SFI8 SPEAKERS
Keynote: Shigeru Ban
Japanese architect Shigeru Ban is internationally acclaimed for his humanitarian efforts and his innovative use of building materials. First in the world to construct a building out of recycled paper, Ban built the “Community Dome,” a meeting place for victims of the 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan. His “Paper Log Houses” provided temporary shelter for the earthquake victims. The houses were later reused for earthquake victims in Turkey and India. This work has led Ban to create housing for Rwandan refugees in collaboration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In 1995, Ban joined the U.N. commission as a consultant and established the Voluntary Architects’ Network to address housing shortages and substandard living conditions around the world. His material research into the structural capacity of organic materials, such as paper tubes, bamboo and wood, Ban has created a new vocabulary for contemporary architecture based in environmental and social concerns.
Panel I: activist . practice
Panelists
David Perkes and Patricia Broussard, Gulf Coast Community Design Studio (Biloxi, MS)
Liz Ogbu, Public Architecture (San Francisco, CA)
Carin Smuts, CS Studio Architects (Capetown, South Africa)
Moderator
TBD
The Gulf Coast Community Design Studio began after Hurricane Katrina as part of Mississippi State University’s School of Architecture and can be seen as a case study of a practice created to work with experience. The GCCDS made four decisions early on to guide their day-to-day work: (1) to create a workspace within the community to be served, (2) to form long-term partnerships with local organizations, (3) to avoid political and ideological alliances; and (4) most importantly, be useful to the community.
These pragmatic policies are illustrated in the innovative way the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio is working in East Biloxi and in the studio workspace itself, a renovated church building shared with a local community organization, the East Biloxi Coordination and Relief Center. The success of this collaborative way of working is demonstrated in the hundreds of new and renovated houses in East Biloxi resulting from the partnership with the coordination center. The embedded practice of the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio is pushing the limits of community design, replacing the occasional community involvement of planning charrettes, exhibits and presentations common to typical community design centers with a continuous collaboration that is both pragmatic and hopeful and puts the expertise of planning and architecture into the day-to-day experience of the community.
David Perkes is an architect and Associate Professor for Mississippi State University School of Architecture. For the past seven years, David has been the director of the Jackson Community Design Center, and since Hurricane Katrina, has been leading the newly establishment Gulf Coast Community Design Studio. As director of the Design Center, David has overseen projects that range from neighborhood planning to feasibility studies to affordable and sustainable housing. Under his leadership the Jackson Community Design Center has assisted many community organizations and has been recognized with an Honor Award from the Mississippi Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, has a sustainable Habitat for Humanity house that was selected in the National AIA “Show Your Green” program to be featured in the Design Advisor, and has received support from the National Endowments for the Arts, Mississippi Arts Commission, and other local and national organizations. David was selected as the designer from Mississippi in January 2004 issue of International Design in which a designer is featured from each state. His work now focuses on rebuilding Mississippi Gulf Coast communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The work initiated by the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio includes housing and community planning in Biloxi, Mississippi, and other communities, working with Architecture for Humanity and with other local and national partners. Mississippi State University was one of seven universities to receive a HUD University Rebuilding America Partnership grant, which helps fund housing and neighborhood planning work in East Biloxi. He has a Master of Environmental Design degree from Yale School of Architecture, a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Utah, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Utah State University. During the 2003-2004 academic year, he was a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Patricia Broussard is a native Mississippian in love with East Biloxi who has lived on her current property for nine years. She has a grown son and daughter. She works in security at a Biloxi casino, but her true love is gardening, and she can tell the story of each plant and tree in her yard. She survived Hurricane Katrina, along with her hardier plants, and has lived in a FEMA trailer for over two years. Throughout the design and construction of her new house, she has formed relationships with the students, designers and numerous volunteers, guiding the design and sharing her knowledge of Biloxi history and gardening in the process.
