[GSBN] Bales for Haiti

[Derek Roff]

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions and concerns.  We have been 
in dozens of hours of discussions, and exchanged hundreds of email 
messages, discussing options and looking at possibilities.  BWB has 
been working with the PAKSBAB folks since 2006, and they do 
incredibly good work.  It might be surprising to some on this list 
how few things anyone working on any international project gets to 
simply "decide", and do as would seem best in other situations.

I share the misgivings that several people have expressed about 
moisture and straw in Haiti.  On the other hand, the temperature and 
humidity in the Port au Prince area are both less than summers in 
Houston, and in many parts of Texas, Louisiana, Missouri, Alabama, 
Georgia, and Florida.  I don't remember resounding indictments of 
list members proposing to build with strawbale in some of those 
locations. We keep strawbale high on the list of options, because of 
its relative earthquake safety.

It's tough to figure out how to build in a place that has earthquakes 
and hurricanes, lacks timber and an earthquake-resistant building 
tradition.  No material has all the right properties.  Thatched 
bamboo structures probably come the closest, and they would work if 
people were willing to live in them, and replace them every few 
years.  I don't think this approach will have much appeal.  It is an 
ironic truth that while people are hesitant to accept a new building 
style, they are often even more hesitant to accept a traditional and 
appropriate technology, when it seems old-fashioned, vulgar, and is 
associated with poor people or country folk.

I haven't read the newest guidelines on building more 
earthquake-resistant structures out of earthen materials.  I'm sure 
it contains very important information.  But I have been to several 
presentations on traditional and modern earthen structures and 
earthquakes, and I've read many articles.  Up to now, the safety 
record of earthen structures has been poor when it comes to 
earthquakes the size of the one in Haiti, and larger.  I've read 
Nader Khalili's assertions about earthbags and earthquakes, his 
"testing", and I don't have faith in the combination of earthbags and 
earthquakes.  Perhaps future testing will prove him right, but for 
me, building in an earthquake zone with earthbags right now is 
accepting big unknowns.  I don't see working with that level of 
uncertainty as doing a service to Haiti. Building more intelligently 
and safely with other earthen materials requires knowledge that few 
of us currently possess.  I am eager to learn, but not to put 
everything on hold while I learn.

The issue of cultural sensitivity and popular acceptance of a design 
is always in the front of our minds as members of BWB consider 
intercultural projects.  But in a situation like the Haiti disaster, 
contradictions are immediately obvious.  Much of what we think people 
will accept is unsafe, and what is safe will require some changes in 
lifestyle, which people might not accept.  It's pretty easy to 
conclude that there is no good answer, and then to cede the field to 
those who are less culturally sensitive and less aware of the risks. 
We choose not to do that.  Kelly's questions are very important, as 
are David's warnings of the risks of unintended consequences from any 
actions.  Yet in a disaster situation, I also consider the risks 
associated with inaction, and with leaving everything up to 
institutions like the World Bank.

The hope for the project that started this thread, is to get one 
strawbale building built before the April rains begin.  That project 
will teach us a great deal about the viability of strawbale building 
in Haiti.  There will be more things to learn and adjustments to make 
in the coming months and years.  Maybe it will work, maybe it will 
lead to better ideas, maybe it will be a dead end. We are going to 
give it a try.  To try something without a lot of study first has its 
problems, as others have mentioned.  Yet learning by doing is often 
the most efficient way, and is sometimes the only way to answer 
certain questions.  Thankfully, we are not required to make policy 
for the entire country's disaster relief program.  We are supporting 
and collaborating on a few small experiments.  We hope that some of 
them will lead to useful techniques and information that can be 
implemented on a broader scale.

I have studied the hyperbolic acrylic-cement thin-shelled roof 
designs that David refers to, and I think they offer great potential. 
They don't fit the aesthetic tradition of anywhere, and face a number 
of the same cultural sensitivity and acceptance questions that we 
have been discussing.  Nonetheless, I think they are worthy of 
consideration and experimentation.

Best wishes,
Derelict

Derek Roff
Language Learning Center
Ortega Hall 129, MSC03-2100
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
505/277-7368, fax 505/277-3885
Internet: derek at unm.edu