disaster: http://www.news.com.au/world-old/japan-earthquake-evacuations-ordered-as-fears-grow-of-radiation-leak-at-nuclear-plant/story-e6frfkyi-1226020473244 (04): Article regarding estimates done by the World Bank: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fgw-japan-quake-world-bank-20110322,0,3799976.story (05): Article on the current population crisis in Japan: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/01/japans-population-to-shrink-nearly-a-third-by-2060/

(01a)

(01b)

(01c)

(1a-d) Located above are a few before (1a + 1c) and after (1b + 1d) photos of entire towns that were taken away by the 3.11 Tsunami. Images were from a book published in Japanese that a friend led me to in Sendai city.

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Temporary Housing Site Photo taken in Ishinomaki October 2012

Ship that made its way miles inland from the tsunami and sunk into the ground on top of a neighborhood.

Photo taken in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan.

October 2012

(01d)

Meeting with Professor Shohoku-san, one of the main members of Archi + aid, at the Tohoku Institute of Technology October 2012

For weeks I walked through the tsunami devastated region of Tohoku, Japan alongside residents and a network of architects entitled Archi + Aid. We passed through town after town and witnessed all that had been completely washed away by an incomprehensible amount of water and force, often leaving behind nothing but foundation footprints and bundles of tangled rebar. Thousands of people have since been relocated into rows of temporary housing units atop mountainsides, in vacant parking lots, and amongst ruin. It is in this space, similar to many other disaster spaces I have experienced throughout my years of research, where one can feel the exhaustion from the recent past, frustration with the uncertain present, as well as the confusion of what may come of the future.

As our world continues to master the efficiency of immediate relief, engineering, and sympathy, such disaster experiences have made it clear to me that architects must continue to be the link between people, smaller-scale locally driven solutions, and longer-term solidarity. Such clarity finally found me after meeting with and shadowing the individuals at Archi + Aid. After four years of independent research and nine months of global disaster travel, I had finally discovered a network of architects driven to work collaboratively amongst themselves, other professionals, and local people in order to link the space between social issues and policy in synergy with appropriate technology and local solutions. This time around, it was not another singular organization, individual architect, or group coming from the outside to save others. It was the next generation of architects in Japan redefining their own role in society while undeniably becoming an example for architects to follow in the next global disaster.

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“Lost Homes� Model Restoration Project Led by Professor Tsukihashi-san from Kobe University October 2012

Archi + Aid l

Tohoku Region, Japan

Archi + Aid is the platform of over 290 Japanese architects dedicating their individual practices, university resources, and collective energy to make sure that the longer-term local needs across the region are met, resident voices are heard, and larger forces remain mindful that sometimes a fast response is not always the best solution. From actively participating in town meetings to creating adaptable and affordable housing options, Archi + Aid is collaboratively focusing on several smaller-scale locally driven solutions in order to create a brighter whole. As future generations continue to see an increase in urban disasters and reach for advanced global technology to solve its problems, architects must look to examples like Archi + Aid in order to actively promote our profession as part of the longer-term solution. We must continue to be the professionals focused on the inclusion of the silenced, strive to become known as the searchers of appropriate technology and local solutions, as well as push ourselves in the struggle to define local metrics in order to value the success of our own insertions. In areas affected by major disasters, uncertainty, and confusion, architects must continue to deploy themselves in order to assist in creating a less haphazard future.

I would like to express my gratitude to all of the individuals at Archi + Aid as well as Professor Buntrock from UCBerkeley. The experiences from shadowing and participating with the network have positively influenced me in many ways. Thank you.

“Lost Homes� Workshop with Professor Tsukihashi-san (pictured to the right) October 2012

When I first arrived in Port-Au-Prince in January I felt completely overwhelmed by the hugeness of the world of relief and development that had inserted itself into the city center. Although I was quite fortunate to be surrounded by supportive friends at Bati Byen (Architecture for Humanity, Haiti) and a close friend working for the World Bank Group, I immediately knew it would be tremendously difficult to find my way through the network of organizations and get a sense of how such a world currently views and could envision the value in working with architects. I had instantly confirmed for myself, the minute I landed and drove away from the airport, that my entire year was not going to be about redesigning another tent. To be honest, it was never really about designing another deployable object, I simply just had no idea how else to phrase a year of defining an architect’s role in the serious business that is International Development and Humanitarian Assistance, especially as it applied directly to architecture and how we have chosen to define our services.

