Today was my first time on a helicopter, quite an amazing experience I must say! The way they take off and land is quite unbelievable and to see this beautiful country from the sky is just stunning.We flew out to Mantsase so that, Sir Tom and Geoffrey, could see one of the projects that Sentebale are helping out with… But my accompanying them was not just pleasure. I went with the objective of helping them out with the design of a new dorm.
18 months ago they built one, and it is now too small for their needs, so they were hoping to build another one. I was asked to come up with a sketch design so that they can start raising money and organizing what to do. I had a look at what they had, and have to say how sad I felt to see that next to a really beautiful example of vernacular architecture they built a new anonymous block, that in less than 2 years is showing 1cm cracks all around that look like more than your average shrinkage crack. Walking through the building I could almost pinpoint the place where the slab probably settled or some other problem that the building already has.
My wish would be to tell them not to build anymore like that and to invest in the traditional, but this is a point that people have difficulty in understanding. I guess you have to learn for your self. People just can’t be taught, they need to discover by themselves.
I sat down on the grass, and with 3 kids around me, did a quick sketch of what they could need. Now back at home I think about it and I can’t stop to think that although it does reply to brief and in some way to the site it seems inadequate and I’m not 100% happy with that first idea…
I will nevertheless try and help them with this design, to the limits of my time and capacities, but I will try and make it clear from day one that there are more adequate solutions than the most obvious ones. Or that maybe what you should be looking at for inspiration is just there across the courtyard.
How I will do this I am not sure, neither of the form nor of the techniques that should be used for this building, but one thing I’m sure of. It’s 1000 times better to have a well build vernacular building than a badly built western one!
for more photos of this trip check this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/pck.clarke/LesothoFromTheSky
note: any similarity to Litema patterns is pure coincidence :)
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