Population growth and lack of shelter are the main indicators of increased poverty in developing countries. Every year, millions of people in rural communities in tropical climates migrate to cities in search of a better life. Informal settlements proliferate on the cities’ peripheries. However, what often awaits them is misfortune: few employment opportunities, lack of clean water, crowded housing spaces, crime, and other threats to their family traditions and lifestyle.

The HOMEKIT training program educates people in rural areas to sustainably cultivate bamboo and empower their villages to be self-reliant and to meet their own shelter needs. The system reduces forest depletion and contributes to the socioeconomic infrastructure of the villages. It provides safe, dignified, highly functional homes that respond to the local environment and natural disasters, connects people with the natural systems that support them, and helps restore the social habits of earlier generations.

Ana Ramirez, AP, a Miami-based designer, developed HOMEKIT while pursuing her Master of Design Studies in Sustainable Design at The Boston Architectural College. The HOMEKIT project seeks to teach people of any level of farming experience to manage their own resilient bamboo forestry by growing, propagating, harvesting, and treating sustainable bamboo. Donald Grose, LEED AP, and Alejandro Restrepo, Colombian architect, served as Ana’s thesis advisors for this project.

The HOMEKIT Tool pursues six goals:

• Promote education and community alliance among rural sectors in tropical climates to empower communities to be part of their own housing solution.
• Teach communities how to grow, propagate, harvest, and treat a locally available renewable material: Guadua angustifolia kunth, the superior bamboo species for construction in South and Central America.
• Encourage intelligent agroforestry to protect the environment and reduce the low-income housing deficit in developing countries and create a source of raw material that will help communities to face climate change and respond quickly to natural disasters.
• Introduce permaculture principles that will promote the creation of organic edible and functional landscapes to meet the community’s needs.
• Building modular, affordable homes with the most durable and earthquake resistant bamboo building technology; treated, pre-assembled panel; cemented bahareque construction techniques; and simple tools.
• Encourage economic prosperity through the responsible consumption of guadua grown locally to supply the building material for the community’s structural framing, furniture, and utensils.

The dwelling units are modular and combine to form clusters of private dwellings and communal, social spaces surrounded by permaculture gardens that support food production, planned channels for water irrigation, and conservation systems.

The buildings are designed to reflect the traditional patterns of social gathering in Colombian families and the need to generate density and provide privacy as well as community. A two-story prototype is devised to accommodate two families or an extended family on the second floor or to provide rental income.

The size of the units is comparable with the low-income units subsidized by the government. The lower unit has a net area of 46.7 SM (501 SF) and can be occupied by a family of four.

Ana Ramirez, LEED AP, received a Bachelor of Architecture from Florida Atlantic University and a Master of Design Studies in Sustainable Design from The Boston Architectural College where her thesis developing HOMEKIT won the highest prize in sustainable design. Currently an associate at SB Architects in Miami, Ana works on large scale residential and hospitality projects throughout the world. She has earned a Permaculture Design Certificate as well as Bamboo and Indigenous Building Certificates in Colombia and Indonesia. Ana is currently pursuing her Florida registration and Well AP certification.

Architect Alejandro Restrepo-Montoya graduated with honors from the Faculty of Architecture of the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Medellín, Colombia where he is currently a university professor and researcher in the areas of architecture and sustainability. He has received international and national awards in recognition of his architectural design work, much of which is situated within the urban transformation of Medellín. Alejandro has been an invited lecturer in Germany, Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela; he is currently a lecturer and PhD candidate at the Faculty of Architecture at the Technical University of Munich.

The Boston Architectural College educates students to become socially conscious designers like Ana. Learning from top practitioners in the field, students acquire the technical expertise to go on to become leaders in the field of sustainability. Learn more about the online Master of Design Studies in Sustainable Design at The Boston Architectural College. Apply today to start in Fall 2016.