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Meeting with Professor Maeda-san from the Osaka Institute of Technology, a local government official, and residents in a small fishing village in Miyagi, Prefecture, Japan October 2012

Theme 07 l Design is Dialogue

There was a particular conversation with an Archi + Aid member in Sendai, over 9 months from the day I landed in Port-Au-Prince, which I finally saw and felt another architect experiencing the same overwhelming exhaustion. This member began to show me the diagrams they had made, of the system or policy space that created the place that would become the future of the Tohoku region. We spoke of how the new policies were shaping the coastline and how often such agendas seemed great on paper but was there was a direct need for a transitioning group to make sure such projects would be realistic on the ground. We spoke about how the Archi + Aid members in the network had taken on the responsibility to rebuild and reinvision the future of several districts within the tsunami region simply because the local government officials were either lost in the tsunami or were inable to handle such a situation alone. The main members realized in the weeks following 3.11 that their skills would be most valued if they invested themselves in the long run.

In this conversation, I immediately realized that it was not simply about how we have chosen to define our services, but that there is and may never be a direct path or set of best practices for architects to follow in such situations. The only thing we can and must do, is find a way to relate our services, as spatial designers, to the people within the disaster space. I continued to watch for weeks as each member clearly articulated how their services would benefit everyone in the equation. They did this through models, drawings, and even presentations mindful of certain policies and how to shape them. The members at Archi + Aid were experiencing first hand how to insert themselves, assist residents in the healing process, communicate with policy makers, and hold community meetings all at once. In such a situation, where an entire region was devastated by a tsunami, it was native architects who demanded that such a place must only be rebuilt via many smaller scale projects alongside local people. They demanded that fast responses would not create any positive longer-term future.

After this conversation, I began to think of my Haitian friends, as a few are also architects, who were battling their own monsters. I thought about how it should of been architects deploying themselves, not simply to start new organizations offering Haitian employment in the city, but to insert both themselves and their resources in order to do whatever it took to make sure that Haitian architects could rebuild Haiti alongside other Haitian businesses, with Haitian locals, alongside Haitian government officials, including Haitian professionals, and sparking Haitian building enterprises and utilizing local building materials and industries, however informal and Mc-Giver-esque that experience might be.

I then thought about my friends at Architecture for Humanity in Haiti. In many ways Bati Byen is working towards this, as they are truly working day and night to create buildings that in the process does employ local people, uses local services and materials, and supports Haitian businesses. I just wondered, what if there was an organization simply geared towards mobilizing local professionals, not as a small NGO, but as a platform that basically encouraged and supported local building professionals to come together to communicate within the disaster/humanitarian world as it directly impacted their own disaster-affected space. Architects working as Bati Byen does in various ways, but both alongside and inside relief and development agencies, in order to communicate and push the policies in relief and development that dominate the physical place that is Port-Au-Prince.

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Design as Dialogue is the title of this theme because of how important our visual communication skills as architects are and will be in any disaster situation. We may not be able to clearly define our overarching services immediately, especially as the world continues to reach for fast technology to solve its problems, but through people and our communication skills, architects will begin to realize and show those directly affected in an event how impactful we can be. What we are missing is a way to identify and document how our skills impact those local people, related agencies, and other policy makers in the disaster space. We need an empirical method or overarching tool to refer to and begin to outline the impacts of our services alongside everyone involved. We need to begin to educate ourselves how to create spatial designs, not simply based on theories completely separate from the realities on the ground, but based on what such services will mean when we are in complex situations and are able to show how architects are prepared to create solutions based on an overarching agenda to assist individuals in obtaining their basic freedoms. Through our visual communication skills, we will begin to clearly define, both to ourselves and to others, the value of what we do.

Media conference surrounding the “Lost Homes” Restoration Project with Professor Tsukihashi-san October 2012

See Archi + Aid’s Website: www.archiaid.org Bati Byen: http://architectureforhumanity.org/updates/2012-01-11-bati-byen-rebuilding-in-haiti-2011-year-in-review

The team used large models to help former residents reinvision what used to be of their towns and to engage them to parcipate in the reconstruction and recovery process.

October 2012 “Lost Homes” Model Restoration Project.

Residents would come to the event held by Professor Tsukihashi-san and students to reinvision what used to be of the towns before the tsunami.

October 2012

Professor Kanda-san presenting the 400 year old map to a local resident living in one of the temporary housing sites Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan.

