international collaboration. Additionally, both the bath house and teahouse generate income for the village by attracting visitors from surrounding communities. What can designers learn from this type of project? There are many answers to this question but chief among them is a broadening of perspectives as they relate to our understanding of design. Leanne Muir recalls ‘ facing numerous challenges daily, from simple communication frustrations to impromptu job site meetings’ . As a student in the Masters of Landscape Architecture program, Leanne was particularly struck by the difficulty of understanding the community’s perception of planting materials. She explains, ‘ as visitors to the Turkish culture, and specifically rural Deydinler culture, it was hard to understand and gauge the
on community development through the construction of a primary school library. By staying and working in a village without running water or electricity the participants learned firsthand of challenges that many communities in developing countries face. Limited access to transportation and communication increased the need for resourceful solutions relying on local materials, knowledge and intense physical labour. MArch student Marla Wirasinghe wrote, ‘ you begin to realise that without a back-hoe, it takes over a week to haul enough dirt to fill in a shallow foundation. Even making concrete requires chipping your own gravel and pushing bags of cement on the back of a bicycle. Each wheelbarrow load, each swing of a hoe gives you a stronger understanding of the materials and connection to the process of making ’.
villager’s perceptions of certain trees and flowers that we may have found to be beautiful and appropriate for their garden ’. Participants learned to see beyond their own space, time and culture by working ‘with’ rather than ‘for’ a community. It is a process of reciprocal learning as the friendships formed by working together motivates both sides to listen carefully to one another. Another learning objective is the understanding of the complex interdependence of global economic, political and cultural forces affecting the built environment. To further explore this we offered the course in an impoverished village in Uganda in 2008. This time the Canadian students learned of the long-term impact of HIV/AIDS
The experiences in Turkey and Uganda produced insightful journals ranging in topics from vernacular design to sore muscles. Perhaps the most common message conveyed in the journals is a need for intercultural collaboration if we sincerely want to create a sustainable global community. The lessons extend to an awareness of the impact of culture and climate on building practices as well as recognition that good design requires high levels of collaboration and communication. What started as a small idea for a course has grown to reach out to a network of many people, while adding to the discourse on how to prepare designers to work in our global community. v
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On Site review 23
Small Things
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