Public Architecture's public interest design campaigns are multidisciplinary initiatives that utilize design and advocacy to address issues of broad social relevance on which design could profoundly impact. The group’s Day Labor Station design campaign is a responsive solution to the land use, safety, and community issues raised by day laborers gathering in informal sites. Most hiring sites occupy spaces meant for other uses, such as street corners and store parking lots. Far from ideal, their presence in such spaces means that they often lack even the most basic of amenities (shelter, water, toilet facilities, etc.). The Station's innovative structure can be deployed at community-designated locations, creating a specific space for day laborer gatherings. It is a self-sustaining green structure that provides a sheltered space to wait for work as well as a bathroom. The design is based on the way in which the existing day laborer system operates, and allows the structure to operate in various capacities, from employment center to meeting space to classroom. A companion advocacy component helps advance the debate about day laborers and their role in our society, presenting facts about the population as well as individual stories and bridging the knowledge gap that often leads to conflict.
Public Architecture believes that architecture and design can responsively engage complex social and cultural issues, engender positive social outcomes, and create healthier communities.
Liz Ogbu joined Public Architecture in August 2006. As design campaign manager, she is responsible for design campaign selection, execution, and advocacy. Previously, Liz was a designer at Simon Martin-Vegue Winklestein Morris (SMWM), an architecture and urban design firm in San Francisco. She has been the recipient of several traveling fellowships, including the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. Through these grants, she has pursued research projects, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa, examining the intersections in the socioeconomic and physical spaces of the informal sector. Findings from this work have been presented at several conferences both in the U.S. and abroad, and were the subject of her Master's thesis. Liz has also been involved with many community focused projects and organizations here in the U.S., including the launch of the Community Design: Now or Never website and its associated symposium; the Mayors' Institute on City Design; a design outreach program for local youth in Cambridge and Boston; and an affordable housing developer in the San Francisco Bay Area. Liz earned her Bachelor of Arts in architecture from Wellesley College and Master of Architecture from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. and is responsible for design campaign selection, execution, and advocacy. Previously, Liz was a designer at Simon Martin-Vegue Winklestein Morris (SMWM), an architecture and urban design firm in San Francisco. She has been the recipient of several traveling fellowships, including the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. Through these grants, she has pursued research projects, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa, examining the intersections in the socioeconomic and physical spaces of the informal sector. Findings from this work have been presented at several conferences both in the U.S. and abroad, and were the subject of her Master's thesis. Liz has also been involved with many community focused projects and organizations here in the U.S., including the launch of the Community Design: Now or Never website and its associated symposium; the Mayors' Institute on City Design; a design outreach program for local youth in Cambridge and Boston; and an affordable housing developer in the San Francisco Bay Area. Liz earned her Bachelor of Arts in architecture from Wellesley College and Master of Architecture from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.
Carin Smutts
Coming Soon
Panel II: political . art Panelists
Dan Adams, Landing Studio (Cambridge, MA)
Amy Balkin, Invisible 5 (San Francisco, CA)
John Fetterman, Mayor (Braddock, PA)
Moderator
TBD
Dan Adams
Coming Soon
Invisible 5 is a collaboration between artists Amy Balkin, Tim Halbur, and Kim Stringfellow, and organizations Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, and Pond: Art, Activism & Ideas. Invisible 5 investigates the stories of people and communities fighting for environmental justice along the I-5 corridor, through oral histories, field recordings, found sound, recorded music, and archival audio documents. The project, which has twenty-three stops, also traces natural, social, and economic histories along the route. The entire project can be downloaded for free at invisible5.org
John Fetterman, the mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, and a core group of activists are serving in Allegheny County’s poorest community to re-energize a historically important steel town confronted with staggering decay and neglect. This group has implemented a number of projects in Braddock that fall within two broad categories: those focused on the community within, and those designed to attract from outside Braddock. Initiatives include activities and jobs for community youth, facilitation of urban homesteading through art and green practices including urban agriculture, and active opposition of the construction of a large toll road designed to run through the heart of town. This presentation will begin with a historical framework of the town and what has been left behind in the wake of it’s economic downturn. Focus will then turn towards elaborating on the projects underway and the intention behind focusing on small, targeted, grassroots projects as a means for development.
