Kikubo Village Part 2

A few weeks ago I blogged about a village in Uganda that was being built as a shelter for women. In Uganda, if a man divorces his wife, she becomes an outcast. The stigma against these divorced women has them struggling to survive. This village offers them a place to live and learn job skills so that they can become self-sufficient. The village itself is more or less self-sufficient and grow much of its own food.

I have some pictures of the village before the new buildings were added. These were the ones that I was given so that I could put together the rendering I painted for fundraising efforts. Another note--none of these pictures are mine.

Church and classroom:

 

Typical hut:

 

Building the orphanage (with the model farm in the background):

 

The model farm:

 

Another picture of the church and classroom:

 

The classroom and church under construction:

 

 

 

 

 

Mapping Local Culture

Part of being a designer is knowing how to create a sense of place in your design, or at least not mess up the sense of place already there. Part of an area's sense of place is its local culture. Wouldn't it be great if you could find a map showing you the culture of a particular place?

I understand that culture is too complex to be clearly mapped, but you could map certain little pieces of culture.

For example, here is a map of where particular college fanbases are concentrated (and also a big part of how I shape my worldview):

commoncensus.org

This next map may be a little more useful, and shows the spheres of influence of particular cities in the US. In other words, when people in a certain part of the US think about going "to the city," this map shows where they most likely would go:

 

commoncensus.org

But back to the fun maps--this next one maps Major League Baseball fans. I would say Starkville is pretty solid Braves country:

 

commoncensus.org
And here is the map for NFL. It looks a little unclear for Starkville, but my guess is that we lean toward the Saints.

 

 

commoncensus.org

The original maps can be found at the Common Census Map Project's web site. If you're having trouble making out the maps on my blog, the maps on the original web site will let you zoom in on them.

http://www.commoncensus.org/index.php

Biomimetic Urban Design

This might be a stretch...but what if somebody tried to mimic our own natural habitat in urban or community design? I'm not talking about going all the way back to living in caves, but instead I'm thinking of the next step up.

I found this artist's rendering of what such an ancient community might look like. It's the Neolithic village of Jarlshof, on a remote island off the north coast of Scotland.

World Book Encyclopedia

 

Just from looking at this illustration, it appears that an ancient village would be made up of homes clustered around some central space or street. The whole complex would then be surrounded by a wall. I don't know if you could justify such a tower like this one in a modern-day reconstruction, but it would be a nice place to spend time. They probably used this tower for defense or to keep an eye on the livestock.

 

I feel that this village's design can be seen expressed in many of the small subdivisions recently built around central Starkville. The Crabtree property that was our first studio project of the semester definitely had some of the inward-focus of this village. So did that cluster of white houses on Whitfield Street.

 

This is what Jarlshof looks like now:

 

panoramio.com

It seems well-preserved, with only the roofs missing.

Supertrees

These crazy-looking features are called "supertrees" and are in a new park in Singapore. They are definitely an example of biomorphism, mimicking the functions of nature. Like a living plant, these structures collect rain water and solar energy. They also provide ventilation for some of the conservatories nearby. They also function as vertical gardens by showcasing exotic flora from around the world on the sides of the structures.

I can barely imagine what the future of biomorphic architecture will look like. I imagine the scale of the natural functions found in these types of features will decrease dramatically. I also think the number of natural functions found in these features will also be increased. It will be interesting to see where biomorphism takes the design fields in the future.

We now understand many natural processes at the micro level. Why can't we incorporate these processes into our designs as well?


http://inhabitat.com/new-photos-singapore%E2%80%99s-solar-powered-supertrees-under-construction-at-gardens-by-the-bay/


http://inhabitat.com/new-photos-singapore%E2%80%99s-solar-powered-supertrees-under-construction-at-gardens-by-the-bay/


http://twistedsifter.com/2012/06/gardens-by-the-bay-supertrees-of-singapore/

The Water Cube

This building may look familiar to anyone who saw the Olympics in Beijing a few years ago. This is the building that housed the pools for many of the aquatic events. Officially it is the Beijing National Aquatics Center, but it is known better by its nickname "the Water Cube."

As far as I can tell, this is an example of biomorphic architecture, not biomimetic architecture. The bubbles are derived from the pattern that naturally occurs when bubbles form. The building is not really benefiting from the bubbles except that it makes the building nice to look at. It is pretty incredible to look at, especially at night.

