University of Washington, College of Architecture & Urban Planning
Landscape Architecture, Urban Ecological Design
* University of Washington
* College of Architecture & Urban Planning
* culturally based placemaking
* ecological infrastructure
* ecoliteracy
* human & environmental health
* design/build
* international partnerships
* community
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE DESIGN BUILD PROGRAM IN GUATEMALA
Winter Quarter 2009: Outdoor Classroom
The Winter Design/Build 2008 Program offers students a unique service learning opportunity to study in one of the world’s most interesting countries, Guatemala. Rich in Mayan history and culture, Guatemala is an ecologically important with great swaths of forested land still intact and populations of endangered species threatened. This program is designed to meet two primary goals. First it offers students the opportunity to explore, observe and study in this unique country and gain insight into a unique culture and appreciate its vernacular environmental design. Second, the opportunity to work with a unique client and design and build an invaluable open space that will nurture and stimulate the children, their families and the community of garbage pickers.
Students will work with the client, Safe Passage (see description below), and the faculty to design and build an “outdoor classroom”. Students will learn the skills of small culturally appropriate site design and construction detailing through this intensive project. The process is formed around the collaborative model of inclusive design. Once the design is completed, each student will take on individual responsibilities for various aspects of the project. The rapid pace of both the design and construction will demand a deep level of commitment and responsibility. In the design phase, students will be taught graphics, site design, and construction documentation and learn what a “therapeutic garden” is and how it might function. In the building phase, students will be taught the principles and methodologies of construction, how to use tools, calculate materials and cost estimating. The students will also learn through the children and volunteers of Safe Passage and gain insight into how people survive in radically different cultures and in great depravation.
The park site is located in Zona #3, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the Guatemala City. The site, a former garbage dump has been partially cleared and a wall was recently erected around its perimeter to prevent land invasions and a pre-school is currently being erected on the park site. The park is surrounded on two sides by the squatter community, on another by the garbage dump; the largest in the city, where the families scavenge.
Goals of the Project
* The creation of a park (Children’s Peace Park) to be used by the children of Safe Passage to reduce their daily stresses, and accommodate a range of activities including vocational training, recreation and ecological awareness. The park will also serve as a therapeutic environment and safe refuge within the often violent and dangerous squatter community.
* In a working session with Safe Passage children and staff and the U of WA’s students and faculty develop a program that meets the needs of the existing and planned future programs for Safe Passage.
* Develop construction documents that articulate the design intent and can be implemented within the construction budget.
* Implement the third phase of the park and work with the Safe Passage’s staff and administrators to complete a maintenance plan.
Outcome of the Project
* The creation of a therapeutic learning environment that accommodates the therapeutic, academic, vocational, and recreational goals of the Safe Passage curriculum.
* The creation of a replicable community service model.
* Conduct a continuing evaluation based on follow up interviews over the next two years, to monitor and evaluate the park and document its use.
Participants
Landscape Architecture Design Build Program
The University of Washington Landscape Architecture Design Build Program has been asked by Camino Segura/Safe Passage a non-governmental agency based in Antigua Guatemala to design and build a number of components in a Park designed for children and to be used as a part of their educational outreach and support program. The children are from the families of the garbage pickers who were pulled out of school by their families to harvest garbage for resale in an effort to increase the family income. Safe Passage is supporting the children in their effort to gain an education and break the cycle of dropouts/garbage picking. The park will be integrated into the programs curriculum and is intended to offer therapeutic, educational, vocational and recreation support and opportunities.
Students will work with the client, Safe Passage (staff, administrators and children (see description below), and the faculty to design and build an “interactive landscape. Students will learn the skills of small site design and construction detailing, management, community participation.
Faculty
The Landscape Architecture Design Build Program in Guatemala will be taught by Daniel Winterbottom, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, Urban Design, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture. The Design/Build Program was initiated by Professor Winterbottom in 1995 and over the past decade has completed a diverse range of projects. The projects include a public wash facility for a rural community in central Mexico; several projects in Seattle including an intergenerational play and recreational area, an outdoor classroom and environmental learning facility, a community adopt-a-park in the Cascade neighborhood, two formerly paved spaces on the UW's west campus that were transformed into green space for staff and students; and a series of gardens for a foster home for children with AIDS in New York City.
Camino Seguro/Safe Passage
Located in both Guatemala City and Antigua, Guatemala, Safe Passage was founded in 1999 in an effort to help the poorest of Guatemala’s children break out of poverty in a dignified and permanent way through education. Working with children living near the garbage dump, Safe Passage has turned the dream of education into a reality for more than 500 children.
Children are the hidden victims of poverty. As innocent victims, born into poverty, they are forced by their parents to drop out of school and work aside their families to pick through the garbage and sell what they can, to eke out their minimal survival, amidst the domestic violence, alcoholism, and drug and sexual abuse that plagues their neighborhoods.