October 2012

During my stay in Sendai city, I was contacted by professor Shun Kanda from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture about a weeklong initiative he and few other MIT professors were running in a small coastal fishing town north of the city in Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture. He had heard of my whereabouts via a line of friends at MIT and those I had met in Sendai .This particular project, one of many projects the MIT Japan 3/11 Initiative runs, was an Inter-University Exchange Program (iUP), which brought together students from Tokyo University, the University of Gloucestershire, and others to work on smaller-scale initiatives alongside local governments and residents in re-envisioning the future town (01). My role was to work directly with a landscape architect and environmentalist from the United Kingdom in producing a concept design that spoke about the future of Minamisanriku through such conversations and interactions with locals on the ground. The majority of the materials produced were later presented by Professor Kanda at the Nikkei BP Smart City Week 21 Symposium in Yokohama, Japan on October 30, 2012 (02).

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Photo taken on top of broken sea wall in Minamisanriku with MIT Professor Shun Kanda-san and the others involved in the fall 2012 iUP 3.11 MIT Initiative October 2012

MIT Japan 3.11 Initiative l Minamisanriku, Miyagi, Japan

There are many things I learned during the week I spent with the group in Minamisanriku, but there was one topic in particular that stuck with me the most. The weeks leading up to the Initiative I had been touring the Tohoku region in complete shock over the hugeness of the event itself. Much of the conversations were geared towards the transition between temporary housing and recovery, the majority of the residents having to abandon their hometowns and flock to Sendai city to find work, the loss of agricultural crops, what to do with the vast amount of land area and miles of coastline that was no longer usable for residential or agricultural industry, the relocation of residents around the region atop cut-off mountaintops, or the debate over how high sea walls should be built in order to block the next tsunami. So many things were running through my mind. It was not until the second or third day of the initiative that a very vital piece of information was brought to my attention and all seemed to become instantly silenced. This important news came from an old map of the town, dating back to over 400 years ago where the original ocean water line had nearly reached the exact line of the tsunami. It was in this exact moment my perception changed.

“Well, forget the noise, at the end of the day, the tsunami wins.”

It is in this moment that I began to see how our world has truly become out of balance, in regards to the built and natural environments on a global scale, and the direct repercussions man is going to continue to face from the result of decades of decisions to simply follow markets and technology without respect to future generations, our current and future environments, peoples safety and health, and so on.

So, how can architects provide insight and greater influence in the world of relief and development in order to solve problems of today while being mindful of tomorrow? How can we assist other local architects in the disaster space, through both inter-global exchange programs as well as on the national level, in helping them balance power dynamics as well as informed decision making mindful of environmental and human safety concerns? How big or small does the initiative need to be to make change? I think all of such answers will depend on the context, culture, and person you ask. Overall, it has become increasingly clear that in the long run, it is the silent ones who hold the greatest longer-term influence. So, whatever the level of impact an architect decides to engage in, it will always be on the smaller-scale and local level where most positive direct and longer-term change will occur.

Notes: (01): See the MIT Japan 3.11 Initiative’s website here: http://japan311.scripts.mit.edu/wp/ (02): News on the Nikkei BP Smart City Week 21 Symposium in Yokohama, Japan here: http://japan311.scripts.mit.edu/wp/?p=610

Photo taken in Isatomae, Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan.

October 2012

Image taken in Isatomae, Minsamisanriku October 2012

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The Tohoku Region of Japan is of the most beautiful locations I have ever traveled to. Most people are directly in touch with nature and continue to base their livelihoods off of fishing and agriculture. Pictured is Saya Suzuki-san, one of the main members of the 3.11 Initiative.

October 2012

Pictured is the former principle of a high school that was destroyed in the tsunami. He spoke about his relatives that passed in the event and how several people believed the sea wall would block the water.

Image taken in Shizugawa, Minsamisanriku October 2012

Fall 2012 members of the iUP 3.11 Initiative.

October 2012

We live in a world full of horrors, evils, and numerous dystopic realities. Unless we clearly define our limits to others and utilize our skillsets alongside all of those involved, architects will continue to remain powerless in the arena that is gobal relief and international development. We will continue to watch our world destroy itself and through our apathy, we will become agents for added horrors, evils, and dystopias today as well as for our future generations.

I envision an architecture that is always beautiful, practical, and meaningful. Architecture’s meaning will be valued by more than simply ourselves and the select few who historically had determined the worth of our services. I believe that it must become clear to everyone that architects design with and for 100% of our world and in doing so we are able to create solutions as they relate to each person involved on the ground and afar.

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Pictured to the right is Vanessa Powell, a Landscape Architect and Environmentalist from the University of Gloucestershire in the United Kingdom.

Photo taken in Minamisanriku October 2012

Theme 08 l Architecture is Recovery

Architecture is recovery. It is the architect’s obligation to carefully balance the collaboration between communities, agencies, and other professionals within the disaster space, in order to sculpt, shape, and balance our built and natural environments. Architecture is the creation of spatial designs at a variety of scales, which are always in direct relation to and a reflection of a unifying agenda to better the conditions that will directly improve human health and further stabilize our environments in order to proactively shape policy and guide economics in creating a more sustainable future. Architecture is not just about what we see, but it is also about what others in our world have chosen not to see. I truly believe that architecture is about creating the conditions in which change is possible.

Thank you to Tomohiko Yamanashi-san and the individuals at Nikken Sekkei in Tokyo for both guiding me and providing me insight into the experiences and efforts surrounding 3.11.

During a small group presentation at the Nikken Sekkei Tokyo office, Mr. Yamanashi-san and a few other Nikken Sekkei employees presented to me their involvement in the relief and recovery efforts in the Tohoku Region. In this meeting I learned some of the overarching issues that have occurred since 3.11. The meeting had taken place prior to my journey north to Sendai, so much of the information presented was my first introduction to what the daily challenges were in the Tohoku region.

Many employees in the company are volunteering their time to assist in the ongoing clean up from the tsunami.

Several of them had friends and family directly affected by the events and/or felt a huge sense of responsibility to use their services and skills to work alongside those living there in order to assist in the recovery process. The employess were also creating pamphlets to help those living in the temporary housing units make a safer and more liveable environment in order to protect the people from the extreme weather differentials. They did this through simple diagrams printed on user friendly pamphlets that would show how to further insulate the buildings. They referred to this small project as Housing for Health.

Mr. Yamanashi-san is also a member of Archi + Aid and supports the Archi + Aid members in the Tohoku region from Tokyo. He and other employees at Nikken Sekkei continue to provide services and assistance to the members of the Achi + Aid network, both through taking frequent trips to the region as well as supporting members from afar. Some of the main projects in their company are also providing employment opportunities for those directly affected by the events of 3.11.

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https://www.japlusu.com/news/face-face-nature

Nikken Sekkei l Interactive Evacuation Mapping Project

There was one project Mr. Yamanashi-san and the other Nikken employees presented to me that I found to be really qutie inspiring. The project was an evacuation mapping project that looked at the time it took for individuals to walk to safety from the Tsunami. In many areas, the locals only had around 30 minutes to escape. The goal of the project was to compare cost benefits of rerouting smaller-scaled roads instead of building a larger scaled highway for preparedeness in the case of another event. Nikken Sekkei employees went to one of the towns in the Tohoku region and began engaging the residents in searching for the quickest and most efficient escape routes. What they learned from this hands on mapping experience was that the locals really had a sense of what trails were safe, still accessible, and the most efficient. It had been information that google earth and their own footsteps alone, would never provide. One of the architecture employees at Nikken, who had several computer computational skills, then scripted a program to collect the line data the residents were drawing on the maps. He replaced the ink and paper with an object sensitive pen tool and built a small to-scale model of the town for residents to draw lines on top of. The lines were picked up digitally by the pen tool and inserted into a databank of information on his computer that created an interactive visualization map of all of the possible escape routes relative to time and place. The interactive mapping tool was then used to make evidence-based decisions on where to place evacuation towers and reroute road systems in the area. Simply brilliant.

Theme 07, Design is Dialogue, directly orginated from this meeting.

Published works on the Nikken Sekkei Evacuation Mapping Project and other tsunami related projects can be found in english in the August 2012 edition of A+U magazine (01).

See their company website: www.nikken.co.jp/en See the internship program and other Nikken Sekkei involvements with the Archi + Aid network: www.archiaid.org (01) Purchase August A+U edition here: https://www.japlusu.com/news/face-face-nature

“I do not deny that iconic architecture can revive and regenerate the city. But an icon as a self-expression of the architect won’t be loved by its local people in the long run. Instead, I believe that a “natural icon”--born from a dialogue between the architect and the location--will be favored by everyone.”