Something else that looks like this are the grow-out houses you see on poultry farms. At night, these long buildings seem to glow from within. I've heard more than one architect rave about the lighting effect of these grow-out houses, but I couldn't find any pictures to show what they looked like at night.


www.wikipedia.com


jayday.org


adventure.howstuffworks.com

This last picture is of the Times Eureka Pavilion at the Chelsea Flower Show. The pavilion is meant to evoke the texture of a leaf. The "veins" are made of wood harvested in an eco-friendly manner, and plexiglass has been cut to fit within the spaces. This also looks like one of those chicken houses I was talking about earlier.


http://therayograph.com/2011/05/24/biomimetic-architecture/

Earthblocks

I've heard quite a bit about rammed-earth buildings in the past few weeks. One of my biggest reservations about rammed earth is that it is difficult to modify, according to Stewart Brand's How Buildings Learn. While I don't know this for sure, my guess is that modifying a rammed earth building would be similar to modifying a concrete building. In order to maximize a building's longevity, Brand writes that a building must be able to adapt to a wide variety of uses, most of which cannot be easily anticipated. Buildings that are able to adapt to civilization's evolving needs will likely last a long time, which contributes to their sustainability.

So what if you were able to use modular rammed earth units instead of building the walls on site? Of course, someone else has already thought of this and called it "earthblocks" (It may actually be an ancient building material but I really don't know that much about it). These blocks come in a variety of sizes, from brick-sized to concrete block-sized and larger. They also vary in finish from rough to quite refined. In many cases, you can even buy or rent the machine that produces the blocks, so they can be manufactured on site with on site materials!

All in all, I think it's a very intriguing building material. I'd love to be able to test it for outdoor landscape applications such as pavers, retaining walls, benches, and such...

architerials.com


www.flickr.com


http://watershedhouse.blogspot.com/2012/10/building-with-rammed-earth-blocks.html#!/2012/10/building-with-rammed-earth-blocks.html

The Marika-Alderton House

A few years ago I had the privilege of seeing in person the Australian architect Glenn Murcutt give a presentation on his work. One of my favorite works of his was the Marika-Alderton house, which he designed for an Aborigine artist.


architecture.about.com

Many people consider this a prime example of Aborigine-influenced architecture, which I find intriguing since traditional Aborigine architecture looks like something like a Vitruvian primitive hut. But if you look into it a bit closer, then you see that the spirit of the Aborigine culture is carried through much of the house's design.

One of the more obvious examples of Aborigine influence are the stilts on which the house sits.  Much like a traditional Aborigine shelter, this allows breezes to circulate underneath for ventilation. Also, much of the house's walls and roof can be opened to allow breezes and light to flow through, and the roof overhangs prevent much of the hot sunlight from heating the building. Overall, the building is a flexible shelter that can easily altered to work in harmony with the seasons.

But what I thought was most interesting was how windows ran the length of several of the walls, allowing for constant scanning of the horizon. Apparently Aborigines are constantly scanning the horizon for visitors or game animals, and I thought it was pretty smart of Mr. Murcutt to incorporate this into the house design.

In essence, the Marika-Alderton house is an example of incorporating a culture's behavior into design, and not simply incorporating their symbolism.

Starseeds

I don't have any good pictures of this, but a few years ago several students and I helped one of my professors at the University of Arkansas install some land art on the university campus. The installation's location was on Old Main Lawn, which is pretty much the university's "front yard," similar to MSU's Drill Field or Ole Miss's Grove. The lawn is where the university and the city meet, and is one of the most popular places to be in the area during the warmer seasons. Winters there can get a bit brutal at times, so this installation was meant to help liven up the place when there aren't so many people hanging around (though there's still plenty of people walking through).

These pieces of art were made of strips of oak and river cane and were illuminated from within at night. Unfortunately I couldn't find a picture of them lighted at night, but they definitely created an other-worldly atmosphere for what would have otherwise been a mostly abandoned space.

I think this goes to show the importance of livening up a place even during the winter months, as well as the ease and minimal expense that can go into doing so. Also, it can be quite fun and can turn into a community event!

http://architecture.uark.edu/543.php


architecture.uark.edu

architecture.uark.edu

architecture.uark.edu

fayettevilleflyer.com

Funding Developments with Crowdsourcing

This article from The Atlantic Cities is about using crowdsourcing to fund real estate development. Normally you have to use "certified investors" to fund a development. Banks and other types of "certified investors" are often hesitant to invest in anything except sprawl-type developments, which they feel are safer investments than smaller, mixed-use developments.

