"...Typically, a developer comes to the city with big plans. Promises are made. Serious architects are brought in. The needs of the community, like ample parkland and affordable housing, are taken into account. Editorial boards and critics, like me, praise the design for its ambition.
Eventually, the project takes on a momentum of its own. The city and state, afraid of an embarrassing public failure, feel pressured to get the project done at any cost, and begin to make concessions. Given the time such developments take to build, sometimes a decade or more, we then hit the inevitable economic downturn. The developer pleads poverty. Desperate to avoid more economic bad news, government officials cut a deal.
It’s a familiar ending, made more nauseating because we have seen it so many times before. And it can’t be solved by simply crunching numbers. It demands a profound shift in mentality. What we have now is a system in which decent architecture and the economic needs of developers are in fundamental opposition. Until that changes, there will be more Atlantic Yards in our future."
F format upon request)In the fall of 2008, with the support of the William Kinne Fellowship Traveling Prize, I traveled to the sub-Saharan country of Malawi (see attached proposal, Wading the Waters: Exploring Malawi’s Fragile Infrastructure of Water and Health). The intent of this trip was to explore the fragile relationship between the infrastructure of water and health. My three week travel itinerary included accompanying the non-profit, Child Dental Relief, in their ongoing efforts in promoting basic hygiene and oral health care at two established sites, the Home of Hope orphanage, near Mchinji, and Consol Homes in the town of Nimetete – both situated in rural western Malawi.
While the non-profit has been focusing on basic oral health care for Malawi’s orphans and impoverished population, their desire is to begin to address the broader understanding of the larger structures effecting communities – especially that of water and proper sanitation. My time was managed between these two sites, assessing the issues surrounding water sourcing, quality, use and its discharge. To gain a better understanding of these centers, time was given to document the local vernacular architecture and building technologies, village layout and community infrastructural pressures. This multi-disciplinarian collaboration allowed me to meet with medical doctors and dentists, interview local stakeholders such as nurses, local chiefs and teachers, local architects, and Malawi’s Ministry of Water.
By introducing urban design as a tool in addressing the greater issue of extreme poverty, it became apparent that the need for a greater perspective in understanding the complexities of these two sites was needed. In designing solutions to the complicated issues of poverty reduction, the need for new perspectives (regionally, annually, in varying scales) in viewing the problem is essential. In contributing to the wealth of work being accomplished, my findings ultimately are in the form of questions.
The intention is for these key questions to provoke more resilient design solutions that mitigate what I intend to explain as existing designs of inclusion and exclusion. In understanding the current international development strategies encountered with this grant, designs of inclusion appear as responses that are local and native. They are solutions that come from the site, of the site, respond to topography, culture; the physical natural environment. Inclusionary design opens to the direct community. Designs of exclusion on the other hand, are outsourced, foreign, and external. These solutions tend to be recommendations applied to a site with regard to direct goals.
As I hope to explain, ultimately it is a combination of both inclusionary and exclusionary design solutions that must address the boundless issues effecting sites in implementing design on many scales (technology, site layouts and site infrastructures) in the hopes of eliminating extreme poverty.
Two Sites: Dispersing and Collecting
In comparing the sites of Home of Hope and Consol Homes new perspectives can be gained in comprehending design as a strategy to end extreme poverty. Both sites are privately funded by foreign organizations, churches or governments, and both are situated within rural communities of need. But each begins to demonstrate examples of what can be seen as inclusive and exclusive relationships to their environment, creating varying degrees of enclaves of dispersion or collection. This new constellation of development work found throughout the country typically mediate their surroundings with a combination of dispensing vital needs (water, education, food) and collecting (staff, resources, funding). Through this understanding, new relationships with the diverse scale of design such as technology, site layout and infrastructure, become key in questioning current strategies of international development.
Technology:
The introduction of foreign financing inevitably introduces foreign technologies. To the benefit of the community, these new technologies advance potentials for new sources of energy, communication and ultimately health and well being. Home of Hope successfully makes use of a gravity fed water system, utilizing the steep slope it is built against to feed the numerous sinks and toilets, whereas Consol Homes depends upon tapping into its aquifer for sourcing its water. The latter’s strategy of a system comprised of complicated mechanics have, as of the recent visit, left all pumps inoperative due to its around-the-clock use. No local source of knowledge in repairing the pumps leaves the Center without water for weeks at a time.
