Preserving architecture as a profession will mean reversing some disturbing trends.

So says Eric Cesal who, when he's not directing the Resiliency and Reconstruction Studio at Architecture for Humanity, is tracking the value of design and architecture in its use around the world. Little surprise that the two (pre)occupations are related.

After looking at some recession statistics, Eric concluded that the world may view design as not valuable. He has evidence to the contrary, and delivered a talk recently at TEDx Piscataqua River (Portsmouth, NH) reviewing his work since he first addressed the value of architecture in Down Detour Road, through how design decisions have changed the lives of thousands in places like post-earthquake Haiti.

Haiti team Construction Services Manager Natalie Desrosiers has a moment to rest after the Haiti Parters Children's Academy dedication to catch us up on the past six months of construction. From composting toilets to structural steel trusses, to sitework and a huge dedication turnout, Natalie provides a visual play-by-play...with help from Haiti Partners Instagramming.

Earlier this month a Manual on buying and selling land in Haiti was published and made available for distribution. The Haiti Land Transaction Manual, Vol. 1 was the result of a year's collaboration between Architecture for Humanity, Habitat for Humanity International, local legal experts, and the Haitian government, it is an accessible manual that Haitians, NGOs and international investors can use to navigate the complex bureaucratic legal system and secure property - a critical first step to permanent reconstruction.

Read all about the Property Law Working Group in last year's interview with Design Fellow Frederique Siegel.

Preview the doc in English via Issuu;
Ou prévisualisez-le en français

Or download a copy of the manual (PDF, 2.1Mb)
en français (PDF, 2.2Mb)

On February 24th, the high-in-the-hills Children's Academy and Learning Center, a collaboration of Architecture for Humanity, BAR Architects in San Francisco and community organization Haiti Partners, celebrated the opening of its first school building.

"Over 1000 people attended, including a great many of the partners who have made the Children’s Academy possible," the Haiti Parners blog recounts. "Speeches were made, awards were given out, the WOZO choir sang, there was dancing," including a special Gagnam style demonstration from the community partner (not pictured).

Update by Sven Kalim from CIM School updates.

On Thursday, February 14th, Yves Francois (YCF Group), Abe Lynn (Degenkolb), and Kate Evarts (AFH) organized a brief talk and walkthrough with the students of CIM about the new building that's currently under construction.

Construction on the Phase One classroom building continues at "College Coeur Immacule de Marie" the all-girls school in Bois Verna, a historic neighborhood of Port au Prince. The design and construction team plans to lead a tour of the building site with the students and teachers who have been very curious about what is going on behind the construction fence. We will show them the massive rebar work going inside the concrete. The foundation is almost completed. This project alone stimulated the recovery of about 25 construction jobs. See below...

“Where would we be without you!?! The expertise you've provided and the partners you've connected us to have fueled our vision.”
- John Engle, Co-Director, Haiti Partners

“I admire the participatory and collaborative method of Architecture for Humanity. It’s an approach that has impressed a lot of people. We have faith that the project will come off properly.”
- Will Civil, member of Komite Humanitaire de Villa Rosa and resident of Morne Rosa

"Among our students, some may become lawyers, other doctors or architects to help this country, and the first step is this school."
- Wilson d'Or, Headmaster, Collège Mixte Le Bon Berger, Montrouis

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Our third annual update on our long-term post disaster work in Haiti finds the Rebuilding Center continuing its holistic strategy to rebuild buildings, neighborhoods, industries and economies.

A competition to redesign what is perhaps Haiti's most iconic building has cultivated a rich variety of large-scale climate and culture sensitive concepts from across the world. This week the results were announced and the fate of Notre Dame de l'Assomption in Port-au-Prince seems to be sealed.

The Architecture for Humanity Haiti office joined their upstairs neighbors (and periodic collaborators) YCF Group and Italian architecture firm ACRA CONSULTING to submit their vision last month. Although it did not win, their proposal is just too delicious to be kept to a digital drawer.

Haitian news magazine Tele Metropole last month featured the Elie Dubois school, a historic Port-au-Prince campus recovering from the 2010 earthquake. The school's next phase of construction, sponsored in part by Economic and Social Assistance Fund (FAES) and the Interamerican Development Bank (BID), will renew the two-story historic classroom building that dates back to the early 20th Century.

On November 28, 14 members of the Haiti Rebuilding Center caravanned West 27 miles to the town of Léogâne, near the epicenter of the 2010 earthquake, to contribute to Habitat for Humanity's Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project. The project gathered hundreds of volunteers to spend a day building an expansion to the new community of Santo. The Team has a special connection with Santo as they led community planning charrettes for Santo through the first half of 2011.

Now, following the Work Project, Santo boasts 255 single family houses, nearly doubling the size of the community. Santo is a prototype of new, post-quake community development, incorporating significant local feedback and sustainable planning strategies.

At long last.... We are eager to share with you that the classroom building of phase 1 of Ecole Baptiste Bon Berger, Pele, Haiti is substantially complete. The school site is located in Simon Pele, on the outskirts Citi Soleil in Haiti, which has bad reputation for violence and high concentration of underpriviledged children. This project location was a challlenge however, we've defeated the odds. (see below)

Land title and land tenure. Believe it or not, it’s this battle that’s dictating the pace of reconstruction in Haiti–and the issue is hairy. I mean, technical. Architecture for Humanity Design Fellow Frederique “Rickie” Siegel fell into a working group last year bent on addressing the bottleneck on permanent development throughout the country following (but not due to) the 2010 earthquake. Headquarters had an extended conversation with Rickie that, however tempted we are to edit down for running “a bit long,” remains unabridged–with hopes it provides a comprehensive explanation of what it’s going to take to turn the issues of “who owns what where” in Haiti into an accessible system from which permanent construction on “untenable” property can be legally defended. If you can get through it, you'll be eternally rewarded.

Yesterday was Day of the Girl, and we thought it apt to feature solution-finding work done by a group of students from the girls' school Coeur Immacule de Marie (CIM) in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Their workshop last July (a similar one was held for their teachers) helped inform what their main priorities are for their new school design by Architecture for Humanity. Although CIM isn't a Students Rebuild project, we thought this news exciting to share–and show how student work is helping define a better, more sustainable future for this learning community.

Yesterday, Artists for Haiti released a short feature on our work in Haiti – especially Program Manager Darren Gill (in rare, earnest form ;), and Headmaster Wilson D'Or and the students at Collège Mixte Le Bon Berger, Montrouis (the "spectrum school").

Says Mr. D'Or, "Amidst all our students, some may become lawyers, others become doctors or architects that help this country, and the first step is this school."

As Tropical Storm Isaac bears down on the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean nations are recovering from its heavy rains. In some places, flood waters have to subside completely, and inventories of losses be made, before recovery can begin.

"The scale of devastation was less than many people had feared," the New York Times reports. Still, 10 deaths in Hispaniola resulted due to the storm–8 casualties in Haiti, 2 in the Dominican Republic. 14,000 Haitians have evacuated their homes. The Grise River, to the north of Port-au-Prince, flooded streets to waist height on Saturday, dropping to shin height by Sunday.

Darren Gill, Architecture for Humanity's Haiti Program Manager, relates impacts on our work:

Call them a "Haitian artist collective." Twenty creatives have been invited through an RFP to design, build and install Civic Art in Schools through microgrants sponsored by the Digicel Foundation and Deutsche Bank.

The Grant program, launched last Summer, engaged local Haitian artists with various schools around the country. A year later, nine schools have become the recipients of art pieces developed by artists in collaboration with the students of the school. They're not all installed yet, but we couldn't contain ourselves to show off the work accomplished to date. The past few weeks have been a flurry of putting wrapped sculptures in truck beds and driving them from artist studios to school courtyards in Port-au-Prince, Léogane, Ceverine, Croix des Bouquets and elsewhere.

The Rebuilding Center Team in Port au Prince recently completed two clinics in collaboration with Merlin. Both clinics,Caravelle and Turbe are recognized by Haiti’s Ministry of Health (MSPP) and after years of neglect were damaged by the January 2010 earthquake. The work conducted involved structural repairs, and related carpentry, plumbing and electrical as well as upgrades to a laboratory and cosmetics including interior and exterior paint.

For her Mundus Urbano masters program in Barcelona, Nazanin Mehregan spent three months studying and working on Architecture for Humanity’s urban design projects in Port-au-Prince. Specifically Nazanin worked with the Villa Rosa community engagement team on an ambitious community-led urban redevelopment program. Now back in Spain with some free time on her hands, Nazanin shares with Headquarters the impressive scale of collaborative work now helping this informal urban neighborhood of 10,000 recover public space and sustainable housing.

Sandhya Janardhan heads the "back end" of Architecture for Humanity's Haiti program, working out of Headquarters in San Francisco - typically. Her latest visit to Port-au-Prince lasted two months. Recently returned, Sandhya shared what the conversation's been this year for the Rebuilding Center, and how the Center, like many other NGOs operating in Haiti, is undergoing transition.

Original article on the Students Rebuild Haiti blog.

There's a term in French for a building's ground level: Rez-de-chaussee, or RDC. The French start counting their floors on the second level, and this tradition has bled into Haitian culture as well. For both Pele and Elie schools, the RDC has been built, and we begin to see each school's character emerge as construction continues above the ground floor.

Collège Coeur Immacule de Marie (CIM) in downtown Port-au-Prince is the latest school to come under the focus of the Haiti Rebuilding Center.

CIM hopes to rebuild permanent facilities for its 850 girls pre-quake enrollment spanning grades 1-12. The facilities had a chemistry lab, science classrooms, a computer lab, library and media room. The school hopes to, through the new construction, develop an after-school vocational program.

"The client wants a school for the future of Haiti," explains Architecture for Humanity design fellow Kate Evarts, an architect from Seattle. Kate is taking lead on the project, and will work with CIM and staff at the Rebuilding Center on design development and construction documents and administration.

The FastCompany Co.EXIST blog reminded us recently of Bill Gates' Toilet Challenge: $42 Million in funding for the invention of a new toilet. Their point is that toilets need to be re-thought to overcome a heavy reliance on water and dismissal of human waste as an agricultural and economic resource.

In Haiti, this conversation has reached a point of critical importance. As the country rebuilds, it will face the uphill challenge of prioritizing waste management and introducing inventive, effective and sustainable means of handling waste.

There's a book on my desk called Up and Down California in 1860-1864. It's about the first land surveys of the West Coast of America, through a (long) series of weekly letters from one of the expedition's crew to his brother in New York. This was back in the heyday of pioneering, romanticized by many, especially now when it seems we've charted every square inch of the planet.

One team at the Haiti Rebuilding Center is proving this not to be the case. And their methods of cartography would look strange indeed to the surveyors of yesteryear. #opensource

With Montrouis celebrating its Grand Opening (the be-all, end-all of openings, see below), three Students Rebuild schools remain under construction, in various states of...Wall Phase.

On Wednesday, February 29, Collège Mixte Le Bon Berger, Montrouis (pronounced "Mon-we") officially opened. A healthy representation of Architecture for Humanity's Haiti office drove north to the Caribbean village of Montrouis to witness the grand opening of the new 8 classroom building they've helped build.

Also in attendance for the afternoons ceremony were representatives from Design Action, the mayors office and the office of police. The team was received by school headmaster Wilson D'Or and were treated to an opening ceremony of speeches and many thank you's by the community and school. Wilson D'Or thanked Architecture for Humanity, Stillerstrong Foundation, Students Rebuild and local representative Judith Chambers for continued effort over the past 2 years. Architecture for Humanity thanked the tremendous hard work, of contractor Design Action.

The findings of Villa Rosa's Initial Phase micro planning sessions reported Zones 4 & 5 as having suffered "relatively little damage" from the 2010 earthquake. However, the neighborhood remained extremely underserved. As a focus of urban redevelopment, the first step to addressing community needs would be face-to-face interaction with the inhabitants, and metrics of which infrastructures exist, and which need introducing.

Ian Davis is an architect and veteran of over thirty disaster recoveries. He recently spent time in Haiti writing a report for UN Habitat on reconstruction progress and initiatives. Two versions are available on the UN Habitat site: the full report (PDF) and an abridged version (PDF).

Most of their concerns are being addressed by the Haiti Rebuilding Center and we continue to develop locally led rebuilding strategies that maximize job creation and strong, safe building.

All right, architecture lovers. It's high time we tested your architectural know-how of our school projects in Haiti via this POP FOUNDATION QUIZ (4 points). Without browsing, match the image to the correct name of each project. Extra Credit: list in order of progress each of the projects. Extra Extra Credit: Can you guess which one of these things is not like the other?

On February 14, the Santo community outside Léogâne opened 150 homes to residents. The opening comes after nearly a year of community-led planning and construction development, with recommendations compiled by Architecture for Humanity and unit construction headed by Habitat for Humanity International.

Friday, February 10, Collège Mixte Le Bon Berger, Montrouis (pronounced "Mon-we") finished construction.

Late last year the school threw a dedication ceremony opening several of the freshly-painted, newly-furnished classrooms. Last month, Haiti design fellow Gerry Reilly caught Headquarters up on the school's construction process and remainders for the New Year.

Now the metal work, and more strikingly the (cumbersome) paint job, have been completed, the edges have all been rounded and Gerry comes back from the last site inspection with a show-and-tell:

Architecture for Humanity, Haiti, is pleased to announce the selection of the winning artists for the first round of schools for the Civic Art in Schools Program. Selections are made following a Request for Qualifications issued last Summer, and responses from dozens from artist communities around the country.

"There are many complicated things in building a school and this new building is beautiful. It is not a building, it is a work of art, and we did that. Thank you."
—Vivianne Vieux, headmistress, École la Dignité, Cayes Jacmel

It has been two years since an earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, 2010. Architecture for Humanity's Rebuilding Center in Port-au-Prince has supported the reconstruction effort through the reconstruction of schools, clinics, small businesses and long-term planning efforts. It's been a busy year. We wanted to thank you for your support and give you an update of our progress.

The retrofit of the Caravelle Community Clinic in Port au Prince Haiti is complete. In 2011 Architecture for Humanity were contacted by MERLIN, the UK medical relief charity, to assess and retrofit the Port au Prince clinic that was damaged in the 2010 earthquake.

AFH carried out a full building assessment and subsequently a sketch design was drawn up. In October, Dorothy Miller & Michael Spinello prepared a detailed phasing and construction plan of the project designed to the most recent MTPTC standards of earthquake proof construction in Haiti. After much consideration for such precise and technical building refurbishment, Pirotech Enterprise de Costruction were chosen to carry out the work. The careful demolishion and reconstruction of the walls began in November and drew to a close before the Christmas break. Congratulations to all involved - 1 more earthquake proof building in Haiti.

San Francisco isn't exactly on the way from Ireland to Haiti. All the same Gerry Reilly decided to pay us a visit and maybe even do a bit of work before returning to his post in Port-au-Prince. As an architecture design fellow, Gerry manages building projects at the Rebuilding Center for Architecture for Humanity. He's been with the Center since October 2010 working closely with several school projects. As a result the stories of the development of the two newest schools–Collège Mixte Le Bon Berger, in Montrouis, and École La Dignité, near Jacmel–are etched onto his brain. Students Rebulid spent some time last Wednesday getting some details and generally nerding out on rebuilding in Haiti.

After many community consultations and development meetings with our partners we are excited by the release of the Santo Community Development Plan. This 317 page detailed report can be downloaded here [16MB PDF] and on the Worldchanging project page

This report is more than a master plan, it is an open source blueprint for holistic rural communities in Haiti and we hope can be of use to the dozens of organizations looking to build back better.

Special thanks to our partner Habitat for Humanity and to Darren Gill, Nancy Doran and David Gonzalez of Architecture for Humanity.

To learn more about Architecture for Humanity's Rebuilding Center in Haiti, please visit our program page.

A very heartfelt congratulations to Haitian American architect Yves François for being awarded Digicel's Ouest Region Entrepreneur of the Year in Industry. According to Port-au-Prince's Le Nouveliste, the competition selected regional finalists in six categories organized around the theme "A Force for Changing Haiti," honoring men and women who, "through their dedication, tenacity and leadership, were able to germinate an innovative idea and create something beneficial to the population."

A member of the Haitian diaspora returned to support Haitian economic recovery, Yves founded the design and construction office YCF Group S.A. in 2006. The office has worked with Pepsi Co, Phillip Morris and Cablevision, employing 120 people.

Collège Mixte Le Bon Berger, Montrouis, experienced a convergence of revelry and hope over the weekend with a dedication ceremony before the Christmas break. All the students and teachers are excited to return to a brand new school building in the New Year. With the completion of the first phase of Collège Mixte Le Bon Berger, 800 kids will be back in school as well as providing construction training to Haitians creating skilled jobs.

A big thank you to the students and teachers of Collège Mixte Le Bon Berger for their support through design and construction, donors of the Haiti School Initiative including Students Rebuild, the Stiller Foundation and others. And we are very proud of all the architects and engineers who worked on this project - a shout out to Gerry Reilly and Jacques Nixon at Architecture for Humanity's Haiti Rebuilding Center and the contractors at Design Action.

[photo essay - images courtesy of Mark Mismash, Dorothy Miller, Cameron Sinclair and Rick Ehlert]

With the Master Plan complete the Santo Community Development Plan is in full construction. Presently several hundred volunteers are on site finishing the construction of 100 homes as part of the 2011 Carter Work Project . Progress has been swift with roofs and porches going on today and tomorrow. The volunteers were joined on site by President Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, as well as Garth Brooks and many more enthusiastic builders. In an unprecedented move, the Carter Work Project will return to Santo next year to continue the work. Congratulations to all involved!

Following a dizzying press conference this morning, the realization has finally sunk into the Haiti team: Bati Byen is happening.

After months of development, the program that will assist training, financing and economic sufficiency for Haitian businesses is ready for the Big Time.

This Fall the School of Architecture at MIT will be conducting a series of laboratory tests on the schools we’re designing and building in Haiti as part of the Building Technology Laboratory. Under the instruction of Les Norford and with support from Hannah Durschlag, students in a laboratory course will build physical and virtual mock ups of designs from the Rebuilding Center to analyze daylighting, natural ventilation and thermal performance. The results will be a series of tweaks and design modifications to increase the performance of schools in Haiti.

All our coverage has led up to this celebratory day:

Last night, Artists for Haiti held a record-breaking art auction in New York City to benefit the Haiti reconstruction work of Architecture for Humanity, J/P HRO, Partners in Health, The Stiller Foundation and others. Artists for Haiti exceeded their ambitious goal of raising $10.5 million dollars through the event.

The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund has featured the folks behind our school construction projects in Haiti: Élie Dubois, Dignité and Bon Berger Montrouis!

Joined by funders, partners and members of the local community the Santo Community Development Plan broke ground last Thursday, September 15, 2011.

A humble gathering under a tent in the middle of a construction site was present to celebrate an important moment in the reconstruction of Léogâne and Haiti. The Santo Community Development Plan is the largest permanent reconstruction project in the region worst affected by the 2010 earthquake. A collaboration between the Municipality of Léogâne, Habitat for Humanity, Architecture for Humanity and Haven, the project will create an urban infrastructure to support the settlement of a starter home village, schools, health facilities, recreation and community spaces as well as opportunities for commercial development.

This week beholds the construction launch of the newest school to bring learning to the "little world." On Thursday, September 22, the Academie Timoun ("Children's Academy") will hold a groundbreaking ceremony on behalf of Haiti Partners, Architecture for Humanity and BAR Architects of San Francisco for the community Bawosya overlooking Port-au-Prince. See the attached flyer–everyone is invited but you might need to know Creole (and the mountain roads) to get there!

As part of the Santo Community Development Plan, Architecture for Humanity's team at the Rebuilding Center in Port-au-Prince are designing a public market to ensure economic opportunities and job creation are fostered to compliment the housing and infrastructural improvements.

L'Institut Foyer Du Savoir (Home of Knowledge) officially broke ground last Friday, August 26 2011, preceded by a quick speech, prayer and promise made by the owner Pastor Wilkesse Dorcinvil. Architecture for Humanity Regional Program Manager Eric Cesal recounts the afternoon, which could be described as "modestly majestic."

Group high five. FREEZE FRAME on group in mid-air. FADE OUT. ...Or rather, "the BOQs are being finalized and the last of the drawing set is being printed."

Either way you care to look at it, the design and documentation for Academie Timoun ("Children's Academy") with Haiti Partners has wrapped, concluding a decidedly very successful eight-month Office Fellowhship with BAR Architects. It's a great feeling to have the final drawings in your hands, and it's time to project the next steps.

Architecture for Humanity, in partnership with the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), is seeking its next candidate for its' Sustainability Design Fellowship to participate in the Haiti Earthquake Recovery.

Commerce in Haiti generally spills onto sidewalks, into streets and down avenues. Out here, merchants establish wooden fruit and vegetable stands or take to selling wares from the ground or on foot. As consolidated hubs of commerce, Haitian market buildings are keystones for the distribution of goods and wares; they epitomize the self-employed merchant economy that's ubiquitous here.

With hundreds of thousands of Haitians still living in tent camps and downtown Port-au-Prince reconstruction at an apparent standstill, more focus is put on ground-up developments in and around the capital city where land rights for large tracts can be certified.

One such area is Santo, just south of Léogâne, where a community plan for 500 families is being developed collaboratively by Architecture for Humanity, Habitat for Humanity International and dozens of soon-to-be residents.

As part of the ongoing Santo Community Development Plan a design charrette focused on housing was held last week. Approximately 80 members of the local community took part in designing the plan. Housing is at the core of this permanent planned community but the charrette also addressed communal spaces, sanitation, water points, agriculture, recreation areas, recycling and waste management.

Two "games" were developed by the Haiti team to facilitate direct involvement with the community as designers of their neighborhood: a 3D game which addressed the individual home and property, and a 2D game looking at the neighborhood area.

Collège Mixte Le Bon Berger, a 350-student school in the coastal village of Montrouis, Haiti, has begun pouring foundations following a three-day intensive on-site training session for the Montrouisien workers involved in the project. Our Construction Outreach crew reports construction progress and design fellow Carl Harrigan accompanied the training and shares with us photos from Build Change.

Haiti is a land of incredibly rich culture and art which has survived time, adversity and the devastating 2010 earthquake. Architecture for Humanity is seeking to feature the work of local Haitian artists through a civic arts program called Civic Art In Haitian Schools.

After a slow start, construction at École la Dignité is racing ahead. The slab is poured and all the stone walls are complete. The seating details designed by Gerry Reilly and Carl Harrigan have worked out beautifully.

Earlier last month, École Elie Dubois in downtown Port-au-Prince began a demolition process necessary to clear rubble–and damaged and structurally unsound buildings–to make way for more solid reconstruction and ecological features.

Collège Mixte Le Bon Berger "Good Shepherd," in the coastal village of Montrouis, celebrated its official groundbreaking last Friday, June 24, following a week of construction training and beginning foundation work.

As part of the economic corridors project, Architecture for Humanity conducted a survey from June 13th to the 30th to collect baseline data on the businesses and buildings in the corridors and assess demand for reconstruction financing from business owners. The data collection effort involved a team of eight surveyors who went through two days of training and field-based practice before hitting the pavement to start collecting data.

Pierre Henri Erlus is an IDP (Internally Displaced Person) who lived above the Canape Vert tent camp location. He had built his house and small beverage business on rented land. He now lives in the tent camp with his family, but his business is keeping them afloat.

At the onset of June, construction continues at the Dignité School with the four-day achievement of building foundations. Laborers had been setting field stones for the foundation walls, arranged to benefit from steel reinforcement and reduce dependency on concrete. The laborers, working for the Port-au-Prince based BECEI contractors, underwent on-site construction training held by Architecture for Humanity in collaboration with Build Change. Thirty local workers trained over three days–and many of them are now employed on Dignité. While stone-faced walls are specified for the school, work to date is strictly functional and will be below grade.

Late last week, the fourth Students Rebuild-sponsored school in Haiti signed off with a local contractor to enter construction. After weeks of vetting contractor teams to work on the project, a selection has been made by Architecture for Humanity construction managers and the headmaster of Collège Mixte Le Bon Berger, Wilson D'Or.

Architecture for Humanity Haiti design fellow Darren Gill reports on May 27:

"The thatch guy from the Ceverine project has branched out," Darren Gill tells me. We're talking about a bamboo screen prototype built by the Studio Drum Collaborative that we're thinking about installing at Dignité school. Bamboo's a bit more durable than other grasses, but the theme of weaving stalks through a hidden series of metal bars remains one of Drum's screen's most attractive attributes. Well, that and the panels are just gorgeous.

Yesterday, a 9-person team from Architecture for Humanity tackled an initial data recovery of Route de Delmas–a 2-mile corridor between Delmas 32 and Delmas 80. This mission was part of the mapping of six avenues around Port-au-Prince being evaluated for economic improvements. Being by far the largest corridor, Delmas was broken into three segments for teams to conduct mapping–which includes building conditions, sizes and uses, the logging of businesses, road conditions and circulation of people and vehicles.

The initial applications for the GAME ON? Haiti Sports Micro Venture Fund have been reviewed and while site visits are ongoing the RFP has been reopened. The new deadline for submissions is May 23, 2011. Apply today!

The Fund is a partnership between Architecture for Humanity and Nike Inc. In the past 24 months the program has funded innovative projects in Afghanistan (Skate), Brazil (Football/Soccer), Kenya (Basketball) and the United States (American Football).

"Wow, we're really up there," Kate Evarts allowed. "This is incredible." The increasingly dramatic view out over the basin of Port-au-Prince below us certainly made up for the painfully rugged road. Nevertheless, John Engle's SUV powered over the yellowish rocks. "I bet you really go through some tires down here," Jeremy Butler-Pinkham, of BAR Architects, added. John replies unflappably that, while they're wearing down, he's had this set of high-end Michelin tires for about 18 months. It's worth the investment.

At 5:00, following another day's work at the Haiti Rebuilding Center, a contingent of six 2nd year graduate students from the University of Minnesota assembled the entire office for what was to be an impressive and thoughtful final review.

When severe weather strikes Haiti, an enormous reporting mechanism is launched by the various NGO's operating in the affected area. Reports are consolidated by bodies such as the International Orgianzation of Migration and distributed to members of the United Nations various cluster groups...including the inbox of our Regional Program Manager, Eric Cesal.

Even though Architecture for Humanity is not generally involved with immediate relief efforts, it's important to remember the fragile situation a lot of Haitian lives still occupy–and assess whether our relief assistance is in fact needed, as we've been known to respond in the past.

The communiqué:

On Wednesday last, approximately 100 members of the local community from Santo took part in a design charrette facilitated by local planning company, Sodade. Through a variety of interactive exercises, heated debate and drawing the community began to express their vision for the village of Santo. These plans will be compiled by Architecture for Humanity and a framework plan presented back to the community as a representation of their vision.

Community led design is not widely practiced in Haiti and the enthusiastic response was palpable. A number of representatives from other NGOs have been attending these sessions to learn the trade and understand the benefits of a community led process.

Build Change Training day 1

On Monday, April 11th, 2011, masons, steel workers, carpenters and day laborers followed their first of a three-day training course provided by Build Change and sponsored by Architecture for Humanity. The training course will fortify these skilled workers with better engineering practices approved by the MTPTC (Public works ministry). This training session precedes construction on École La Dignité in Cayes de Jacmel.

On that first day we had 25 skilled workers attending the course. The training session began at 11:00am and ended at 4pm. The first day’s curriculum covered:

• Introduction of Build Change

• Why earthquakes occur
• How we all from Haiti’s federal government, owners, engineers and masons had a share of the blame on what happened on January 12th 2010
• Safety measures on the work site.

Students and school officials gathered with supporters today to celebrate a commitment to rebuild École Elie Dubois in downtown Port-au-Prince Haiti. As part of the celebration, students, some of whom are still living in tent camps more than a year after the earthquake there, took a moment to fold paper cranes in support of their fellow students in Sendai, Japan.

Elie Dubois is a secondary school run by seven nuns two blocks from the presidential palace. The campus supports a vocational program and several historic buildings to be restored. The school serves about 250 students.

A particular design team at BAR Architects (pronounced "B.A.R.") in San Francisco can only meet once a month on a project that only one person works on at a time. This is due to the fact that the active team member is living and working in Port-au-Prince alongside Architecture for Humanity.

Since the nine-person group of volunteer professionals began this revolving design fellowship in January, they have been paired with a school project in the hills above the Haitian capital. The Haiti Partners Children's Academy, for the community of Mariaman is considered by the non-profit Haiti Partners to represent a new paradigm in Haitian education.

It is official now. We have completed construction of the Ceverine School in Maissade, Haiti. Architecture for Humanity partnered with Save the Children to design and build the first of (hopefully) several schools in the Maissade area of Artibonite, Haiti. Together with our experienced and ever smiling contractor Yves Francois (Ecofra S.A.) and Save the Children we completed the school project this week.

"The good news is the kids, teachers and our client (Save the Children) are delighted" says Darren Gill, Design Fellow - "Next stop Ecole la Dignite in Jacmel - due to go on site by the end of March and demo is ongoing at Pele (Bon Berger)..."

Words and images by Simone Ruschmeier, architect and Haiti team volunteer. Video by Stacey McMahan

On Thursday 24th Feb 2011 Stacey and myself, Simone, went to visit the children of the Institut Foyer du Savoir (this actually translates into something of an "Antechamber to Knowledge") at their temporary school premises in the heart of Delmas 75. Pastor Dorcinville, the school's president, had invited us to come visit and told us that if we were to come in the afternoon, we would probably be lucky to find a maximum amount of 20 students there to speak and work with, which we thought would be a good number to handle.

These days students going to Pele are starting their lessons to the sound of crushing stone. While class at École Baptiste Bon Berger continues under the campus' many wood-framed transitional classrooms, the adjacent concrete school block has attracted the attention of about a dozen men in blue hardhats. On the newly-shored-up rooftop the men are driving sledge hammers into the concrete slab at their feet.

This crew of over a dozen men is composed of unskilled members of the Pele community. Well, unskilled leading up to an extensive demolition training course held by partner organization J/P HRO. With proper technique and equipment, the crew is now tackling the reduction of the condemned school block in alternating shifts.

Lisa Victor, who just returned from Haiti with her colleague Chris Haegglund, writes the first in the series of BAR Architect’s "Letter from Haiti.” BAR Architects is donating design services to Architecture for Humanity’s Rebuilding Center in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and Lisa and Chris were the first in a rotating team of architects who will be working at The Rebuilding Center throughout the year. Their focus will be on the design of a rural school sponsored by Haiti Partners.

Friday morning we gathered over early-morning coffee and pastries with some of Architecture for Humanity's Haiti partners, funders and interested parties to talk about progress, setbacks and the way forward in rebuilding efforts. Save the Children Haiti Country Director Gary Shaye visited, along with Inveneo Co-founder Mark Summer and Lisa Victor from BAR Architects, both of whom also just returned from Haiti. Our Chief Eternal Optimist, Cameron Sinclair, talked about Architecture for Humanity's work building back better, and Eric Cesal called in via video conference to provide an on-the-ground perspective as the regional program manager in Haiti.

Just left Haiti following our team strategy meeting. Still on track but will need to focus and staff up to meet our goals. Continuing to keep the focus of our work limited to supporting the local design and construction community; schools, schools, schools; and urban planning of commercial corridors (factories, dry cleaners, hairdressers). In other words, keeping our focus on education and livlihoods.

Maintaining our focus is a constant challenge. With the political upheaval, the ground shifts underfoot. Every project has the potential to change lives, but not all will go ahead, often hard to evaluate what makes a project feasible in the circumstances we face. We're sticking to our basic four: client, site, funding, professional fit. Will continue to focus on referring projects to local architects and firms. Also a challenge as they are busy too.

Yesterday concluded a all-team strategy meeting in Port-au-Prince, The HQ contingent flew down to Haiti for the event–making this the first Haiti team meeting that didn't feature Skype participants. The meeting followed closely behind the 1-year anniversary out of coincidence, but the team couldn't help but be a part of the activity surrounding the event.

Kate Stohr, the program director, has been on the ground since last week attending various meetings and conversations. She relates her January 12 in Port-au-Prince, from the middle of the international recovery effort:

"Today most people went to church. About midday impromptu street parties broke out and there was music and crowds on street corners. What a wonderful way to be remembered.

January 15th saw the official inauguration of the Ceverine community school with Save the Children in Maissade, Haiti. Design Fellow Darren Gill tells Ben Stiller how it is done.

From Students Rebuild:

None other than comedian Ben Stiller paid a visit to the Ceverine school project on Saturday. Stiller and Save the Children have sponsored the retrofit and augmentation of the school, away in Haiti's hard-to-reach interior. They enlisted Architecture for Humanity's design and construction services and wanted to stop by as the school nears completion.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of Haiti's devastating earthquake. While we wait for year-in-review reports from absolutely every organization working on the ground (including ours), and solemnly heed requests for respect on this day, we shouldn't overlook the ongoing (if less publicized) series of milestones being met by our efforts.

Pastor Dorcinvil Wilkesse's commendations grace the top of Architecture for Humanity's Haiti Year in Review. These words were captured some time after Architecture for Humanity had begun a serious design relationship with his school, the Institut Foyer du Savoir ("Home of Knowledge"). Last week, efforts on the school came to an incredible milestone: the signing of an agreement.

Stacey eagerly reported the last words of the meeting to the rest of the Haiti team.

"I had the dream but Architecture for Humanity makes it happen."—Pastor Dorcinvil Wilkesse, School Owner and Principal, Home of Knowledge Institute, Port-au-Prince

This progress update is also available in: Français.

The anniversary of any disaster offers a moment to reflect, no more so than in Haiti where more than 1,000,000 people remain displaced a year after the 7.0 earthquake destroyed lives and livelihoods.

Even in the best case scenario rebuilding takes years. In Haiti, violence, political uncertainty and the recent cholera outbreak have slowed the work.

Our two newest members of the Haiti team hit the ground last month to throw their backs into the Haiti efforts: Dave Hampton and Darren Gill.

Dave Hampton, a North Carolinan by birth (with Cuban blood), joined the Haiti team in October. He's a licensed architect in Illinois and North Carolina, a LEED AP, a certified Passive HouseTM consultant, and a 10-year resident of Chicago.

While recent developments in Haiti have made working conditions less than ideal, our team is cautiously determined to meet our 2010 milestones before winter break. Over the past weeks, cholera has not abated and the international reaction to presidential election results has been less than orderly. Twice in the past month the Architecture for Humanity house enacted 4-day lockdowns to weather inclement protests. Still, with the start of winter break less than a week away, our staff and volunteers are doing a final push to finish construction document sets to pass to contractors at the start of 2011. The Rebuilding Center winter break begins this Saturday, December 18. The office intends to reopen January 5. Architecture for Humanity will release ground condition updates throughout the recess.

Headlines

Despite recent turmoil in Port-au-Prince and elsewhere in Haiti, all's well for our design operations on the ground–given a few new lifestyle restrictions.

For the unintroduced, Haiti received their election results last week, with the current administration's protege just narrowly making it to January's run-off election. The protesters mostly represent the third-place candidate and nationally-revered pop star Micky Martelly, who received less than 1% fewer votes than the Préval-preened Jude Celestin.

From our team's perch at the Maison there were demonstrators marching the street and burning tires and election posters. The Maison went on lockdown for four days, much like the one that endured the presidential election itself. Below, design fellow Schendy Kernizan shows us where the demonstrations were taking place within earshot of the house:

Ecole Baptiste Bon Berger is a muscular K12 school campus in downtown Port-au-Prince. It's the largest school on our books, serving 1100 students with expectations to grow upon completion of their new buildings–two story classroom blocks lined in rows on the L-shaped site leave enough space for wide outdoor corridors but little else. Given the density and need to temporary class needs during demo and construction, there's little free space for school designers to work with.

We're pleased to announce a grant from The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund to support building back businesses in Haiti. The $816,472 grant to Architecture for Humanity, in support of the Rebuilding Center in Port-au-Prince will enable small and growing Haitian businesses to participate in post-earthquake reconstruction and ensure rebuilding incorporates better design and engineering.

Along with the official press release about the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, we have stepped up our ongoing search for two key leadership positions at the Rebuilding Center. Architecture for Humanity is looking to fill the much needed roles of the Director of Economic Development and Director of Planning and Design.

It doesn't seem to matter how big a house is, or how many people are in it–restlessness can strike, making a well-intentioned 4-day lockdown a bit more...colorful than you'd expect.

Anticipating street demonstrations and protests over the weekend of the presidential election, our ground team of staff and volunteers decided to close the office last Friday and Monday and keep everyone at our house-in-the-hills, the Gro Kay Disko ("Disco Mansion"): a rather large concrete castillo that nevertheless keeps our crew humble and happy.

I had a little chat with Stacey tonight, who'd just gotten back from the Greenbuild Conference in Chicago. Although she wasn't at the office last week, she was somewhat dumbfoundingly able to give a terrific update the team's developments toward the Students Rebuild schools...

Wrapping up CDs

It's been nearly a year since the earthquake that struck Haiti and many people are wondering: What's going on? A cholera outbreak and hurricane near misses haven't eased tensions. This week's outbreaks of violence are symptom of the struggle for survival. For all the aid money that has been donated, some complain it's hard to point to tangible progress.

A series of professional training courses was launched in late October with a two-week session on AutoCAD for Haitian professionals and students in the design and construction industry. IT guru Kyle Miller, from the San Francisco office of Gensler, conducted the classes at the Rebuilding Center with the help of some dedicated laptops and copies of the AutoCAD Suite 2009 donated by Autodesk.