on the conference

 “All problems are local all solutions are local” Cameron Sinclair.  As a designer how can you give disaster relief?  All designers have amazing innovative ideas and during their practice as a designer know that ideas have to be pushed in order to be implemented.  Cameron Sinclair pushes to get ideas to be implemented but there is a different approach.  He is not designing what he thinks will work he is incorporating the community he is helping with the whole process.  Does that mean the designer is one step removed?  I think the designer is even more incorporated into the process.  The designer has even more to consider with even more feedback.  “Not imposing architecture on a community” Cameron Sinclair.  In his projects the community picks the design.  Getting the community to be a part of the rebuilding process is an essential aspect in the approach of self sustaining rebuilding projects.  The community has to feel ownership in order to transcend ownership to the next generation. 

I am going to relay a different experience.  

The workshop Bamboo: Structural Grass was a great informative workshop by an architecture grad student Miya Buxton.  Bamboo can grow to its full height in 6 months but it needs to fill out its insides in order to be good building material.  Bamboo is considered a poor man’s material in some of these communities.  Bamboo houses were built for some hillside homes.  There was an earthquake and those homes were the only ones left standing.  After that bamboo homes were built everywhere.  Bamboo as a social object can carry power.  Maybe bamboo can create a rift in a stubborn aristocratic society.  There was a project she didn’t mean to spark but during the investigation in Indonesia she asked a master builder to build a small replica of the traditional roofs.  They built a small resting place normally built for resting during the day for workers of the land.  After her trip the builder told her that some requests had been made from the neighbors.  They wanted a little peaked roof resting place of their own.  I think that this is a great exploration and can’t wait to talk more about it with Miya.