Site Layout:
Topography, security and funding have all determined the site layouts and design of the two sites visited. Home of Hope while located upon a sloping grade makes use of a grid layout, with buildings located perpendicular to each other and the adjacent roadway. This is conducive to the natural flow of water into the site, as well as the flow of community into the site. Contradicting all this is the introduction of a perimeter wall enclosing the entire site, which restricts flow, but emphasizes security, cohesion and identity. Consol Homes, located within a spacious and relatively flat open field, is conceived as a radial layout with a central “green” and gazebo with surrounding buildings looking in upon itself. No perimeter walls are yet in place and numerous footpaths connect this site with area villages.
Infrastructure:
As discussed above, both technology and site layout have played a role in the current infrastructural strategies of the two sites. The present condition of local village water infrastructure is antiquated, with limited lines, most of which have collapsed. Home of Hope, making use of a naturally flowing spring, actually diverts a percentage of its water lines to its perimeter and beyond its site boundaries to neighboring villages. Home of Hope provides a reliable source of water to the immediate adjacent community. In contrast, Consol Homes, at the time of my visit depended upon the network and proximity of neighboring villages to bring the water in, add due to its failed pumps.
The observation of these two sites allows one to gain new perspectives through asking questions in the hopes of focusing the incredible amount of work already in place. Both Home of Hope and Consol Homes offer opportunities for creating new interventions and methods of site dispersion and collection. Through this lens of inclusion and exclusion, questions can be formulated to broaden the discussion of sustainable design development.
How can design begin to integrate sites with their surrounding environments?
Many times these privately funded initiatives are seen as closed systems with immediate solutions and goals. Rightly so, the breadth of poverty reduction is so vast, no single solution has the ability or finances to grasp the issue in its entirety. But how can these acts of development not be seen as operating only in isolation, but as a part of a greater infrastructure of the community, of the region? And how can these satellite enclaves of foreign financed infrastructures branch out, be plugged into or expanded? How can these centers of provide outreach and education thru a new infrastructure of utility?
How can new technologies mediate the local vernacular?
Appreciation and implementation of local technologies has become a focus in almost all forms of development work. “Less is more” when it comes to introducing foreign materials and technologies. How can development of improved infrastructures implement local methods while accessing new technologies? How can existing techniques be reinforced with new technologies? How can cultural conceptions of an “impoverished” material (mud) and a “developed” material (concrete) be mitigated with understandings and appreciation of tradition, environment and local knowledge?
How can a site’s resources be reworked through better design?
Single use” is a concept of the so-called developed world that has sadly been transposed onto cultures well versed in the ability of sustainably utilizing their immediate environment. Water, being one of the most valuable resources is underutilized. How can water be multi-programmed to fulfill numerous functions along its flow through a site? What are the seasonal, monthly and daily flows? What aspects of xeriscaping, permaculture, greywater, and rain water catchment can be incorporated into planning and architectural design solutions?
How can design perform at the scale of health?
There are immediate health concerns facing communities in poverty. From infectious diseases such as AIDs/HIV to mosquito carrying malaria and yellow fever and waterborne pathogens, design is just beginning to matter. There are a number of preventative strategies that can be achieved medically and thru better design of our living environments. What are the scales to consider when designing healthy environments? Scales of water (regional water shed, community infrastructures, personal use/discharge). Scales of disease (proximities to sources of breeding grounds, ceiling heights and beam spacing for ceiling hung mosquito bed nets, Scales of hygiene (locations of hand washing sinks, washing facilities).
Discovering Answers by Designing Questions
The two sites explored through this grant gave me the ability to compare and contrast the types and technologies of international development work occurring in Western Malawi. These sites exemplify the importance of creating varying degrees of enclaves of inclusion and exclusion that ultimately have altering relationships with neighboring communities, acting as points of dispersion and collection.
It is my intention and hope to share my discoveries in investigating the broad relationship of water and health by bringing questions to the discussion that help give new perspectives in addressing the issue of poverty reduction.
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