Until recently some pretty arcane laws prohibited small-time investors who would be more likely to invest in smaller neighborhood-scale developments, often in their own neighborhoods (These laws were put in place with good intentions, though--to discourage people from taking advantage of one another). Two brothers, Ben and Dan Miller, figured out how to navigate these laws to redevelop a small boarded-up old building in their Washington, DC, neighborhood. The company they set up, Fundrise, seems to be going the way of a tech startup in that it gives people a bonafide legal means of making small investments in small buildings and their future businesses.

New laws passed recently by Congress have eased up restrictions so people can now invest up to $2000 per year on this type of small-time investment. This could have some pretty big implications for the future of development. There could be reduced reliance on distant investors with no personal connection to the community where the development could occur. This could also provide more employment opportunities for designers by providing them with another way to get into the development business (which I think could use plenty more designers). It also would get local money into development of local businesses. People would know that they're contributing to the success of their community, and the investors would likely already have some sort of personal connection with the developer (hopefully a positive one).

This is something I'll definitely keep my eye on and see how it evolves in the near future.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/11/real-estate-deal-could-change-future-everything/3897/

Poundbury's Crooked Streets

A few years back when I was in Poundbury, UK, I remember coming across this diagram showing how the planners laid out the streets.

Most communities in the UK and the US first lay out the location of their streets when an area is being newly developed. All the buildings and other features that come afterward tend to be oriented so that they respond to the street. This next sketch helps show what I'm talking about:

 

In Poundbury, the buildings were located where the developer or owner pleased (within reason, of course). The remaining space between the buildings could then be used for streets. This helps create more interesting spaces rather than a continous street wall; therefore, a more interesting street environment:

 

 

Honestly, though, I think Poundbury's streets were probably arranged using a combination of the two methods, though skewed a bit toward the latter one.

 

Companion Planting

 

Companion planting is a type of polyculture that involves growing different kinds of crops close to each other. (Polyculture is anytime of agriculture that where different plants are planted in the same space, such as crop rotation)  Companion planting can help restore some of the biodiversity that would otherwise be eliminated when land is converted to agriculture.

One of the better-known examples of companion planting is the "three sisters" of the Native Americans. The Native Americans would plant corn seeds in a mound about 1' tall and 2' wide. They often buried dead fish in theses mounds to increase soil fertility. Once the corn reached about 6", the Native Americans would plant a mix of beans and squash around the corn.

The beans, which are legumes, would help increase the soil's nitrogen content. The squash would shade out weeds, help keep the soil most, and discourage pests with its prickly surface. The corn provided support for the bean vines to grow. Together, these three crops could provide most of the nutrients that a person would need to maintain a balanced diet (but each on its own does not carry all the essential nutrients).

I think this type of farming may be worth looking into, especially since the technique and the plants involved are native to North America. There are also many other plant combinations that have been developed by different cultures aroudn the world that could also be adapted to our area.

Parking Lot Farms

The Columbus Dispatch

Here's an article about a researcher at Ohio State University who is experimenting with growing food on abandoned parking lots. So much of our urban environment is made of underutilized parking lots that could be put to a more productive use.

The researcher is looking at the effectiveness of growing plants in large pots, in raised beds, and in holes cut into the parking lot itself. A major benefit of this type of gardening is the sterility of the parking lot. Apparently, pests that traditionally plague garden plants tend to stay away from parking lots.The researcher is also exploring other benefits and drawbacks that are unique to parking lot gardening.

You can read the full article here:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/06/10/asphalt-agriculture.html

Walkscore.com

With this website you can type in an address and it will tell you how "walkable" the neighborhood or city is, on a scale of 0 to 100 (100 is very pedestrian-friendly). The score is based on distance to to the amenities in the area. Different types of amenities are weighted differently in the score, depending on how important the amenity type is in encouraging pedestrian activity. The score is also affected by block sizes and the amount of street intersections in the area. As far as I can tell, the score doesn't factor in sidewalks or other types of transportation networks targetting pedestrians. The idea is that when you're looking for a house or apartment, you would also consider the walkscore along with the other features you would normally look at, such as number of bedrooms, baths, and so on.

Starkville has a walkscore of 40, which is in the car-dependent category, though it is still one of the higher-rated communities in the state. You can see that it's really only the central portion of the city, between Highways 12 and 182, that are rated walkable.

For comparison, Oxford, MS, is 38, New York City is 85.3, Los Angeles, CA, is 65.9. Madison and Brandon, MS, are rated all the way down to 18. The highest-rated city in Mississippi is Hattiesburg, at 46. According to the website, Mississippi doesn't really have any pedestrian-friendly communities.