-Kengo Kuma An interview response for the Architect’s Newspaper (01)

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Photo taken in front of Kengo Kuma’s office in Tokyo, Japan October 2012

I met with Kengo Kuma-san, one of my favorite architectural designers, one Friday afternoon during the end of my stay in Japan. I had hoped to meet with and speak to Kuma, Toyo Ito, and Kazuyo Sejima as each of the three globally renowned architectural designers have been involved on the ground in the Tohoku region since 3.11. Unfortunately, because of scheduling conflicts, I was unable to meet with each of them. For the meeting I had prepared four direct and simple questions in order to sculpt a conversation regarding what he believed his role as well as other architects roles were in a disaster setting such as the Great Eastern Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami.

What I learned from the meeting, which was something quite comparable to other meetings I had with Archi + Aid members, was that in Japan there seems to be an architectural movement towards synergy. I am not just saying this because it is part of my title for this branner or for narrative purposes. There were literally hundreds of individuals throughout my year who used the term to describe how they were going about creating positive change whether they were an architect, politician, or even an economist. The term had been used in a very particular way amongst the architects in Japan. For Kuma, it was the balance of the built and natural environments, the digital and the hand, while working one on one with local people in order to create natural icons and influence what he believed to be a positive direction for our profession.

The “House for All” project was the first attempt at creating such a natural icon. Although timing and other personal commitments prevented me from visiting the project, I feel very honored to have been invited to watch the opening ceremony alongside Sejima-san and the residents in Miyatojima in Higashimatsushima city. Toyo Ito, whom is also a part of the “House for All” project, is also actively involved with the members of Archi + Aid. He continues to sit in community meetings, assist in the creation of visual media to present to policy makers, and is actively promoting the inclusion of architects across the region and around the globe.

Notes: (01): Architect Newspaper address: http://archpaper.com/news/articles.asp?id=5870

I returned to Haiti for a second time in May of 2012 for one main reason. I needed to see the world of Port-au-Prince through the eyes of Haitians. Although in many ways my original trip in January had been alongside Haitian people, from the University Initiative to befriending some great people at Bati Byen, I still had seen Haiti through the World of the NGO. During this second trip, I took the time to see the beauty that is in Haiti, from a beach trip to Jacmel to walking the streets of Petionville to witness an artist who in many ways risks his life in activism to speak for the Haitian people through graffiti. It was during this trip that my true direction for this Branner became clear and I was able to articulate Theme 01, Design Systems not Stuff.

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Theme 09 l Next Steps

In the course of this second trip, during an evening over Prestige and a pizza, a Haitian friend began to tell me about their lifetime goal of working at the Ministry of Education in Port-au-Prince. They truly believed that through education and a more just system they could promote a new generation of Haitians to work together to build a better society for themselves.

This person then looked me in the eye and stated that since the earthquake, this task, of rebuilding a better future for their own country, was never and now is most certainly not in the hands of Haitians. The presence of several international organizations in many ways dominate over the Ministry of Education, as such institutions and organizations have taken on an agenda in what they believed was their responsibility to save Haiti. On the other hand, it is also vital to note that I truly believe the individuals working on the ground have the greatest intentions and moral standards. This statement is by no means an attack on anyones ethics, as I too have many friends who work in global relief and international development. It was in this moment that I became simply infuriated with a system that had become so large that it lacked accountability and responsibility for its actions. There is a middle class in Haiti, full of bright minds with the will and the motivation to better their own society. Instead of providing individuals with more short-term employment and solutions, there desperately needs to be professionals whom can break such a detached cycle both inside that system and in every action they ever pursue as it can and must be applied on every scale.

My Branner travels have led me to discover the need for an empirical based method in architecture. Such a method will be an attempt to help guide architects on how to better engage in the arena that is global relief and international development. My overarching objective will be to assist locals in creating the conditions for populations to obtain their human right to access basic freedoms. I plan on doing this through a direct lens focused on global health, with an emphasis on deploying myself alongside other professions and people. Deploying myself will be mandatory in order to utilize an on the ground and engaged research method to highlight and measure the value of my services as they apply to a particular context and population. Theme 09 will be my masters’ thesis.

Until then, I plan on pursuing an additional degree in order to dedicate my future career path on strengthening the role of the building professions in global relief and international development. I will be obtaining another Masters Degree in City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, with a concentration on Housing, Community, and Economic Development and a focus on International and Comparative Planning. I hope to maintain all relationships gained during this past years journey and genuinely thank every individual who has guided me along the way.

To my friends in Peru, China, Haiti, the United States, throughout Western Europe, Kenya, and Japan, you have all greatly influenced me and I thank you.

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Kounkuey Design Initiative Blog: http://blog.kounkuey.org/ Nader Khalii portrait: http://blog.greenhomebuilding.com/2008/03/nader-khalili-died.htm