It’s getting warmer…

The weekend was freezing! -10 C Saturday night! Now it’s a bit better… During the day it’s warm again and the nights are not so cold… 21 C and 5 C, but the weekend was just too much.

But when you have to work it doesn’t really matter if it’s cold or warm, except if you are working on site all day! Luckily I was not there all the day but when I visited it the workers were telling me that it had been horrible that they cold hardly stand it! But on they went with the work and we are slowly moving forwards.

Another thing I did this weekend was meet Sara, the Art teacher from the International school. I had been told to contact her with regards to the “Litema” workshops that I’ll be doing with the children, for the decoration of the LCCU. She was interested in the project and has committed to helping me out on the day and also with a few of the preparations. Through her I will meet Musho, one of the leading painters of Lesotho, and he’ll introduce us to some of the local women, artists would be a more appropriate word, that still know the Art of “Litema”.

Like I said last week today I was meeting the Hospital Superintendent. Let’s say there was progress even though the meeting didn’t go that well! He has the idea of building a common playground for infected and uninfected kids. Which as a starting point is a great idea, the problem is that the way that the hospital is organized does not really allow for that. If the kids that are waiting for the HIV treatment had to go and play in the so called “normal” playground they would be 150mt away and with no supervision. So in a way it is imperative to place the playground where the Doctors and the Clinton foundation want to have it. Like I explained it would be a non-permanent solution.

He insisted that it should be elsewhere but he also said that he was under so much pressure from everyone to allow it that if someone insisted again he’d have to give in, but he would not be responsible for it… So as you see there’s been progress.

When I reported this to the Clinton Foundation they decided to go ahead with it. So I’ll come up with a plan and we’ll go and discuss it with him again. Which if he is a man of his word means that he’ll accept it even if he doesn’t agree!

They are sitting on the solution

The Bophelong Clinic of QEII has asked us to come up with the plans for a playground. The Clinton Foundation has agreed to fund it the problem is that the QEII still objects to it.

However after my visit to the Hospital today I discovered that they are actually sitting on the solution. In more than one way…

At the end of hospital grounds behind a container there is a huge pile of rubber floor tiles! The kind that with a coat of paint can be used to solve the playground problem.

Re-used tiles, a coat of paint, a dozen tires, a small fence, a truck of sand, and a rope and you’d build yourself a playground swings and all! Easy!

And if the Hospital decides they need to reuse those grounds a shovel and a few man can take it down in a couple of hours…

Monday I’ll go and talk to Superintendent and see if we can reach this deal.

Work on site is still going as planned. The old floor slab is being dug out and today I just asked them not to store the rocks on the remaining slab but to store them outside… No need to overload a fairly week slab.

School day

Spent the morning attending school but this time as a “external critic”. I just wanted to see the final year’s (3rd year) Final presentation of Architecture. But I was asked if I’d like to grade the students which I reject offering instead to comment on the work.

It was an eye opening experience. Though the school has a really good structure mixing, under the same roof, practical/technical students (plumbers, bricklayers etc…) with the “intellectual” part of the industry (architects and engineers). They don’t seem to communicate and so an otherwise excellent model is lost.

In the presentation I found many projects with serious structural problems and few with any concepts or ideas. I understand that the course is new (this will be the first class to graduate) and I saw that the teachers were disappointed but the truth is that these students are not yet prepared to be architects. Not that one ever is when one finishes school but at least I feel that after what I’ve learnt, and with a little help, I can deal with most of the issues (both design issues and construction solutions) that can be presented to me.

I agreed to give an introductory lecture/presentation, Friday the 11th of May, on European Architecture. It will be a slide show of buildings and structures that I’ve visited since I started studying. It will not attempt to be more than that, I thought it could be an interesting show of architecture for most of them.

I also found something very important for my work at the school, the out of print book on Basotho houses! If I don’t manage to find one for myself I know that I can always use that one.

I then met with 2 of the students for Lydia’s house and after a design discussion (where I presented what I think should be the direction we should take) We agreed to meet next Tuesday and properly dimension the site so that we can discuss about what they envision for the site.

Rest of my day was spent on site. Yesterday they managed to cut the slabs and today they had already dug out much of one of them. What we discovered under there is a small architectural/construction horror. A 40mm to 75mm concrete slab sitting on 2mt of uncompacted terrain with no grading what so ever! DPMs that were made of concrete bags!!! And reinforcing steel fabric that is not bond to the concrete, it is instead sitting in the middle of rubble. Really a shock and no wonder the building is as it is.

I had suggested casting a ring beam around the structure using the last course of block as lost shuttering but I had not provided any detail or told them how I wanted it done. I had just mentioned it as and idea. Luckily I saw it today and I managed to stop a mistake that could have otherwise been a costly one.