Panel III: social . sustainability Panelists
Simon Trace, Practical Action (Rugby, United Kingdom)
Jim Diers, Department of Neighborhoods (Seattle, WA)
Jennifer Toy and Chelina Odbert, Kounkuey Design Initiative (Cambridge, MA)
Moderator
TBD
Simon Trace took up his appointment as CEO of Practical Action in October 2005. Prior to this appointment, he was Strategic Development Director for the UK NGO WaterAid. A civil engineer by training, Simon also studied anthropology. Simon's career has principally been in community development, in the fields of soil and water conservation or water and sanitation, and he has spent time with a number of agencies, including periods of secondment to CARE and Unicef. He also spent a total of 10 years in Zambia and Nepal prior to moving to London to take up a series of positions with WaterAid, including Asia Regional Manager and Head of International Operations.
Jim Diers has a passion for getting people engaged with their communities and in the decisions that affect their lives. Since moving to Seattle in 1976, he put that passion to work for a direct-action neighborhood association, a community development corporation, a community foundation, and the nation's largest health care cooperative. He was appointed the first director of Seattle's Department of Neighborhoods in 1988 where he served under three mayors over the next 14 years. Currently, Jim works for the University of Washington where he teaches courses in community organizing and development and connects university resources with community initiatives. Jim also serves on the faculty of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute and travels internationally to deliver speeches, present workshops, and provide technical assistance to community associations, non-profit organizations, and local governments.
Jim received a BA and an honorary doctorate from Grinnell College. His work in the Department of Neighborhoods was recognized with an Innovations Award from the Kennedy School of Government, a Full Inclusion Award from the American Association on Developmental Disabilities, and the Public Employee of the Year Award from the Municipal League of King County.
Jim's book, Neighbor Power: Building Community the Seattle Way, is available through the University of Washington Press. More information can be found on Jim's website: www.neighborpower.org.
The mission of the Kounkuey Design Initiative, a project begun by Jen Toy and Chelina Odbert, is to generate and implement entrepreneurial landscape strategies in slum communities of developing countries. Their process is an iterative community process that provokes dialogue between residents, designers, technical consultants, government officials and the private sector. Since 2006, Kounkuey has been working on a pilot project in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya . As a group, our strategy is practical: to reclaim waste spaces along the rivers that currently run through Kibera for new community amenities. Through the design of such a space, they seek to address priority concerns such as youth idleness, the few economic opportunities, and a complete lack of trash and sanitation services. They hope that by demonstrating the success of this project - physically, socially, and economically - the PPS (Productive Public Space) model can catalyze + kick-start the larger, more systemic programs out there for improving conditions in Kibera. PPS is a testing ground for different technologies + partnerships, offering the support of local leaders and the community, a replicable model, and, most importantly, a different perspective and potential solution to the "problems" facing Kibera.
Panel IV: design . power Panelists
Teddy Cruz, Estudio Teddy Cruz (San Diego, CA)
Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner, Urban Think Tank (Caracas, Venezuela)
Moderator
TBD
Urban Think Tank is an independent non profit research organization assembled as a multidisciplinary team that works in urban projects. It focuses on the theoretical and practical application of architecture and urban planning, especially for the city of Caracas. Its principal directors are Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner. more coming soon
Teddy Cruz’ work dwells at the border between San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico, where he has been developing a practice and pedagogy that emerge out of the particularities of this bicultural territory and the integration of theoretical research and design production. He has been recognized internationally in collaboration with community-based nonprofit organizations such as Casa Familiar for its work on housing and its relationship to an urban policy more inclusive of social and cultural programs for the city. more coming soon
