Design Altruism Project

Back in Fall of 2007, David Stairs, a professor of Graphic Design at Central Michigan University visited our studio to talk to us about what he has been doing and to offer some comments about our projects. David began the Design Altruism Project which is a part of Designers Without Borders. When David visited us he spoke of some work he did in Uganda (the FDNC one) which was quite inspiring. While I was trying to determine what exactly to do for thesis as well as after thesis, we had some good conversations. When I completed my thesis proposal, David agreed to read it and offered suggestions. In return, he asked that I write an article about this past semester. You can find it here.

The Experience has Ended

The end of July has come, and so has my stay in Monterrey; for now at least. Briefly, here are some thoughts that I had on the way home.

As a result of this past semester, remaining in Monterrey for part of the summer to continue working on some of these projects, and the search for a way to make a living I have many thoughts about what design and education should work toward. For the people who realize the need to be socially, globally, and environmentally responsible in our work, moving beyond titles and occupations is necessary. For architects, the norm is to become registered and continue to doing quality projects, ideally with repeat clients. However, being aware of local realities beyond the common architectural projects is a step that must be taken. The firm that I repeatedly interned with in Indiana is an expert in school construction. Recent cuts in the state budget and new guidelines in the way state funded projects will come about has caused the market for schools to "dry up." Predictably, the firm is looking to other markets and other states for more work to take the place of the void created in the local school market. But a socially conscious designer would look further than the obvious void in the usual workload. The lack of funds for schools has many roots. I do not claim to know them, but I am aware of the fact that there are about 8,000 abandoned houses in the downtown Indianapolis area, there are about 2,000 homeless people in Indianapolis on any given night, and there are many students at these schools who are classified as homeless. I know that a large scale low-income housing project was completed in Muncie, IN, but that the architect had trouble being compensated for the work and a similar project is not likely to be undertaken in the near future. I know that Indiana is a destination for many immigrants from countries to the South and that there are many inequalities that the people must deal with. I know all of these things because I search to know this information, and others have done the same. But what will this architecture firm, and others like it, do? What will students who are aware of these problems and would like to work in their home state be able to do to address these problems while still making a living?

In Mexico, the world of the common architect and the common person are very different. At ITESM, the university I attended, all students are required to complete about 400 hours of social service before they are allowed to graduate. But many of the students who have the opportunity to go to this school have jobs lined up for them when they graduate, often stopping the pattern of social work.

Ball State University architecture department has options for students to study and learn about global social issues. The CAP Asia program and the NASHCC program, which I participated in, are two examples that provide excellent experiences. But only a handful are able to participate in these each year. Several times I have had people say to me how so many people are talking about a paradigm shift in design education and the design professions and that it is great how I am doing something about it...but I still feel like I am just talking about it. The education system is full of factors that create so much impatience. In a world that revolves around four month semesters and grades, I strongly believe that it is past the time for education to not be in the forefront of socially responsible design work. It simply is not proving to be sustainable enough ("sustainable enough" sounds like an oxymoron, but I digress). However, doing something while being in the education system is one of the best learning opportunities there is, and these programs should be expanded by 1000% at the least.

To close, this thesis was something that theses should be moving toward: a personal learning experience that is more than a summary of the education process and is something that is much more than results based, especially in terms of images. And most importantly, making a change to do something you feel strongly about is not as hard as it appears and is very rewarding.

Now that school is over (until that doctorate study, maybe) I'm off to find some work. Wish me luck.

Friday Night Excitment

I had a memorable Friday night experience on July 4, 2008.

The old section of town, Barrio Antiguo, is known as the area for nightlife. There are some really nice places that we sometimes go to. One of which is called Akbal. It's a cool place with a lot of nice stuff on the walls and ceilings (chandeliers and such) but no cover and good prices. We're there for a few hours and it gets to be about 2:30 so we ask for the check (there were 6 of us). We are also on a patio on the second floor.

All of a sudden one of the servers opens the door to the inside and tells everyone to come inside and be quite. Puzzled, I ask why we need to keep quite to a friend and he says he doesn't know, perhaps because of the police. So I'm wondering...is the bar doing something illegal that we didn't know about? Is there a noise complaint for the bar? Is that even possible? Also, Friday was the day that my visa expired, so if cops are involved, I'm wondering how long I'll be in jail.

So we go inside and we sit down on a couch and I start to tell myself that worrying is only going to cloud my thinking, so I start looking around trying to find out what is going on. After a few minutes, there is a loud crash from downstairs, some people scream, and a server runs up the stairs and tells us all to get against one of the walls. At this point I'm sure that the SWAT team has just busted out the barricaded door and the bar workers are trying to prepare us for a search. But this thought lasts only for a few seconds as I immediately recognize the smell of Kerosene, and it's thick in the air. I mention this to my friends and step away from the wall looking for a way out. Just then two servers run up the stairs with fire extinguishers, and even before they said a word I had put my shirt over my mouth and headed for the stairs. Sure enough they told everyone to exit the building as quickly and as calmly as possible. I was the third person down the stairs, being very selfish and expecting that everyone would make it behind me.