Safe Passage offers a wide range of services for the children of these families. By providing ongoing school support in the form of school enrollment, supplies, books and uniforms, Safe Passage supports children in twelve area public schools. Each child can earn assistance with clothing, shoes and other needed items, by regularly attending school and the daily reinforcement program. Safe Passage also provides home and school visits to provide each child with additional support and a powerful awareness that someone cares deeply about them and their future.
The reinforcement program assists children with their homework and provides creative, meaningful hands on activities to reinforce their skills. Safe Passage depends on local and foreign volunteers to provide the children with individual attention they so desperately need. Volunteers are instrumental in the planning and administration of these activities. The park will play a significant role in the activities Safe Passage administers. It is intended to be a place of learning, recreation, exploration and healing. As a safe place, where children can express themselves as children, they will also learn about their local culture and ecology. The park will be a unique refuge in a neighborhood torn between poverty, violence and despair.
This collaborative relationship between the Safe Passage and the University of Washington offers a wonderful opportunity to combine teaching, research and to develop across discipline interaction between the Safe Passage personnel and the Department of Landscape Architecture. The design/build program represents an innovative model for teaching, intellectual exchange and service learning, and when realized, will provide a valuable community asset for the people of Zona #3 Guatemala City. (more & photos of the "Garden of Hope" 2006)
Showing posts with label Guatemalan street kids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guatemalan street kids. Show all posts
Monday, November 24, 2008
Students design residence for Guatemalan street kids
Stanford Report, May 29, 2003
Students design residence for Guatemalan street kids
In architecural studio course, 'real world situation' brings challenges, constraints
BY BARBARA PALMER
A blizzard of drawing paper covers the big table in Room 219 in Encina West on Mondays and Wednesdays as the 11 students enrolled in Civil and Environmental Engineering 137 -- an architectural design studio -- produce flurries of floor plans, site designs and scale drawings for their course project, a residential and institutional campus.
But in the words of Jeff Luney, a local architect who's serving as a design critic for the course, this is more than "paper architecture." Students are wrestling with the demands of a real site -- a hilly, irregularly shaped, 3-acre plot cut by a deep ravine -- and the needs of a real client, Estela Solis.
Seniors Luis Trujillo and Lucy Goodnough discussed the parcel of land upon which the Center for the Restoration of the Multitudes in Guatemala hopes to build a residential campus for former street children. Photo: L.A. Cicero
Solis is the founder of Center for the Restoration of the Multitudes (CEREM) in Chichicastenango, Guatemala, which provides shelter, drug treatment, counseling and occupational therapy for former gang members and prostitutes. Solis, a counselor, founded CEREM after witnessing the condition of women and children living in a garbage dump in Guatemala City.
Solis' foundation, which houses 20 to 30 individuals and treats dozens more, currently is based in a rented house, from which residents operate a bakery and a cafe. Solis plans to expand the program to include a residential campus on a site 20 minutes outside Guatemala City, where former prostitutes and street children could safely live, go to school and work.
It's the design of that campus that students are creating, with the help of architects Luney and David Nieh, lecturer and architect Marga Jann, and other lecturers and faculty who serve as visiting design critics. In addition to group-home-style residences, students are designing classrooms, spaces for small businesses, a church and a retreat center. Solis, accompanied by Guatemalan architect Alberto de Leon Escobar and a CEREM resident, will travel to campus next Monday for a design review of the project.
The course is titled Architectural Design of Individual Buildings: Ethics, Community Service and Social Responsibility, and students, drawn from backgrounds including medicine, history, urban studies, human biology, and civil and environmental engineering, take an interdisciplinary approach to the project.
Their designs, which use Guatemalan vernacular architecture and textile art as a springboard, address residents' needs for privacy and community, recreation and security, along with the need for square footage. "I love how architecture combines art with functionality," wrote Ben Palmquist in a description of the course project. "It takes into account everything from psychology to structural engineering."
"It's not just a place for kids to eat and sleep," added senior Luis Trujillo, a 21-year-old history major who brought the foundation to Jann's attention and serves as a board member. He has conducted research on education, poverty and street children.
The project is a rare opportunity for students and far different from more typical architectural projects that address problems like "How many offices can we fit into this space?" or "How many cases of Coca-Cola can we push out the back?" Luney said.
Their designs for the campus are imaginative, with curving walls and vine-shaded patios, rendered in a rainbow of colors. Yet in their critiques, architects Luney, Nieh and Jann keep students rooted in prosaic realities like drainage and sewer systems. "Are we using septic tanks? We have to think about the utilities," responded Nieh, after Palmquist presented a site plan sketch.
Students also are working to identify funding sources and are creating a business plan to generate income through the manufacture of clothing. The older residents will design and sew skirts, to be sold through organizations like the Fair Trade Federation, and class members are hoping to help CEREM to begin exporting Guatemalan crafts and tapestries, Jann said. (Students will take orders for Guatemalan textiles at the June 2 design review, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Wallenberg Learning Theater. The design review is open to the community.)