Apart from that minor incident work seems to be on its way and in little time we’ll be cruising to completion! or at least that’s what I hope…

More photos click here


Just one last remark.
Archicad (and programs alike) will kill architecture in country like this. It does not stimulate thinking and gives you a series of international solutions that do not apply worldwide, plus the finished look that it gives you and the facility of generating the details without thought process, will contribute to the decline of architecture in a country which had a rich vernacular culture.

High up in the mountains

The drive up to the Mohotlong is by no means an easy one but the landscape on the way there is of the nicest the country has to offer!

The mountains are amazing and the temperature shifted form 2 C when we arrived at 8am to 23 C in the afternoon.

I was accompanying Harper (Sentebale) that had a few meetings up there with the excuse of doing some research on the traditional forms of construction. So far I’ve identified 3 different ways of building Rondavlos and 3 different ways of decorating them also. Plus all sorts of possible variations.

We also set out on the (unofficial) mission of making people happy distributing sweets and biscuits to the children and adults. All in all a really rewarding day!

The surprise of the day was reserved for the end of it though. At 8:30pm I received a call form our contractor. Wanted some information about putting up a sign on site…

Shows dedication!

A good day’s work

My day today was quite an event but the title refers to the builders… They managed to put up a shed on site for storage and then with a little help (not that they needed, but because I was around) we now have a cleaner site. Not bad for a late morning start!

But let me return to the start of my day. Baba and I drove to Mohales Hoek to go and have a look at some Caravans so that we could come up with a solution for the temporary sheltering of the children. This is an issue that seems to have new developments every time we ask. Yesterday priority… Today not really and issue and staying outside the main house a no, no! Tomorrow how knows? But we will continue to do our best to sort it out. Whatever that may be…

On the way to Mohales Hoek we saw some really nice traditional buildings decorated with Litema patterns (traditional decorative style which is basicly the carving of ridges into a fine clay layer over the walls).

Back to Maseru late this afternoon but just in time to pick up the drawings and head off to the site to discuss them with Ndate Sello (the foreman) and mark up the slabs that need demolishing and replacing. When I arrived Ndate Sello had just left so I went off to the airport to pick up some drinks for the man on the site. I think they appreciated this gesture and if we are all happy to be working here it will in the end lead to a better building!

Ndate Sello arrived and between saying hello and he having to go and speak to the chief of the region to organize security and labour we managed to discuss the project and to mark up on site (with a stone) the pieces of slab that will need to be cut.

I’ll come and check on the progress on Thursday as tomorrow I’ll be off doing some field research up in the mountains.

more photos click here

Start

This morning I met with Mr. Linakane and his foreman, Ndate Sello Sello, at the site.
It was my understanding form last Friday that they would start on site today but instead I just met the foreman and we had a walk around showing him where the problems were and what we expected to achieve.

Tomorrow 10am they’ll start at least I hope so. Time in our case is not elastic and everyday is precious.

But I did manage to get something started today… “Project Inside View”: I bought a small 35mm photo camera and enough film for the duration of the build. I gave it to the foreman and asked him if everyday he would take one photo of the building or the workers or anything that he chooses.

Like this I’ll have a constant record of life on the site… Will it turn out to be an important contribution or will it just be another failure… Who knows but let’s give it a shot!

A Beautiful Country

I spent the day travelling around with Baba, he was showing me his properties!
And of course they are in beautiful places. I’d be surprised if they were not given the stunning natural beauty of this country.

This is what makes it so strange. It’s beautiful but very poor. It’s a strange mix but in a way I think it’s what helps most people here to be happy… They are poor but not miserable. And that makes all the difference.

It’s always with enormous pride that they speak of their country! It’s always with a lot of friendship that they come and speak to you! The children sometimes can stare at you for one hour without moving but as soon as you smile they’ll wave and come and speak to you.

These and a few more other qualities of this country is what will one day make it prosper!

Lydia’s house session1

8am, Saturday the 21st of April, I was greeted at the gate of the Polytechnic by 3 eager students that will start thinking about the design for Lydia’s new home. Just a short stop on the way to the site to pick up the fourth element and the team is now complete.

We went to see the site and they were quite keen to start sketching and measuring… But as they had first told me that they had little time… we had not come prepared.

However enthusiasm was high and the ground did well as a sketch book and my trusty 5mt tape measurer sufficed in today’s need… 5 mt diameter rondavlos and aprox 4.8 link was the original build.

We discussed the benefits and disadvantages of rebuilding exactly “as was” and the ways in which we could expand it. It was also a good opportunity for them to have a first chat with their client Lydia.

We agreed that we would have to explore various types of situations and that then we would come back to discuss them with her.

Lydia and the children where moving around bits and pieces in the container so maybe there’ll be enough space to after manoeuvre and start the work on it next weekend.