You can check the website out at www.walkscore.com

Hi-Tech Housing

Some people in the home-building industry are starting to rethink their business. In this article I found, the author writes that builders are going to have to start building houses differently if they want to survive in a tough housing market. I really like some of the article's photos of some of the more innovative-looking homes that have been built recently. This trend may be picking up steam, since this article was included in an email update from the Journal of Light Construction (which I found out about from a friend's blog).

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/shifting-the-suburban-paradigm/

Kikubo Village, Uganda

This is a rendering of Kikubo Village in Uganda, which is being built with help from some church groups in the US. The village serves as a community for women who have been been cast out by their husbands. In Ugandan culture if a man gets tired of his wife he can simply throw her out. These women who have been thrown out by their husband are stigmatized by everyone and have no one to help them survive.

Fortunately, these women have this community to turn to. I don't know too much about it, except that it was established and run by a Ugandan minister with aid from a few churches in the US. Currently only the colored buildings are completed. One of these buildings provides the women with a place to sleep, while another one serves as a classroom for teaching job skills. A fire pit for cooking is in the bottom right, and field for crops is in the top left. There's also a small outhouse and banana trees scattered all over the place.

I don't remember what the four proposed buildings (in white) were for. The round cylinder is a cistern and water treatment device, while the pens in the top left of the image are for goats, chicken, and other livestock. There are also plans for a basketball court.

I had completely forgot about this village until I was digging through some old pictures today. A friend of mine from Arkansas had asked me to put together a rendering of what the village would look like when completed. Her Sunday school class had adopted this project as their community service, and needed a rendering to put on promotional material for raising funds. I was glad to do it.

I have some photos of the village somewhere. I'll try to post them if I find them. I'd also like to check in with the people involved with this project to see how it's turning out.

Global Village Construction Set (GVCS)

If you ever feel like building your own ecovillage, here's all the equipment you'll ever need:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=CD1EWGQDUTQ

Ecovillages aside, this is good for putting old machinery back to use, since much of the parts you see are made of recycled equipment. You can check out their website at :

http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs.php

Dyess Colony, Arkansas

I dug a bit through some family history to find out more about Dyess (but most of this blog comes from Wikipedia). Dyess (population 515 according to the 2000 census) is a small town in northeast Arkansas, about an hour's drive due north of Memphis. My grandpa's family grew up here. In fact, his father, who was also a Baptist minister, was some type of administrator or manager at the colony.

Google Earth

Dyess was established in 1934 as part of the Depression-era New Deal. It functioned originally as an agricultural cooperative project--essentially, a government-sponsored experiment in communism. Its intention was to give a fresh start to poor families ruined by the Depression. Each family was given 20 to 40 acres and a small  house for no money down and very low interest. In their first year in town, each family also received a cow, a mule, groceries, and other necessary supplies. The colony's cotton was sold communally, and everyone shared in the profits from this and from the general store and cannery also.

Though most of the colony was farmland, a small part of it is actually built as a small town. The town core is a half-circle, and contains the historic administration center and the Pop Shop. In its earlier years there was also a hospital, a cafe, a beauty parlor, a barbershop, and a school. The rest of the town is pretty typical of a small Delta town, albeit maybe a little more well-maintained.


The former administration building (www.wikipedia.org)

The town remained under government control until the late 1940s, and was incorporated as a a regular municpality in 1964.

However, Dyess's main claim to fame is as the boyhood home of the man in black himself, Mr JR "Johnny" Cash, and his brother Tommy. As a kid, they and my great uncle JP used to run around together. Folks that have folowed country music in the last 10 years might also have heard of Buddy Jewell, who is also from Dyess. A bunch of other minor musicians big in the 50s and 60s rock/country scene in Memphis were also from Dyess.


www.rollingstone.com

Mission San Juan Capistrano

Here is another religious community that I came across recently. San Juan Capistrano was one of the Spanish missions in Southern California , and existed as a mission from 1769 to 1833. These missions were self-supporting communities, but I don't think most of the people living in them were there willingly. The Spanish pretty much enslave the local native population under the justification of forcing their religion and education on them. But that's not really want I want to get into.

I think the layout of these missions is worth looking into. The buildings are arranged several courtyards. All the different functions are arranged around these spaces, such as residences, dining facilities, chapels, storerooms, and workshops, among others. The farm fields surround the complex on the outside.



