Design Observer :: Join the Discussion http://places.designobserver.com/feature/how-haiti-could-change-design/12695/ en-us Design Observer Group 2010-06-19T15:56:43-05:00 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0 ]]> Oyunlar http://places.designobserver.com/feature/how-haiti-could-change-design/12695/#comments 2010-06-19T15:56:43-05:00
See you next month.
Cheers
Cameron
Architecture for Humanity]]> Cameron Sinclair http://places.designobserver.com/feature/how-haiti-could-change-design/12695/#comments 2010-03-23T16:02:52-05:00 Great article!]]> tico.ar http://places.designobserver.com/feature/how-haiti-could-change-design/12695/#comments 2010-02-27T18:15:00-05:00 A prevention-oriented model of design practice would involve a more entrepreneurial way of operating, in which architects would not wait for commissions to come to them, but would instead proactively approache communities or even entire countries with appropriate and affordable ideas of how to avoid the next likely disaster.

this quote was great and I would have liked him to expound more specifically on this without leaning so heavily on metaphor. The public health model metaphor was useful for making a point, but it was too weak to make the whole essay.

Anyways, a very cool approach to significant problems. Hopefully he'll write more about how the above passage might happen.]]> faslanyc http://places.designobserver.com/feature/how-haiti-could-change-design/12695/#comments 2010-02-26T11:45:46-05:00
Tom Fisher has written eloquently before about the need for a public-health model practice, a call with which I agree strongly. So I was a bit disappointed to see the U of M shipping container project shoehorned into an otherwise fine essay. If it is anything Haiti and other disasters teach us, it is logistics, not design, that presents the greatest challenges in immediate response.

There are countless shipping-container prototypes that have been designed by students and architects; unless it somehow becomes economically feasible to mass-produce such objects, stockpile them at hundreds of ports around the world, and put in place a protocol to disrupt global trade by commandeering container ships to deliver them, we are stuck with late-arriving "undesigned" alternatives like FEMA trailers.

A public-health model for architecture should and can be implemented, but that does not mean we cannot use existing client-based practice models to intervene when possible in places prone to disaster well before that disaster strikes. ]]> Ian Baldwin http://places.designobserver.com/feature/how-haiti-could-change-design/12695/#comments 2010-02-26T09:32:00-05:00 Ben http://places.designobserver.com/feature/how-haiti-could-change-design/12695/#comments 2010-02-24T16:36:57-05:00
I applaud the emergency responses that this article points to...

The contrast of private medical vs. public health models is clear. There is a kind-of ambulance-chasing mentality around disaster-based work that makes me very uncomfortable and thus we don't pursue it.

However the preventative approach is a welcome challenge. Light Projects is involved in several flood-plain sites in Texas. When flooding is assumed, it becomes a major criteria for all design solutions. We feel excited to be part of future solutions rather than reactive heroism.
]]> Leni Schwendinger http://places.designobserver.com/feature/how-haiti-could-change-design/12695/#comments 2010-02-23T20:54:47-05:00
I've been participating at Haiti ReWired and Architecture for Humanity, both on construction literature for Haiti's rebuilding. There's definitely an opportunity for designers to be proactive about disaster response exactly in the way you described. Preparing designers so that majority of our colleagues in disciplines beyond architecture would know enough how to respond—grasp the issues around recurring emergency needs, develop instincts to collaborate well on the fly, and work on material that might be adaptable to a host of scenarios. Naturally, these efforts can be integrated with the preventative approach you described.

In short, I have been changed by Haiti.]]> Julietta Cheung http://places.designobserver.com/feature/how-haiti-could-change-design/12695/#comments 2010-02-23T16:06:35-05:00 www.urbananswers.com http://places.designobserver.com/feature/how-haiti-could-change-design/12695/#comments 2010-02-23T13:40:03-05:00