A project like the CEREM campus has a lot of constraints, said Jann, who has previously worked with student designers to create blueprints for a residence at a Mexican orphanage, now under construction. The project is ambitious and has little funding, and the student architects, who come from a wide variety of backgrounds, are amateurs, she said. On the plus side are the students' commitment and ability, she said. "They are really motivated and are hard workers."
"It's not really even a class," said Palmquist. "It's a real-world situation. Most of us plan to stick with the project after the class is over."
The class receives support from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the Center for Social Innovation at the Graduate School of Business, the Institute for International Studies, the Program in Ethics in Society, the Haas Center for Public Service and the Program on Urban Studies.
(more)
Students design residence for Guatemalan street kids
In architecural studio course, 'real world situation' brings challenges, constraints
BY BARBARA PALMER
A blizzard of drawing paper covers the big table in Room 219 in Encina West on Mondays and Wednesdays as the 11 students enrolled in Civil and Environmental Engineering 137 -- an architectural design studio -- produce flurries of floor plans, site designs and scale drawings for their course project, a residential and institutional campus.
But in the words of Jeff Luney, a local architect who's serving as a design critic for the course, this is more than "paper architecture." Students are wrestling with the demands of a real site -- a hilly, irregularly shaped, 3-acre plot cut by a deep ravine -- and the needs of a real client, Estela Solis.
Seniors Luis Trujillo and Lucy Goodnough discussed the parcel of land upon which the Center for the Restoration of the Multitudes in Guatemala hopes to build a residential campus for former street children. Photo: L.A. Cicero
Solis is the founder of Center for the Restoration of the Multitudes (CEREM) in Chichicastenango, Guatemala, which provides shelter, drug treatment, counseling and occupational therapy for former gang members and prostitutes. Solis, a counselor, founded CEREM after witnessing the condition of women and children living in a garbage dump in Guatemala City.
Solis' foundation, which houses 20 to 30 individuals and treats dozens more, currently is based in a rented house, from which residents operate a bakery and a cafe. Solis plans to expand the program to include a residential campus on a site 20 minutes outside Guatemala City, where former prostitutes and street children could safely live, go to school and work.
It's the design of that campus that students are creating, with the help of architects Luney and David Nieh, lecturer and architect Marga Jann, and other lecturers and faculty who serve as visiting design critics. In addition to group-home-style residences, students are designing classrooms, spaces for small businesses, a church and a retreat center. Solis, accompanied by Guatemalan architect Alberto de Leon Escobar and a CEREM resident, will travel to campus next Monday for a design review of the project.
The course is titled Architectural Design of Individual Buildings: Ethics, Community Service and Social Responsibility, and students, drawn from backgrounds including medicine, history, urban studies, human biology, and civil and environmental engineering, take an interdisciplinary approach to the project.
Their designs, which use Guatemalan vernacular architecture and textile art as a springboard, address residents' needs for privacy and community, recreation and security, along with the need for square footage. "I love how architecture combines art with functionality," wrote Ben Palmquist in a description of the course project. "It takes into account everything from psychology to structural engineering."
"It's not just a place for kids to eat and sleep," added senior Luis Trujillo, a 21-year-old history major who brought the foundation to Jann's attention and serves as a board member. He has conducted research on education, poverty and street children.
The project is a rare opportunity for students and far different from more typical architectural projects that address problems like "How many offices can we fit into this space?" or "How many cases of Coca-Cola can we push out the back?" Luney said.
Their designs for the campus are imaginative, with curving walls and vine-shaded patios, rendered in a rainbow of colors. Yet in their critiques, architects Luney, Nieh and Jann keep students rooted in prosaic realities like drainage and sewer systems. "Are we using septic tanks? We have to think about the utilities," responded Nieh, after Palmquist presented a site plan sketch.
Students also are working to identify funding sources and are creating a business plan to generate income through the manufacture of clothing. The older residents will design and sew skirts, to be sold through organizations like the Fair Trade Federation, and class members are hoping to help CEREM to begin exporting Guatemalan crafts and tapestries, Jann said. (Students will take orders for Guatemalan textiles at the June 2 design review, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Wallenberg Learning Theater. The design review is open to the community.)
A project like the CEREM campus has a lot of constraints, said Jann, who has previously worked with student designers to create blueprints for a residence at a Mexican orphanage, now under construction. The project is ambitious and has little funding, and the student architects, who come from a wide variety of backgrounds, are amateurs, she said. On the plus side are the students' commitment and ability, she said. "They are really motivated and are hard workers."
"It's not really even a class," said Palmquist. "It's a real-world situation. Most of us plan to stick with the project after the class is over."
The class receives support from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the Center for Social Innovation at the Graduate School of Business, the Institute for International Studies, the Program in Ethics in Society, the Haas Center for Public Service and the Program on Urban Studies.
(more)
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