The downstairs was quite smoky, but I could tell that there was not a fire in the immediate area. As I stepped into the street, I looked at the neighboring restaurant and saw smoke pouring out of the windows that had been broken in the explosion (the crashing noise from earlier) and saw a faint reddish light inside. There were only pedestrians on the street, no cops or firefighters. I met up with the rest of the group (I found it humorous that all the girls were coughing loudly because their outfits didn't provide any clothing for covering the airways for smoke avoidance). Two of the girls were freaking out and said we had to get out of there immediately. My hand was grabbed and we literally ran to the nearest taxi.

I have no idea what happened to the building or how big the fire actually was. What I do know is that we each got a few free drinks from the excitement!

Also, if you are keeping up with photos, there are several new ones. "Photographs of Monterrey 2," "Visits to Rural Mexico 2," and "Studio Project Context" have been updated, while "Photographs of Monterrey 3," "We Climbed a Mountain," and "The Day there was Rain in the Desert" are all new.

Most Memorable Visit to the Desert

On Thursday, July 3, I again visited San Felipe to do some documentation of the village so that we can have accurate information for the work we are doing and also to show the design proposals of the prototype house for feedback. But this visit was the most memorable one thus far for one simple reason: it was raining. It rained all day and I was there, a very rare coincidence. The rain brought good things, obviously, in that the tanks that collect the rainwater from roofs were able to be filled up so that drinking and washing water will be available. Also, the fields were able to be watered. But the rain also brought some bad things. It began raining the night before and two walls in two different houses collapsed. The first house was the house that demonstrated the loss of knowledge of how to build with traditional methods. The walls did not meet the roof very well, and in one room there were several centimeters separating the roof and the top of the wall.

The wall was not tied to the rest of the house well. The water from the rain simple took out the mortar of the poorly built wall and it slowly collapsed during the night.





The second house was a very well built house completely made of traditional materials and methods many many years ago. The owner of the house had died several years ago and it has been empty and abandoned ever since. This rain and wall collapse was simply the first step of the house falling down.



I'm surprised that no one has occupied and maintained this home, but it is interesting to me to see this process (since architects have such an infatuation with ruins). After several hours of being in the village and trying to write, sketch, and photograph in the rain I secretly wished it would start raining--a wish I'm sure was not shared by the people who live there.

Besides the rain, there was another interesting event that took place. The graduation party for the elementary school students was to take place in the evening. At about 5 PM, people from other towns and ejidos began showing up for the party. I always like being in the rural areas where there are large groups of people because there are so many styles that people have, especially with hair, cars, and dress. Most member able were some blue cowboy boots that a boy was wearing.

Since I return to the U.S. in just over a week, and my future is very much up in the air, this may have been the last time I visit San Felipe for awhile. But I'm glad I got to see rain in the village and see a glimpse of how the community comes together for celebrations (we had to leave before the party really got started).

Continuation into the Summer

At the end of April, May 21st was a dark and looming date. That was the day I was to leave Monterrey and return to Indiana. I was not ready to leave Mexico for good. I was not ready to leave Mexico for more than a few days. I wanted to stay and keep working on projects and keep working on Spanish. After a long search, I finally was able to receive some funding to continue working on the design of the prototype home and strategic plan of San Felipe, the small ejido village that I have written about several times. So after a brief trip to my home state, I returned to Monterrey on June 1 and have been here since then.

The work I have been doing has mainly been focused on finishing the details of the prototype home so that construction can resume. This involves the design, determining which materials will be used and the amount of the materials, and figuring out ways to construct the house. This has been very interesting for me. In the semester of Fall 2007, I had a studio project which was to design a medical center for a rural part of Nepal which was very far from any major cities or building supply areas. The traditional walls of the area were stone and earth. I had the layout part of the design covered, but even after 5 years of school I could not understand how the thing would actually be built. These were materials that I had never worked with and had no idea how a wall made of such materials would actually stand up. Today the situation is different. After many visits to the village and after speaking with people who have worked with such materials, I can honestly say I know how 90% of this building will be constructed (there are a few more details that I will be working out this coming week). I have never been so confident in my knowledge of the constructibility of a building I have been working on as now. It has been very rewarding taking all the things I learned from working with details at Schmidt Associates in Indianapolis for three internships and applying that knowledge to new materials.

The second part of the summer work involves a strategic plan of the community in the next 10 years. My job for this is mainly to put together images which will start the process as five weeks (the length of my extended stay) is too short to do the construction details and a completed strategic plan. So this is what I have been up to since I last wrote many weeks ago.