Studio Work: Caleb House_Team 05

The Caleb House provides housing for men with aspiring leadership roles within their community.  As such, a group of men live communally together while their education continues.  Like the teachers’ house, the Caleb house it is meant to provide housing for 6-8 men who will live as roommates.

                The planning studies conducted for communal men’s living expressed that an emphasis should be placed upon the learning/study space that was a requirement of the home’s program.  As such, our group determined that this space would be the central node from which the rest of the home would revolve.  The public space is separated from the private bedrooms and bathroom by both the learning space and a porch.  We recognized that these spaces work exceptionally well as transition spaces in our planning studies.

                The roofs shed the water to the periphery of the home where they can be gathered into holding tanks for use in irrigation.  The whole house gathers in the center which lends itself to the idea that the core of the home is the most used and important space.  Indeed this study space is emphasized by additionally heightened ceiling and a peripheral ring of vent block fenestration.

 VIEW OUR ENTIRE PROJECT HERE 

Studio Work: Teachers' House_Team 05

This year we were able to expand upon last year’s school design studio.  While the school remains under construction currently, we were charged with providing housing for the influx of teachers now tasked with living locally.  The teachers’ home was designed to accommodate six to eight teachers living as a set of roommates. 

 

                  After a series of planning studies our group came to the unexpected conclusion that the bathroom of all places would best work as the core of our building.  We knew this formal gesture would be a difficult sell, but after using it as the knuckle between the private bedrooms and the public kitchen, living room, and dining room, we determined it was the correct course of action.

                  The inwardly sloped roofs collect rainwater into an internal collection tank for use with the adjacent water wall within the bathroom.  The inwardly sloping roof also allows for large exterior walls to admit maximum light and ventilation.  The space created in the public core is open but still comfy because the dimensions remained tightly controlled to minimize expense of construction.  

VIEW OUR ENTIRE PROJECT HERE

Recollections: Haiti House Design_Team 05

This semester’s studio assignment was one that everyone in our group will remember as being different and more rewarding than most.  It will be remembered for re-shaping our notion of the world.  It will be remembered for being real. 

                  In so many instances we are tasked with designing imaginary buildings on unobtainable sites using untested means of construction.   They certainly have their merits as they challenge us to expand our mental horizons, but they are also limited.  Cost is seldom an issue.  Rarely are we challenged with the builder’s dilemma that if we can draw it… they can build it.  Haiti is different.  These buildings will be built.

                  After being totally blown away by how far our preconceptions were off before traveling to Haiti, we set down to work designing appropriate homes for Haitian civilians.  Like most every studio project we minded local context and regional flavor, but unlike other projects, we found it disrespectful and incorrect to veer far from these precedents.  The building process in Haiti, we realized, was something the people were proud of… something they could control… something that should remain intact. 

                  Rather than trying to create an American design and give it to Haiti where it would surely be rejected and ignored, we attempted to design Haitian.  Instead of introducing disorder and chaos to a land riddled with such things, we emphasized rationality above all else.  Our designs were decidedly un-American.  Not in the sense that they hate America, but in the sense that they are strongly dislocated from their nation of their designers.

Next steps

Sketch of the "Urban Alternative" site

Our team has honed in on several key issues that are necessary for a successful and fulfilling project.  Each issue will hopefully guide us to a total design.  Each issue was forged from different sources.  As a group, we seek to apply our knowledge gleaned from Jean and Joy Thomas, our observations of the Haitian people, and the work and insights of our fellow classmates.

Sketches completed throughout trip

It is imperative that we bend our designs to suit the Thomas’s desires.  Their insights are really the only insights we have into the nuances of Fond-de-Blanc.  Without them we would not be in Haiti.  They are also the leaders of that community.  What they see fit should be staunchly acknowledged.  The community of Fond-le-Blanc is already seen throughout Haiti as the destination.  It has successfully led a program to plant millions of trees where other regions have failed.  It has accommodated many earthquake refugees without interference.  It has been and will continue to lead Haiti so long as John and Joy are at the leadership helm.  While our design must satisfy our own exacting standards, it is perhaps more important that the design cater to our guide’s initiatives.

We saw how the Haitian community at Fond-de-Blanc lived through a visitor’s lens.  We cannot and will not claim to understand everything we saw.  And we only saw a portion of Fond-des-Blanc.  Learning and interpreting from the best of our observations is really the activity of paramount importance.  Everything we saw was important, but there is a hierarchy that we must ascertain as we sift through all the new and exciting sights.  “Should we consider safety, or running water more of a priority?” we may have asked before departing from America.  The answer is still up to contention but we should continue to challenge our preconceived notions against actual observations.  These observations will be the driver of a total design.

Home in Fond-des-Blancs

Our fellow classmates all made compelling arguments regarding their group’s designs.  Our group needs to learn from them.  Furthermore, our group should collaborate with the others in an effort to cut the fat and maintain the strengths.  When combined they will surely compose a mutual design much stronger than an individual effort.  Each group will surely attempt to incorporate their observations, and who knows, maybe they were looking at something else than we were.  Using one another will be of increasing benefit as we seek to pare down this project into one sleek venture.

We cannot wait to return to Fond-des-Blancs!

Comprehending the misunderstood

One can never fully understand a foreign nation.  There are too many intricate nuances to ever fully investigate.  There is too little time to hear enough stories.  We are born with too few eyes to perceive everything around us… and our visit was merely five awe-inspiring days. 

Upon arrival to Haiti our senses were overwhelmed.  There was a distinct smell, few lights, and an abundance of new noises.  As we exited Port au Prince and neared Fond-des-Blanc, it was as if we were stepping back in time to a land more pure and in tune with itself.  The region held modern people with modern ideas in an ancient landscape.  The juxtaposition was poignant.  Women with the reigns to a donkey in one hand and child in the other spoke to men on motorcycles with cell phones.  It certainly was not what many of us expected.  The people seemingly tolerated us, but without the benefit of mutual language it was difficult to discern their spoken feelings.  We relied on body language and noticed many of the most beautiful smiles and welcoming gestures we’ve ever encountered.  The Haitians of Fond-des-Blanc evidently understood our mission.

Fond-des-Blanc is an agricultural region draped with the most breathtaking mountain scenery in the Caribbean and is a mere sixty miles from the capital city of Port-au-Prince.  After traversing the dusty rugged roads we arrived at our destination and were met by Haitian native Jean Thomas and his American wife Joy.  From the beginning, our team extracted the most information we could in the allowable time from our like-languaged guides.  Upon arrival on the site, our hearts sank.  This was not the site we expected to see based on our rudimentary 2D plans.  The grading was steeper, the forests thicker, and the proportions much different than we had expected.  Our proposal, we soon realized, was not going to cut it. 

Dani and Pete presenting the initial site plan

After putting aside our apparent inability to fully understand the site through plan, we were charged with cataloging a series of panoramic views from eight distinct areas of the site.  Although the setting was serene, hiking to each location was far from a walk in the park.  Each area differed vastly from the others, even when the separation was only a few dozen yards.  The panoramas offer a rich montage of views.  These views will become increasingly important as we design the individual homes to populate our community.  While many were fully blocked or partially obstructed by thick Haitian vegetation, others offered sweeping vistas to the mountains beyond the mountains.  At the crest of our site, the tilled soil is shown in panorama as a sweeping plane uninterrupted except for the distant forest and a lone palm tree.  Approaching the confluence of the small stream (what we were told was a river), the ground could not be more different.  It is not only divided by water, but abruptly punctuated by cliff sides and steep rocky slopes.  In between the two are panoramas of thick forest, grown cactus fences, and rocky topsoil.