design, build, learn. repeat.

A typical work day

Work continues to go very well on the second house. The crew is working hard and we’ve improved on some of the details that were missed last week. The trusses and purlins are up, the front and back doors are installed, and we’re looking at a good chance of finishing up tomorrow, ahead of schedule. Work days here tend to follow a routine. People are up early, around 6-6:30. There’s no full breakfast, but the family serves bread with very sweet strong coffee and sometimes hot chocolate as well — all grown right here. We work until lunchtime, have a …

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Haiti: Week 3 Begins

I’m now in my third week in Haiti, and today was the second work day on the second of six kays (houses) I’ll be building. This will be an interesting week. It’s the only week for which I’ll have no American volunteers, just the Haitian crew. That’s fine, it’s just an extra challenge to have no recourse to English if a complicated issue comes up! On the other hand, I’m learning a lot, both language-wise and about the greater context in which I find myself. We took a long walk through the mountains after work today, and the homeowner proudly …

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Building an Incentive Kay

I returned this past Saturday from my week-long trip to Haiti with the Building Goodness Foundation (BGF). The trip was a great experience, although there are plenty of challenges involved in working in the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Not least, I was sick and well below 100% for three of our five work days, but luckily we had a great team of American volunteers and Haitian carpenters and the construction went without a hitch. The house is small by most standards, 12′ by 20′, although not too small because many aspects of Haitian life, such as cooking and …

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Terre-de-Bas tourist center inaugurated

This news dates back to March 16, but I just recently found the picture that truly drives it home. This time last summer I was in Guadeloupe working with a group of students from VISIONS Service Adventures on a project to convert an open-air pavilion into a tourist welcome center for the small island of Terre-de-Bas. We left the project substantially built but unfinished — lacking paint and many finishing touches. Well, the local community stepped up to finish the job in style. The new tourist welcome center was inaugurated in March, in a ceremony that included the mayor of …

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The house

As promised, here is the house in Seattle that I am working on. It is a partial renovation; the existing house, which had no foundation to speak of, is being supported on a temporary structure (one of the wooden beams is visible under the house) while we pour a new concrete foundation. In this photo, the concrete footings have been poured, and the metal sticking up out of the ground is the steel reinforcement that will tie into the foundation walls. The new house will keep features of the old, while expanding in front and gaining a second story as …

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New tourist welcome center for Terre-de-Bas

The Office de Tourisme of Terre de Bas asked VISIONS to help convert an open-air pavilion near the port into a tourist welcome center where information about the island and its attractions could be displayed to the public as they disembarked from the ferries. Measuring just over 5 by 6.5 meters (17 by 21 feet), the existing structure included a roof, posts, and partial walls. The project entailed creating an information counter, office space, and display space that would occupy the rear two-thirds of the pavilion. This space would need to be fitted with awning windows and doors so that …

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Guadeloupe, le bilan

As I mentioned in my last post, I spent six weeks as a summer program leader in Guadeloupe for VISIONS Service Adventures. It was great! The work was very intense and often stressful, but it was worth it to experience a new and special place alongside a great group of staff and participants. (Bilan is the French word for assessment or report and in Guadeloupe it also referred to our group debriefing and sharing session, held every other day.) Read on for more pictures and words!

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Salvation Army Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center

It may sound like the dying scream of a Western gunslinger, but SARJKCCC is actually the new 52,000 square foot community center that the Salvation Army is building on Division Street next to Yankie Stadium. This location will be familiar to many volunteers as the former home of the large Salvation Army dome, which was dismantled in September 2009. According to WLOX, the facility will include “a full-size gymnasium, dance and aerobics studio, and weight and fitness rooms with all sorts of cardio and exercise equipment.” It will also have an indoor swimming area with a two-story water slide, splash …

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Construction Demonstration Pods

Building a house is a mysterious process for most people, and hurricane-resistant building is even more daunting. Even professional builders can be confused by the many building codes, insurance requirements, engineering calculations, and best practices that apply to residential construction on the Gulf Coast. With that in mind, the GCCDS recently embarked on a project to build three full-scale construction demonstration pods for the Mississippi Home & Garden Show on March 19-21. The pods were part of a Resiliency Expo organized by the Community & Regional Resilience Institute, a research initiative supported by the Department of Homeland Security, Oak Ridge …

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Labor Day pictures

Seth sent me some cool pictures from last Labor Day weekend’s work in New Orleans. As I described before, Seth and Emilie’s house is… A historic “camelback” shotgun house on Louisiana Avenue, it’s surprisingly spacious and will be divided into two units; the primary apartment in the front and a rental unit in the two-story portion in the rear. A complete renovation is a huge undertaking for two people, but it will be an amazing house once it is finished. Seth and I spent the afternoon pulling up floorboards and adding new floor joists in the upstairs bedroom to create …

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