Archinect - News

Watch: new documentary tells the story behind MASS Design Group's cholera clinic in Haiti

2016-09-20T14:24:00-04:00

Just nine months after a catastrophic earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, killing hundreds of thousands of people, a cholera epidemic broke out. While it became clear shortly after that the epidemic began with U.N. peacekeepers, who had been active in Haiti since 2004 and brought the disease from Nepal, the U.N. only just recently took formal responsibility. With overwhelming rebuilding efforts and damaged infrastructure throughout the country, Haiti was made even more vulnerable, and the disease spread through consumption of tainted water and food.

To attend to the sick population, Haitian infectious disease specialist Dr. Jean-William Pape and his organization, Les Centres GHESKIO, set up and ran temporary treatment sites, but after two years, when the epidemic didn’t seem to be shrinking back, Dr. Pape realized that unsanitary waste collection practices in the treatment centers were contaminating the groundwater, reintroducing the disease into the population.

So to cut off the cycle of r...

A peek into The Now Institute's "Haiti Now" publication + giveaway winners

2015-11-10T11:48:00-05:00

Looking back at the Season 1 finale of Archinect Sessions this past summer — featuring Thom Mayne and Eui-Sung Yi, our listeners had the chance to win a copy of "Haiti Now". The book is a visual almanac of the "Haiti Now" project from the NOW Institute. Founded by Thom Mayne, the Now Institute is an urban research center at UCLA Architecture and Urban Design that applies strategic urban thinking to real-world issues.

Photo via The NOW Institute.

Haiti Now is a cross-disciplinary research-driven project that is dedicated to addressing Haiti's contemporary urban issues and potential for future development as thoroughly as possible. The project began in 2011 when the Now Institute was asked to be involved in the development of Haiti, after the Institute completed a design for the Make It Right foundation and a proposed masterplan for the city of New Orleans.

"It is our hope that this book can provide a foundation of knowledge and understanding of Haiti and many issue of development to uni...

What architects have learned from rebuilding Port-au-Prince

2015-07-02T14:31:00-04:00

In the five-and-a-half years since an earthquake killed more than 220,000 people here and displaced 1.5 million more, most of headlines from Haiti’s capital have been about dysfunctional projects, mismanagement and the overall slow pace of reconstruction. Yet some innovative urban development work is going on here, often under the radar.

Previously:

Four years and half a billion dollars later, the Red Cross has built six houses in Haiti

2015-06-04T17:52:00-04:00

Many residents live in shacks made of rusty sheet metal, without access to drinkable water, electricity or basic sanitation. When it rains, their homes flood and residents bail out mud and water. [...] The Red Cross says it has provided homes to more than 130,000 people. But the actual number of permanent homes the group has built in all of Haiti: six. After the earthquake, Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern unveiled ambitious plans to "develop brand-new communities." None has ever been built.

Editor's Picks #400

2015-01-06T11:52:00-05:00

For the latest Student Works: Amelia featured Cellular Tessellation, a pavilion done as a "collaborative research effort among students from Bond University, University of Technology Sydney, University of South Wales, and University of Sydney" for the Sydney Vivid Light festival of 2014.

Plus, Alexander Showcase:(ed) architect Jorge Mealha’s Óbidos Technological Park Main Building, sited in the countryside north of Lisbon.

News

Paul scoured the archives and website analytics in an attempt to most accurately represent 2014, month by month, by sharing the most popular stories, job opportunities and discussions. Reflecting on digital publishing trends he noted

"As the internet continues to move discussions away from publications to social networks, Archinect's increase in volume in the forum and comments sections proves that we're continuing to provide a platform to facilitate communication across diverse social circles".

Meanwhile, Nicholas Korody put together a list of what Randy Deutsc...

MASS Design Group's new Open-Air Clinics in Haiti, reviewed by Michael Kimmelman

2014-12-29T14:10:00-05:00

The clinics here are simple, even handsome. Instead of constructing hermetic shields in the form of airtight, inflexible hospital buildings, the architects took advantage of Haiti’s Caribbean environment, exploiting island cross breezes to heal patients and aid caregivers. It’s not clear yet how well the clinics will work. [...] If they turn out right, they could serve as relatively light-footed models for other struggling countries that lack resources for high-end Western-style hospitals.

