Getting my hands dirty for the first time

Saturday the 9th was the first day where physical results could be seen. It started with me wanting to get involved with the volunteering organization here at Tec. There is a project entitled 10 casas x 10 familias, where employees of Tec are provided decent housing, as some of them do not currently have it. The architecture department designs the houses and then student volunteers build the houses later in the semester. All students at Tec have to complete 400 hours of social service, so the volunteering program is very popular. The situation of one woman who is a part of the program was briefly explained to me. She is currently living in a house made of corrugated metal pieces on a very uneven surface of rocks, and one room cannot be used as the sewage from the neighboring house has begun to seep into the house. It is good that Tec is doing something, but I wonder if other situations are being missed.

Then I remember some situations in Indiana. The houses may not be in as crude a state, but there is a lot to endure, especially now with the temperatures at night and the flooding that recently took place. Does BSU know about the living conditions of their employees? Are they doing anything to find out? If so I have no idea about it. But everyone in the architecture program here in Monterrey knows about 10x10. And what is so cool about this is that the homeowners are involved from the beginning. With every decision.

I chose this project because it is a very good thing that is happening, but also I want to improve my knowledge of building within the community, learn Spanish words for building related terms, and simply to get out of the house and do something memorable. When I signed up with the volunteering organizers, I found out that 10x10 was being headed by a graduate student I had met a few times, and actually works with Pedro (my professor) quite a bit. So I sought him out on Friday and he said to meet up the next morning at 9:00 am to start working. First he showed me some of what has been happening.

Let me first say that some of the facilities at ITESM are amazing. There is a whole part of one of the buildings, a very large part, that is full of student experiments in sciences, computing, construction, and stuff I haven't even seen yet. The coolest thing I have seen is some students working on an earthquake-proof house. This is an adobe house with many layers of wire, but the entire structure is built on a platform that can mimic the motion of an earthquake. There are also sensors being implemented into the construction for further data. It looks so cool. They were working on it on Saturday and I asked when the shaking is going to happen. One of the students told me 7-10 days. I hope I don't miss it.

Well, with such a nice place to work and plenty of room for storage, many ideas are being born. With 10x10, the goal is to make good houses that are easy to build, do not cost a lot, and have principles of sustainable actions. The wall materials that are being investigated are fiberglass form work that was used to pour concrete in the construction of the Tec parking garage as well as refrigerator doors that came out of the factory with small defects. Pedro has actually put refrigerator doors on part of his house.

Right now there is a small experimental structure that is completed that used the concrete form work, but the house using refrigerator doors is only about 1/4 done, and there are many issues to work out, namely keeping water out. Two photos can see seen below. More can be found here.





Saturday morning began with some loading of materials and then heading to the job site, which is a piece of land on Tec property where agriculture research is also being done and there was a pen of chickens too. Some time was spent on the job site, with some of the new students debating strategies with Roberto, the graduate student who is in charge of the operation. The conversation was in Spanish, but I believe it consisted of Roberto telling the younger kids that the goal was not to complete the house as soon as possible, but to investigate different ways to put the materials together. And also to use safety on the job site. After the discussion we dismantled a section of 6 doors that had been assembled to a steel frame with the expectation of somehow putting the assembly onto the roof. They realized there was no feasible way to do it, so we took it apart and started carrying the doors up to the roof and installing them. After awhile, Roberto took me to see some other things.

His thesis project is similar to what my studio project is this semester. A studio from a year ago went into a community very near Tec called Alfonso Reyes. This community used to live illegally somewhere else but was relocated by the city to a piece of land that borders a canal that is occasionally the overflow area for raw sewage. The community originally wanted a church built, but after some discussions, they changed their mind and wanted a classroom for children to learn computer skills. The structure is 90% done and further development of a master plan is in the process. This last part is Roberto's thesis project; studying the outcome of the work done so far and finding out what to do next.

When we arrived at Alfonso Reyes, it was determined that the plan was to collect several semi-large stones so that a concrete pad could be constructed. In order to save money and amount of concrete, the area to be paved is covered with rocks and then the concrete fills the gaps and binds the rocks together. Not only does it save money, but it looks more unique than a regular concrete pad. The problem is getting the rocks.

I soon learned that we were going into the adjacent canal to get the rocks, the same one that has been used as raw sewage overflow. The canal was fairly dry, but the underside of the rocks were not, and every time I touched something gooey, a little part of me said "stop, this is gross." But I gritted my teeth and kept on, making a mental note not to touch my eyes or mouth. We worked for about 1.5 hours and searched in two locations. It was actually kind of a fun activity, despite the smell. There were 4 of us students and 6 men from the community.

At one moment, one of the men, Moya, collected a few corn-cob looking things that were growing. Roberto told me that they were used for showering. It is amazing at the little things that one can learn from simply getting out of the cushy university environment. A shower sponge from just a few hundred meters away instead of paying for one at the store and having to wait in line with snotty-nose kids all around. What is to be noted from this observation is not the fact that Moya is overly intelligent for making use of this natural material, as it is required due to the fact that money can not be spent for such things, but rather the fact that it is surprising to get something very useful without spending money. When we need something, we give someone else money to get it, a simple process. Many people do not know what is growing in their back yards, or their back yards simply exist to show others that they know how to drive a lawn mower in a straight line for an extended period of time. I am thankful that I grew up in a house that grew a lot of it's food during the summer months, but there is so much about our 4-acre property that I never really knew. 3 of the 4 acres were pretty much left to grow wild. What kind of things grew and lived in these unknown acres? Without straying too far, the point is that such a simple act of collecting a plant to shower with struck me as unique. And it would strike most people the same way.

A similar event happened during the first visit to San Felipe. When some of the men were showing me the water collection areas in the desert, they showed me a plant that they chewed that made your breath fresh. It did not taste great, but it was not horrible. After a few minutes, they told me that it was also a digestive system cleaner. I stopped eating it immediately as I did not want a surprise reaction to some desert plant during my first night in rural Mexico. Some of the guys laughed at me when I spit out the plant after finally deciphering what it was they were telling me.

I want to make it clear that I'm not attempting to romanticize these actions. In the case of Alfonso Reyes, the people do not have a choice whether or not to use found materials for everyday life. But I find myself asking myself, "what gives me the right to come in thinking I know about sustainable design when I don't even know the environment around me?" William McDonough has said (paraphrased) that most architects don't even know how to find solar noon. It's true, I have no idea, and it makes me uncomfortable that I don't know. I'm sure this was taught to us in one of the 9:00 sessions of Natural Systems back in 2nd or 3rd year, which is also the least favorite class of anyone in the architecture program. Anyway, there is a big disconnect between ideals and reality. And the sad part, this has all been said before. Now I'm saying it like it's a new idea. And someone else will say it again. I want to blame education for not teaching me this stuff, but I know it's more my fault, perhaps not a conscious fault, but a fault nonetheless in the sense that I have not made a big effort.

The subtitle of my thesis proposal: "Working with and Learning From ignored communities." Both objectives started and somewhat completed this weekend. I may miss the concrete box in the sky back in Muncie, but it is good to be here.