Architecture for Humanity Chicago facilitated a charette and competition in May to design a school to replace one that had collapsed during the earthquake in Petit Goâve, Haiti. École Saint Joseph was a not-for-profit school that provided free education to all. Team members of this winning entry include the talents of Marissa Brown, Marlon Giron, Steven Pantazis and Dena Wangberg.
All our efforts from the past year with Rebuilding Together will culminate this Saturday for their National Rebuilding Day. Come on out to work with like-minded architects and others as well as the homeowners themselves. Don't be shy, anyone can swing a hammer or a paint brush, there's something for everyone. Several groups that have previously been featured on this blog will be hosting homes. To get involved please contact their team leaders: AIA - Holly Genc and AfH - Brian Landwehr.
All of the homeowners have been screened to meet income requirements and many of the ones I met were simply incapable of doing the work themselves do to some sort of physical ailment or old age. This is a great cause.
20 seconds, 20 images, 200 cities, 2000 presentations, 200,000 people - with the aim to raise $1,000,000 for rebuilding Haiti.
The event was realized after an email from Cameron Sinclair, co-founder of Architecture for Humanity to Mark Dytham, co-founder of PechaKucha, asking for help. Within minutes they hashed out a plan and sealed the agreement, how else, with a joint PKN presentation at Tokyo's SuperDeluxe. The mission was announced by Mr. Sinclair later on at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Watch the joint announcement:
The 24 hour-long streamathon will be available online LIVE beginning simultaneously in Tokyo, with a presentation by PechaKucha Founders Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham, and in New Zealand's most eastern city. From there the "PechaKucha Presentation Wave" will travel westward hitting every city in the PK Network along the way for approximately 10 minutes each.
According to the Global PK homepage, the stream will begin at 2am Chicago time and can be viewed here and here as well as on your iPhone or smartphone by using this free application here.
It will catch up with Mr. Sinclair and Architecture for Humanity headquarters in San Francisco at about 10pm Chicago time, 1pm Tokyo time, where there will be an event in Tokyo focusing on Haiti.
PechaKucha Night Chicago is, of course, participating and this time has teamed-up with PechaKucha Champaign-Urbana. It is being held at its usual spot, Martyrs', 3855 N. Lincoln. The presentations begin at 2pm with doors opening at 1pm and is all ages this time so be on your best behavior. The cost is $25 or $100 for VIP (those tables and seats in front of the screen) and tickets can be purchased online or at the door. The list of presenters is composed of "guaranteed notorious" special guests and can be found here.
There is also a new Donate Button posted on the global and city PechaKucha websites if you can't make an event and want to contribute. All proceeds go to the building of buildings in Haiti. AfH's funding is usually divided into design services, marketing and travel with funding for buildings coming from outside sources. In this case ALL money raised from Global PKN goes to the building of buildings in Haiti.
Don't get Haiti Fatigue. AfH has committed itself to long-term sustained architectural aid in Haiti. Show your support.
The Chicago Chapter of Architecture for Humanity is happy to announce a public competition to design street furniture!
The Problem: The fabric of any city has underutilized and neglected spaces. These vacant pieces of the city are often intended for development at some point in the future but currently sit empty and unused. Left unattended, they can become dangerous and unwelcoming areas along the streetscape. Through small acts of community we can repurpose these empty spaces and imagine for ourselves a better streetscape.
The Challenge: Design one or more pieces of "street furniture" that can be easily distributed to vacant sites and parks throughout the city for two months during the summer. Your goal: to initiate a dialogue about how we use our space and encourage community participation in the decisions that affect our civic life. As such, these installations are intended to be temporary and inexpensive. Designers should consider what will happen to the materials at the end of the two month time period.
Designs will be due no later than 5p, Friday, February 26th via email to furniturecomp@afh-chicago.org. Winners, decided by a jury, will be announced at the March chapter meeting (Tuesday, March 16th, 6:30p). Winning designers will have at least one piece (potentially more) of their street furniture built and distributed to a park space in the spring for a period of two months. Best of luck to any of you who are interested! If you have questions, please direct them to Kathryn McRay or Laura Bowe.
The author made me think of an interesting concept; how can we establish the projects we do at Architecture for Humanity Chicago so that young architects can still get IDP credits? I only mention AFH because that's about the only organization I know of locally that could accommodate the requirements. I'll have to pose that question at the next AFH meeting on July 21st at 6:30pm at Brehon Pub.
08/11/10 6-10pm
ACE Mentor Program Fundraiser
at Sub 51, 51 W. Hubbard Street, Chicago
tickets $30, 40 at the door
More info from ACE Mentor Chicago
10/09/10 4-9pm
City Farm Fundraiser
at City Farm, Division and Clybourn, Chicago
tickets Adults (19 and Over) - $35
Youth (12-18) - $10
Children - Free!
