The client, who is the daughter of a Fijian high chief and a pastor, requested our graduate studio to design several structures on the village in Batiki, Fiji.

The project calls for replacing 8 structures in the main village.  Therefore, each student in this graduate studio selected a building type to redesign.

Of the 8 building types, I selected the Pastor’s House.  Originally, the client intended to renovate the existing house, but after meeting with the client, her father wanted a new home.  The new home will occupy roughly a single-family and include the flexibility for guests to stay during their visits.

Using Fiji’s tropical climate as the design concept and guide to maximize the building efficiency and performance:

• Site and Orientation - maximize natural ventilation, shading and passive solar
• Natural Ventilation - cross ventilation concept
• Energy Efficiency - rely as little as possible on supplementary energy by using natural light and thermal/solar energy (photovoltaic system)
• Rainwater Catchment System - utilize rainwater catchment for daily use (gray-water system)

This year long project gave us a chance to produce a design development and construction drawing set with MEP drawings of each of our buildings.  The construction drawing set was later handed to the client’s architect to finalize for actual size.

Publication and funding started in 2007 through 2009 when the economy took a turn for the worse.  Insufficient funding has placed this project on hold.