small projects building new perspectives
from the schools | service learning by kelley beaverford
collaboration global ism
experience technology culture
projects. Our first partner, The Experiment in International Living (EIL), has established relationships with communities who identify their needs before they are matched with groups of students in mutually beneficial pairings. Although we now work with additional partners, the importance of working with established non-profit organisations with community connections remains essential to our planning process. It was through EIL that we found Deydinler village. The first group of students in 2005 worked on the restoration of a 400 year old bath house and garden. The humble yet extraordinary structure once held an important place in the hearts of the villagers as it was the main gathering space for the farming community. Traditionally
One of the greatest challenges we face as designers is keeping up with a rapidly changing world. Increasingly we will work with people from different cultures, make decisions with cross-cultural and international implications, and work overseas. With this in mind, a course called Service Learning in the Global Community was developed for students in the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Manitoba to promote international knowledge and competency through service learning projects. Students of architecture, interior design, planning and landscape negotiate cross-cultural situations while constructing a small community building. With an intake of 10-15 students per project, the course is small but the impact is considerable.
above: Katebo, Uganda – clients, meetings, construction, team below: Deydinler,Turkey – clients, meetings, construction, project
The month long course was initiated by a group of students who wanted to take design lessons out of the classroom and into a reality other than their own. An interest in Islamic design and culture brought the first two classes to a rural village in Turkey where participants stayed with families. Lauren Hauser reflects in her journal – ‘ Culture shock! You have assumptions of what a foreign country will be like – stereotypes, biased images from the news, and other media – and then you arrive. Once there, you’re shocked to realize that it is not that different than home’ . Lauren stayed with a family of seven in Deydinler, a village which she did admit is a ‘stark contrast to home’ . We worked with various non-profit organisations to locate suitable
the bath house provided the venue for relaxation and conversations at the end of a working day. Deydinler’s bathhouse was closed in the 1970s as bathing at home became more fashionable. The village identified the restoration of the bathhouse as an important project as its social benefits had been lost with its closing. The successes of this project lead to an invitation to return to Deydinler in 2007 to build a teahouse and garden. Each time the work was shared between participants creating what villager Mesut Oksuzoglu called ‘a festival of building’. Today the teahouse and garden, known as the Friendship Park, provides a place for public gatherings as well as a memory of
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On Site review 23 Small Things
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