Since we were so close to the other site I decided to go and show it to them so that I could have their opinion? They were all in agreement that it was the worst built building they had ever seen!

It would be a laughable situation would it not be a serious problem. Fortunatly we’ll start work on it Monday before more parts of the front slab settle…

We’ll start on Monday!

As you can guess from the title the meeting with the funders went well. It will be a Sentebale/SBL joint funding effort. And I was given the green light to start ASAP.

So as soon that meeting was over I was on the phone to the Builders and in less than 2 hours we were discussing starting on site Monday… He seemed motivated and we spoke through some of the issues that will need addressing and he seemed to be on the same wave length as we were.

Extra motivation was delivered by showing him examples of Lesotho’s glorious Heritage and assuring him that not only we’d like to achieve a good building for the children but also a landmark that all could be proud of.

So Monday the hard work will start on that but until then I will not be resting… Tomorrow 8am I’ll be picking up the 4 students that volunteered to help and all together we’ll go and a have an initial visit to Lydia’s House site.

So that’s two projects being dealt with… The third one, the container shelter will probably be done in different phases. It occurred to me that maybe we don’t need extra storage… we could just shift the contents from one division to the next and deal with it that way.

That’s it for the day… More news tomorrow!

water?

No luck today!

We spent all our day fishing for water but with no luck!

After hours of work with stones, sticks and other metals parts, Baba and I were forced to give up and decide that it wouldn’t be today that we would find out how deep our borehole is! We’ll try again tomorrow!

After that I met the 4 students that will be helping me out in the design of Lydia’s new house. I wrote helping me out but I should have written, that I’ll be helping out! They all looked eager to do it and on Saturday we’ll be visiting the site all together so that they star to have a feeling for it.

Then probably next Thursday we will start the design phase… The Architectural students are busy until then. I’ll try and go and sit through their final crit session on that same Thursday!
Not only will it be interesting but instructing!

Tomorrow is the all important meeting with the bank! Let’s see how it goes! If all happened as hoped, Monday we’ll be on site!

Good evening Maseru!

Yes it’s true! If by any chance you were out there listening to the MoAfrika FM 99.3 football special tonight. Yes it was my voice that you heard!

I was tricked by Baba and Sebata (radio presenter), into commenting on Premier League Radio tonight! But thanks to Manchester United’s excellent form in the past weeks and Chelsea nevertheless excellent chase I managed not to make a complete fool of myself!

But enough about fun and lets talk about work. Today I met with the Building College and we have organized that a team of 2 students will be in charge of the design and execution of Mé Lydia’s new house. I will be acting as an advisor through out the process. This is a project that has resulted from the replace, after the fire, the house that used to home the children of the LCCU. Because of the type of project that it will be and the amount of work involved it was decided that the best way to deal with it was in establishing the partnership described above. It will be an interesting opportunity for all of us!

We went to see if the solution for the Container could be resolved but we are still having problems in finding storage space for the existing fill of the container.

Tomorrow we will go and measure the depth of the borehole. I might have forgotten to mention before but whilst I was still in London I contacted PlayPumps and they agreed to install one on the site. The PlayPump is a carousel that pumps water up into a tank when the children are using it.. It’s a system currently being installed all over Africa. For more information check this website http://www.playpumps.org/

Still a few things to sort out before we start on site next week but all these extra assignments have kept me pretty busy.

And I’m back!

Landed today (16th of April) 11:40am at Maseru, after small but not serious transportation problems, all is still the same. Colder, only slightly, but nevertheless colder!

Spent all the rest of the day settling in, and checking up on “old friends”. Booked some meetings for next week and asked to attend some tomorrow.

Harper has kindly lent me some office space at Sentebale. So it will not be for lack of conditions that we won’t succeed.

All seems set to kick off as planned in a week’s time!

It will be a long stay, no less than 3 months. But apart from missing Camille a lot, I’m really looking forward to it.

Back on the plane on Sunday!

The prices arrived just before Easter, we’ve reviewed them, tickets were booked and accommodation found, and next Monday I’ll find myself back in the beautiful country of Lesotho.

The quotes that arrived were slightly over what we expect, nothing alarming… But we’ve already been told that it’s a go ahead project! Some negotiating has still to be done... But I was told to come back and so I’ll do.

To be honest I can’t wait to be back on site! It will be a great experience and one that the sooner it starts the better. However the first days back will be used for meeting with the funders and contractor. I expect nevertheless to start clearing out the site by the end of the week, and I’ll also be doing some building myself up till then.

The provisional shelter has not been sorted out and if M’e Lydia accepts I’m willing to convert their existing container into a dorm for the children. Properly lined with insulation and plasterboard it will be a suitable space for them to live in that could be used for other things once it’s outlived its use (extra meeting rooms?).

Time to start packing my bags and write the last itineraries and briefs before I leave!