Building Hope: A community + water initiative
Building Hope: A Community + Water Initiative seeks to investigate the potential of architectural intervention to solve issues of resource scarcity in La Villa de San Fransisco, Honduras. Funded and run by local organizations, the community center will provide assistance, security, and social engagement for locals.
The theme of the EP Exhibit 2016 is It Takes a Community. Selected projects showcase the best work from young designers highlighting community impact and engagement.
The Building Hope project seeks to investigate the potential of architectural intervention to address critical issues of resource scarcity in the community of La Villa de San Francisco Honduras. Through the help of considerable grant funding by the Ella Lyman Cabot Trust, the project seeks to address the issues through the design and build of a community center designed in such a way that it serves as a observable, replicable model for locals to then implement in their own residential applications.
The projects conception began on my personal volunteer travels to Honduras. In my initial travels, I was able to observe the people of the country struggling to obtain basic elements needed to sustain life. Some of the issues such as a need for clean water and cost effective building strategies seemed to be potentially addressable through architectural intervention.
During my first trip to the country, I had the opportunity to network with Hope Families, an existing non-profit community organization that runs a community help program in La villa De San Francisco. The Hope Families non-profit quickly became an invaluable partner to the project that will eventually run the new center. While the projects primary intent has been to construct a demonstrative community center, the scope of the research includes a serious emphasis on how the centers demonstrative properties may eventually be replicated and applied by community members.
A new center with a program that builds community and provides needed resources stands to potentially curb neighborhood conflict and begin the community healing process. The center stands as not only a replicable model, but also as an immediate community element to bring neighbors back together physically in daily interactions and emotionally in the new resources being provided.
