digital aptitudes - Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture

FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2012 - 11:00AM - 12:30PM
Open: Disaster Recovery
Charles Setchell, USAID Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance
Digital and Analog Aptitudes in Emergency Shelter
Design and Fabrication
Bruce Johnson, University of Kansas
The Article discusses the flux between the Digital and Analog
realms in the design, fabrication and outcome of a Prototype Emergency
Shelter as conceived in a third year “hands-on” architectural
design studio. The article examines the studio design process with
relationship to both the physical needs of victims and refugees
and with regard to fabrication and design development within the
architectural studio itself. Currently and in the recent past there
has been much emphasis on Crisis Architecture as it pertains to
the need for large quantities of housing for victims and refuges of
Hurricanes, Floods, War, Tsunamis, Earthquakes, etc. and humanmade
disasters, this article illustrates the need for such housing
projects to examine the cultural requirements of privacy, family
function, and enclave or neighborhood development in temporary
housing communities such as to facilitate a sense of ownership and
personal/family pride. For both Professionals and Students, Crisis
architecture requires the study of not only the specific needs for
family and community housing during a Crisis, but also of the ability
of various government agencies, volunteers, and even victims,
to be able to organize, construct, and to maintain society during
conditions that often manifest power outages and a complete lack
of communication interface. Increasingly Professionals and Design
students flaunt advanced Digital interfaces for the study and
manufacture of buildings, components and models – the article illustrates
that design is a hybrid of whatever means are available
and that Crisis architecture must adapt in the field in order to best
serve society in a time of need.
Bruce A. Johnson is an Assistant Professor at the University of
Kansas. He graduated with honors from Kansas State University
in 1991 where he was awarded the American Institute of Architects
Certificate of Merit. In 1995 he received a scholarship to attend
Columbia University where he was a recipient of the Lowenfisch
Memorial Prize for best thesis (The Split-Level Sod House). He has
practiced in Kansas City for firms such as Populous, Shaughnessy,
Fickel and Scott, PGAV, and International Architects Atelier, and
in Chicago for Stanley Tigerman and Margaret McCurry. In 1991 he
was awarded the prestigious Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Bachelor
of Architecture Traveling Fellowship, which afforded research and
travel to study sacred architecture in the Middle East, North Africa
and Europe. His current research interests include Alternate Architectural
Practice and Direct Fabrication as it pertains to the radical
integration of Structure, Systems and Emergent Materials.
Haitian Rebuilding Initiative: Technological Solutions
That Hinge on Empowerment
Juintow Lin, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Michael Fox, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
This paper outlines a series of studios and seminars focused on
permanent housing solutions in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake
in Haiti. The project hinges on enabling Haitians through
a housing project that that is built entirely with local labor and a
minimum of imported materials. An entire house is constructed
almost solely with a unique resin-coated corrugated paper core
sandwiched between magnesium board panels which are manufactured
locally. The combination of local initiative and a uniquetechnology
applied to the construction process enables the house
to be constructed within a very short time and at a very low cost.
The work has resulted in an initial prototype section of a house
constructed at the University campus in the United States and
the first full house completed in Haiti. From a project standpoint,
students learned to design schematic buildings within real material
and budgetary constraints. They also were asked understand
real strategies for fabrication, delivery and assembly related to the
unique construction details that they developed. Students also had
to reconcile the global and ethical impacts of their design decisions
and confront real world political situations related to disaster relief
housing. In addition, students learned to apply their discipline-specific
construction and materials skills to an interdisciplinary problem
where cost and simplicity are primary constraints.
Learning from Disaster: Lessons from Community-
Based Design in Haiti
John Comazzi, University of Minnesota
Jim Lutz, University of Minnesota
This paper will chronicle a unique disaster assistance/learning
abroad program developed in the wake of the catastrophic 2010
earthquake in Haiti, and the pedagogical lessons gleaned from this
extraordinary community-based design experience.
The program began in the early spring of 2010 with two “factfinding”
visits to Haiti by five faculty members from the School of
Architecture at the University of Minnesota in collaboration with
two international NGOs providing relief services there. Following
these site visits, a group of faculty, administrators, and research
fellows worked to develop a coordinated, long-term plan for a new
curricular model focused on public interest design associated with
post-disaster reconstruction efforts.
LEARNING in the CLASSROOM
Recognizing the complex circumstances of working in a community
recovering from disaster, we used the first half of the spring
2011 term to pilot a seven-week, graduate-level seminar organized
to build capacity among a group of students and faculty preparing
for the program abroad. The first portion of the seminar was spent
contextualizing the larger historical, cultural, social, and natural
systems in Haiti through the creation of a Research Manual and
course website that became an online repository for the research
and analysis created by the students. Following the production
of the Research Manual, the focus of the seminar shifted to the
production of a 277-page Field Guide that concentrated more directly
on the information and data most important for supporting
the community-based design work by those students and faculty
traveling to Haiti.
Digital Apptitutes + Other Openings - Boston, MA - 15