Barefoot architects and voodoo priests

Together with a team of young TU Delft architecture graduates, Alexander Vollebregt is giving Cordaid and the United Nations a helping hand in Haiti. “Will we make a difference? I don’t know. But it can’t get much worse.”

Port au Prince after the earthquake that ravaged Haiti on the 12th of January this year. (Photo: UNDP)

“For the real estate business, an earthquake like the one that hit Haiti is a dream come true. In the blink of an eye large areas need to be redeveloped. Millions, sometimes billions of euros are to be spent and they need to be spent quickly on infrastructure and buildings, because donors want to see tangible results as soon as possible”, says

Alexander Vollebregt, researcher at the faculty of Architecture, sighing. He sees this happening time and time again. New neighborhoods are built so hastily that there is no time to think about social, economic or safety issues.
“In Aceh for instance, contractors built new kampongs after the tsunami. They built a house for everyone; also for the elderly and children. Because of this, there was no land available in the kampongs for people to grow vegetables. The kampongs were also built for fishermen, but they were located miles away from the ocean.” In short, there was no way these kampongs could become economically viable; instead, they become the slums of tomorrow.

Vollebregt, together with a team of students, set up a research project, called urban emergencies, shortly after a fire burnt down the architecture faculty. The project set out to investigate post-disaster urban responses, and in particular the role of architects and urbanists. He has a pretty straightforward idea about how reconstruction can be ameliorated: “At the moment, relief agencies and civil engineers are involved in the early stages of the reconstruction. Only years later, during the so-called redevelopment phase, are architects and urban development experts consulted. That is much too late: they should be involved from the beginning.”

As we speak, a handful of recent architecture graduates are in Haiti to assist Cordaid and the United Nations in a pilot project. These ‘barefoot architects’, as Vollebregt calls them, help with the development of around 2,000 small wooden houses on the outskirts of Port au Prince.
“What’s special about this project is that the houses are semi-permanent”, Vollebregt explains. People can use these shelters as foundations and then further develop their homes in the ways that they prefer. The students will also research and design integrated urban development strategies, taking into account such key aspects as water, waste and energy management. “Normally, during the reconstruction phase, simple structures are built without taking into account these important infrastructural aspects. They are meant to be temporary, but when this phase is finished, it’s very difficult to make any important urban changes.”

Getting the locals involved in the reconstruction process is also of great importance. “In Haiti, the voodoo religion is very important. We should probably get the voodoo priests involved in the decision-making process.” 
If the project is successful, then over the next three years another 10,000 homes will be built, and Vollebregt envisions sending many more young architects to the area.

Vollebregt is going to Port au Prince as well. He will leave in the coming weeks for a ten-day journey, during which he’ll give presentations to development agencies about his vision on reconstruction work. Vollebregt: “Our focus is post-disaster redevelopment. It’s a fairly new term, unlike pre-disaster preparedness. Research shows that if just a small percentage of the aid money could be spent on figuring out how to deal with social, economic and safety issues right from the beginning, we could avoid a lot of problems later.”
But does the Delft researcher really believe he can make a difference in the huge, hierarchal world called ‘developmental aid’? Vollebregt says there really aren’t that many people active and in charge in this area: “Especially in the post-disaster field of work, there is limited expertise. So, on this side of the disaster world, there is lots of money yet very little knowledge.” What Vollebregt means to say is that if he manages to get through to the right people, he could make a difference: “I don’t have the pretention that I will make a big difference, but it can’t get any worse.”