On the Ground: UCLA's new IDEAS campus

2013-12-03T19:12:00-05:00

Archinect recently took a field trip to Playa Vista, a quiet community minutes from the ocean in west Los Angeles, to check out UCLA’s new satellite architecture campus, IDEAS. Entirely housed within a 13,000sqft airplane hangar, the campus is used by architecture students in the university’s SUPRASTUDIO program, a one-year MArch II that pairs students with industry and non-profit leaders to focus on an advanced research project. Since its first run in 2008, SUPRASTUDIO has tripled in size and offerings, now composed of 41 students working in studios led by Gehry Partners/Gehry Technologies, Greg Lynn, and Thom Mayne/The Now Institute.

A far cry from the hilly green labyrinth of UCLA’s Westwood campus, the IDEAS hangar formerly belonged to famed aviation magnate Howard Hughes, and now plays neighbor to Los Angeles’ YouTube Space (and nearby Google in Venice). The Playa Vista community is still very new, first developed in the early aughts as part of President Bill Clinton’s init...

‘Bamboo Lakou’ Wins the Architectural Association’s 2013 Foster + Partners Prize

2013-06-27T17:29:00-04:00

London's Architectural Association School of Architecture and Foster + Partners have announced the winner of the 2013 Foster + Partners Prize, presented annually to the AA diploma student whose portfolio best addresses the themes of sustainability and infrastructure. The recipient is selected jointly by the AA and Foster + Partners at the end of each academic year. This year’s prize has been awarded to John Naylor, of Diploma Unit 16, for his project ‘Bamboo Lakou’.

University of Miami School of Architecture hosts competition to rebuild Haitian cathedral

2012-12-20T13:08:00-05:00

[...] the University of Miami School of Architecture, in partnership with the Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince and Faith and Form Magazine, has organized a competition to choose the design for the new Cathedral. In the past year, 250 architects around the world have collaborated to submit 134 plans for the reconstruction.

University of Tennessee-Designed Secondary School Opens in Haiti

2012-11-26T15:50:00-05:00

McRae, together with Chris King, adjunct faculty member, taught the special studio course where an interdisciplinary team of nineteen students created the designs for the school. McRae attended the school’s grand opening in September along with Jeremy Mefford, a recent UT graduate in civil engineering who was in the class that worked on the school design.

Rebuilding Haiti: Houses for Haiti's homeless

2011-07-13T12:36:27-04:00

Quebec tent designer Maurice Monette thinks he has the solution to Haiti's housing crisis in his prototype home of foam and aluminum dubbed The Human

"I want something that will work in the culture of my country," he said. "I don't like foreigners bringing ideas that are not right for my country." Haitians who viewed the house loved it. Boulos calls his development "The Dignity Project" — bringing jobs and proper homes to his people, as opposed to the squat, 200-square-foot transitional homes rapidly erected in some neighbourhoods often referred to as "doghouses."

Haiti Simbi Hubs Wins AA School and Foster + Partners Sustainability and Infrastructure Prize

2011-07-01T18:40:48-04:00

This year’s prize has been awarded to Aditya Aachi, of Diploma Unit 7, for his project 'Haiti Simbi Hubs'. The project proposes sanitation infrastructure for Haiti and draws on the unprecedented need for cooperation between the Haitian Government and NGOs to combat cholera outbreaks.

UVA students house Haitians

2011-04-05T18:53:35-04:00

Earlier this year, a UVA architecture program took top prize in an international housing competition sponsored by ARCHIVE (Architecture for Health in Vulnerable Environments).

Contestants developed sustainable and affordable homes that could offer attainable relief to a portion of the estimated 1 million Haitians left homeless after a massive earthquake devastated the region in January 2010. The UVA program, Initiate reCOVER, beat out 146 teams and received a $60,000 budget to construct its “Breathe House” in St. Marc, Haiti.