Most of San Juan Capistrano is now in ruins, but some of it has been restored into a museum and gardens. Part of the missions' legacy is that many towns and cities in California and some other states originated as Spanish Missions. Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego are a few. San Antonio, Texas, and Saint Augustine, Florida, may also have some mission origins.

More on monasteries...

I drew some diagrams showing how monasteries grew from a collection of huts into something more elaborate. This first diagram shows what these early religious communities would look like:

This second diagram shows the basic layout for a typical medieval monastery, which has not really changed since. The main space had the largest chapel, the abbot's house, guesthouses for the important guests, and the dining hall. Later additions would be similar, but not as fancy. These additions would have smaller chapels, more housing, and many of the abbey's utlilitarian functions. The land surrounding the abbey would usually be farmland, often farmed by the monks themselves.

I think this one is considered the granddaddy of them all. This was the plan for Cluny Abbey in France (from my architecture textbook). You can see that closer to the main church were the cloisters that held the highest-ranking functions. The outlying cloisters were more for the day-to-day labor. I think this is interesting because they kept copying the same basic layout just about every time they added onto the complex.

Monasticism

I'm finding some interesting information about the layout of religious communities and how these typical layouts evolved over time.

In the first few centuries A.D. there were many hermits living in the wilderness trying to imitate Jesus's 40 days in the wilderness as well as other Old Testament prophets who spent many days in the wilderness in prayer. Even back then most people were unable to "rough it" by themselves, so communities of these hermits started to develop, often as a group of huts around a common center. This common center often had the hut of some famous hermit who led the others in the group. The most famous of these hermits was Saint Anthony, who is considered the father of monasticism.

Eventually these groups of huts got so crowded that they had to begin to organize themselves into something more orderly. What resulted was the huts arranged in a grid pattern like a planned town or military camp. As these communities' success grew and they accumulated wealth, they had to start thinking about security. The detached houses gave way to the walled groups of large buildings clustered around one or more courtyards (cloisters). This seems to be the arrangement at most abbeys you see today.

Kibbutz Lotan

www.flickr.com

Kibbutz Lotan is an intentional community in Israel. It is an eco village where people can come to bird watch or learn about ecological approaches to community development. The buildings are geodesic domes made of straw bales covered in earth plaster. I think most of the buildings were built by people while they were participating in the Kibbutz's workshops. Originally they were intended to be passively cooled and heated, but it turns out the Negev Desert's heat was just too much to deal with. The kibbutz now uses electricity produced by alternative energy sources to heat and cool the dwellings.

Permaculture and recycling are other major parts of the the Kibbutz. I'm just now learning what permaculture is, but so far I think it is about making buildings, communities, and farms that are modeled after natural ecosystems.

There is also a spiritual or religious component to the Kibbutz, but I don't really know too much about it. I think it may have something to do with Reform Judaism.

Here is the link to the kibbutz's website:

http://www.kibbutzlotan.com/

Subiaco Abbey

I was driving the long way home through west Arkansas one day and I saw what looked like a medieval castle rising out of the farmland. Turns out it was Subiaco Abbey, a monastery that was established there in the late 19th century.

Google Earth

Subiaco is definitely an intentional community. I'm not sure if it's entirely self-sufficient, but if it is not then it is still able to mostly take care of itself. It has a sawmill for making its own lumber. It also has farming operations, producing both cash crops and produce for its own use, beef cattle breeding, vineyards, and horticultural products. They also make peanut brittle and hot sauce that is popular throughout Arkansas. There is also a tailor who makes the special clothes that monks must wear.

The abbey also has a retreat center for overnight visitors' lodging and a Catholic boarding school (Subiaco Academy).

As a Benedictine monastery, the 43 monks must follow a strict daily and weekly schedule of prayer, prayerful scripture reading, attending mass, long periods of silence, and working in their specialized area. These specialized areas include farming, construction/maintenance, teaching at the school, business operations, and ministering to the local communities.

Here is their website: http://countrymonks.org.2.ecatholicwebsites.com/index.cfm?active=1

The rest of the project

Here are the rest of the drawings for Crabtree Grove:

Crabtree Grove's Large Gathering Space

This first image is a plan view of Crabtree Grove's larger gathering space. Below it are some sections, and at the bottome is a shade study. I put together the shade study after I had designed the space. Had I done it sooner, I would have adjusted the design since I didn't realize how shady the space would be in the winter. However, it does get quite a bit of sun in the summer like I was hoping it would.