Several weeks have now passed since Hurricanes Irma and Maria consecutively ravaged through the Caribbean and southern states and territories of the U.S., leaving behind a trail of destruction and overwhelming infrastructural challenges. Puerto Rico was hit particularly hard — in terms of human loss, damage to homes, businesses, and life-sustaining networks like power grids, communication systems, water supply, wastewater treatment as well as the subsequent long-term health dangers and the ongoing exodus of professionals and their families.

We have reached out to Puerto Rico's architecture schools to get a reading on the current state of architectural education on the island in the wake of the storms and how faculty, staff, and students manage to cope with the new circumstances. Since most school websites were still down until recently and spotty power and internet supply made using the official .edu email systems near impossible, much of the communication had to be conducted via social media services from cell phones with unreliable connection.

In this first episode of our After the Storm mini series, we're checking in with the School of Architecture at the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan where classes resumed on Monday, Oct, 30. The photos show how faculty and staff tried to find spots with a breeze since power had not yet been restored.

For this interview, we talked with Interim Dean Mayra Jiménez-Montano.

Archinect: How have the recent hurricanes Maria and Irma impacted the school's daily operations and student life? Have school facilities and infrastructure been affected?

Mayra Jiménez-Montano: Hurricane Maria put us on hold. Our facilities were severely damaged due to the passing of Maria, stopping our daily operations. Heavy rainfalls and winds affected our structures, causing the loss of roof water proofing and consequently flooding both our Santiago Iglesias Junior Library space and the east wing with our undergrad studio workshops. As the result of the present conditions, both the studios and the Library’s Collections must undergo deep cleaning and a treatment against fungi. Regrettably, some 183 journal volumes, 67 texts and several theses suffered irreversible water damage. The Santiago Iglesias Junior Library is the only library specialized in its area in Puerto Rico. The Library was founded in 1956, along with the School of Architecture. Its purpose has been to support academic and investigative endeavors produced at the School. The Collection was originally nurtured by the private collection of the architect Santiago Iglesias Junior, the reason behind the name of the Library. The Collection currently houses 40,000 volumes, not including journals.

Hurricane Maria put us on hold. Our facilities were severely damaged due to the passing of Maria, stopping our daily operations.

The facilities have been subjected to high humidity levels that have resulted in the spread of fungus in all the installations. Due to the lack of climatic controls and the presence of fungus, our facilities continue to be at risk of even greater damage. The longer building reparations are delayed, the greater the damage will be.

Communication is another challenge we are facing. It is extremely difficult to communicate specially for those who live inland and still now, can not generate or receive calls, texts or emails. We have a very tight community in our School, and it is very important for us to know how our students and their families are doing. We have been conducting a census to learn about their whereabouts and we have only been able to reach about a third of our currently enrolled students. It is with the help of the Student Council of our Faculty that we have been able to find out about the current situation and needs of some of our students. Loss of their homes, their belongings, their means of transportation and their jobs are some of the things we have learned from conducting this census.

Up to now, our School has no electricity or a working generator, reason why classes have not begun yet. However, we are working extremely hard to restart classes on October 30th. We need to start rebuilding, and the School of Architecture seems like a good place to start.

Has the topic of resilient design been a prominent part of the curriculum in the past and how will the experience from the recent hurricanes shape the teachings in this field going forward?

Certainly our geographical position being constantly exposed to natural phenomenons such as hurricanes makes us work inherently around such topics: wind forces, flooding and most recently, resiliency. We have a lab dedicated to the study of Bio-tropical Architecture which conducts research on the climatic conditions which affect the tropics and other geographical characteristics that define our tropical zone.

Resiliency has always been present one way or another in our curriculum but has never been so relevant as today.

We offer a Bachelor in Environmental Design and naturally this is at our core but more so now in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Given our history with hurricanes year after year, we have learned to prepare for the hurricane season, nevertheless, having experienced a hurricane of such magnitude (with winds up to 200 mph) has exposed the raw scenery in which many build their homes, business’ structures or infrastructure without a design that considers these extreme conditions or even worse, built, particularly single family housing structures, without the hiring of an expert. This has resulted in the loss not only of many residential structures but also several lives. Rest assured, that being this our first experience through such a devastating event the School of Architecture will serve its academic community with all the knowledge needed in order to better its design solutions and proposals regarding this matter.

Resiliency has always been present one way or another in our curriculum but has never been so relevant as today. It is impossible to design for events such as this, but now we can make buildings that respond better to these kind of unimaginable events.

Further and deeper research is coming our way.

Have the storms shaped the school's approach towards architectural education and its specific application to Puerto Rico?

Some things are crystal clear right now. From the unit to the whole, we need to work at every scale. Our School’s endeavor is not only to prepare Puerto Rico's next generation of architects but to educate its academic community alongside the community in general about responsible construction methods, sustainability and resiliency. At the same time, we guide governmental agencies into more comprehensive and stricter building codes and regulations.

Today we know that these “unusual" events in time will become the rule not the exception and not to panic or over-design, but we need to prepare future architects to be able to design buildings for events that will continue to break-the-curve while being aesthetically pleasing, structurally sound and environmentally responsible.

What are the school's greatest challenges in the short and long term?

Short term: First and foremost, we have to work on the damages caused by H. Maria to our school’s building in order to get back to normal daily operations.

Second but not least, we need to help those students, staff and faculty members in our academic community who were directly affected by the hurricane and are still struggling.

Long term: Although we were already working on the transformation of our curriculum, after Maria, the integration of resiliency and sustainability within a framework of direct service to Puerto Rican communities will be a priority in our School.

Are there personal stories you would like to share with our readers?

There are enough stories to talk about for months…our School is a close-knit community and we all have stories. We were all hit by H. Maria in one way or another, but they are not our stories to tell. We are mourning all we lost, and we are longing for better times to come.

We have started a fundraiser through the Trust for the School Architecture in order to help students get back on their feet.

https://www.gofundme.com/fondo-ayuda-esc-arquitectura

Amidst this loss and uncertainty, the School of Architecture has sustained an active role in relief efforts not only around campus but around our vicinities. Students, staff and faculty members are all part of these efforts. Reconstructing/stabilizing residential structures, evaluating affected historical buildings, assessing communities and homeowners about their places’ reconstruction, and distributing water and goods among are some of the initiatives we are part of among other things. We are also collaborating with some governmental agencies for the revision of regulations and building codes. We want to be part of the transformation of our country, contributing our knowledge and experience of our discipline.

Special thanks to Dean of Students Anixa González for facilitating the communication.

In the next episode of After the Storm, we're hearing from Luis V. Badillo-Lozano, Architecture Dean at the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico.