Community Design Review

Last Saturday, on July 20th, we had our first community design review of the multipurpose building.  The students have been working very hard over the weeks leading up to the review, where every-other-day they had to present progress drawings of the design.  They started from a broad concept and continued to tailor the design to meet the needs of the community.  We used the survey results from the community workshop conducted last May, to develop the program for the building.  The multipurpose building will have three distinct functions; a daycare, assembly/mass, and medical clinic.  The building will have removable partitions to separate the program, with the ability to transform the rooms into one, large space for vending/assembly.  Also, as part of the site work, we're introducing a wastewater management system, called aquaponics.  This system will be managed by the community where they will raise fish and grow vegetables by using the water runoff from the site.  We received positive feedback from the community giving us a "green light" to proceed to the design development phase.

The physical model for the schematic design.

Efren, the fifth year student, explains the form of the building to the community.

 Here, he uses the physical model to show the building in its context of the housing community.

One of the residents from Core Shelter handles the roof from the model and positively comments on the use of the native "amakan" material applied to the underside of the roof.  "Amakan" is a woven panel made of native grass typically used for interior finishes. 

 

Estudio Damgo Design Team group photo, from Left to Right: Cheyenne (Yen), Leigh, Daryl, Efren, Dominador and Maria from Caritas I housing, Erlmida and Johna from Core Shelter housing, Sir Dean Sinco, Rhea, and me (Anna).

  

 

After the community review, Mark Espedilla, gave us a tour of the aquaponics in the greenhouse on campus.  Estudio Damgo is teaming up with Mark and the Agriculture Department, to design and implement the aquaponics system with the building project.  Here he explains how the water is siphoned from the trays to water the plants.