Yasushi Takeuchi, a professor of architecture at Miyagi University in Sendai, was at school when the earthquake hit. In an instant, electricity and cell phones died. Two hours later, the land lines went. With nowhere to go, some 40 students flocked to the campus, blankets and food in hand. For two days they hunkered down in its generator-powered buildings. During that time, the plight of one budding architect’s family prompted the teacher to take action. His protégé’s father, an oyster fisherman, lost everything—dwelling, boats, workplace—when the tsunami washed away his coastal hometown of Shizugawa. “I asked him what he needed,”
L’Ecole de Choix isn’t the only new project in town. Just up the road, a 180,000-square-foot hospital designed partly pro bono by Chicago-based Nicholas Clark Architects is slated to open this summer.
Situated on Haiti’s west coast in the town of Montrouis, the College Mixte Le Bon Berger was forced to demolish its two preexisting, structurally unsound buildings following the 2010 earthquake.
This project, funded in part by Keio University’s Environmental Innovators Program, includes an integrated community meeting place and bathhouse, set for spring completion. The compact building will house separate baths and changing rooms for men and women, plus a boiler room and multipurpose space. Due to the lack of supplies and skilled labor, architect Hiroto Kobayashi, a professor at the university, and his students devised a clever construction system using interlocking plywood panels, which can be easily assembled by the team itself with simple hand tools. ARCHITECT: Hiroto Kobayashi, Keio University. BUDGET: N/A. CONTEXT: When the public bath (On-sen) was
Headmaster Vivianne Vieux is clearly thrilled with the new addition to the free private school she runs in the coastal town of Jacmel. “It’s a piece of art,” the exuberant administrator exclaims, gesturing toward the 2,100-square-foot structure shaded by palm trees. “It’s beautiful!” Featuring natural elements such as stone and bamboo, the two-classroom building certainly stands apart from the average Haitian schoolhouse'uninspired structures made of concrete block. Completed in November 2011 and designed by Architecture for Humanity (AFH), the project exemplifies the nonprofit firm’s mission to create safe and dignified buildings for impoverished communities. “If you’re going to do a
Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. The massive January 2010 earthquake pushed an already tenuous situation even closer to the brink. My images are the result of two post-quake visits to the ravaged country on assignment for Architectural Record. The purpose of the trips was to document the reconstruction efforts by a number of on-the-ground organizations doing difficult and necessary work. This compilation of photographs steps outside of that focus and tells a broader story of the people and places we encountered while traveling through this extraordinary country. People Products
One rarely sees a new building when traveling through Haiti. While aid groups have tossed up temporary shelters in Port-au-Prince and outlying areas since the deadly January 2010 earthquake, ramshackle structures still dominate the impoverished country. Yet standing on the dusty fringe of Mirebalais, a town 37 miles north of Port-au-Prince, is a collection of handsome new buildings that comprise L’Ecole de Choix, or the School of Choice, which presently houses 200 students, from pre-kindergarteners through fourth-graders (expansion plans are in the works). Designed by a local firm in collaboration with a Chicago architect, the campus is a welcome sign
The Nike Football Training Centre is a billboard of a building in the loud and proud tradition of Soweto, South Africa's biggest and most ambitious township. From the rooftop of the three-story building, you can see an endless fabric of low-rise government housing and ad hoc shacks, but also signs of change: BMWs parked at the Maponya Mall, cabs heading to the revamped taxi stand at Baragwanath Hospital, and worshippers crowding into new Pentecostal churches. On most days, you will find groups of kids at play and in training on the immaculate soccer fields below. These scenes suggest a new
One of 20 football facilities that Architecture for Humanity is designing across Africa for the nonprofit Play Soccer, the Oguaa center is a place for disadvantaged youth to learn soccer, health, and social skills.
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