Ethical standards and social inclusion for displaced populations

Complimenting the sustainable community agenda, our focus is to create an equitable environment that is safer, more humane, and supportive of everyday life. Fear of crime has made ill-defined public spaces inhospitable. We have created smaller community groupings, fostering a hierarchy of defensible spaces that encourage neighboring, small group spaces for shared activities such as urban farms, corner retail stores and a community plaza with retail, farmers markets, and a community facility. Based on feedback, our proposed two- story courtyard expandable house is the basic dwelling for all households, modified by location. Corner lots have more street frontage and are better for retail, and for sale shop-houses face major streets with ground floor retail and the courtyard house above.

Environmental performance, contextual relevance with minimal resources

The local microclimate, with constant high temperatures and humidity, can be debilitating. The challenge was to design an environment that enhanced airflow in the streets, created shaded spaces through street walls and vegetation. The proposed construction for all buildings is to develop a new pre-fabricated system that uses readily available, inexpensive materials, with high insulating values. Analysis of the environmental performance of historical and typical urban environments allowed us to set up metrics to vastly improve our proposed environmental conditions. Contextual housing typologies in the old city influenced our choice to invest in an incremental courtyard house. This was modeled to stress through-ventilation and self-shading, creating better living conditions.

Economic viability, innovation, and transferability

With very low income levels it is critical to supplement household earnings. Current houses do not support live-work environments due to size and inflexible plans; therefore the new house type is slightly larger, allowing more choice in use. These expandable homes can be developed in several stages, and they are generic enough to have applicability for use elsewhere. We have also introduced high-tech farms, fabrication labs, and flexible workspaces for new employment opportunities. Commitment to the development of lightweight, prefabricated, locally-sourced panel systems is the beginning of a new, local industry that can employ residents. The new building technology, urban design principles, and typology are intended to be transferable to other local conditions.