As a graduate student of Architecture, I have always been fascinated by the building techniques of different cultures and regions. So, when I had the opportunity to be a part of Liz McCormick’s Protective Atmospheres studio at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte in the fall of 2022, I was excited. Our studio focused on designing modular bricks that could become a public health tool in the prevention of malaria vectors in rural Tanzania.
We started the studio by researching the building methods and housing needs of the region, trying to develop a clearer understanding of the gaps that our studio could help address. We also had the opportunity to talk with Tanzanian experts and other researchers working on malaria. Building upon those insights, we designed bricks that we hoped could potentially meet certain needs of the communities and subsequently designed buildings based on those bricks. It was an eye-opening experience for me to design with the building materials, methods, and needs, of a different culture, history, and socio-economic background, in mind.
However, it was not until I was able to visit Ifakara, a town in the Kilombero valley, that I truly realized how much we did not know about how people in this region live, build, and their aspirations for their housing. As I looked at the awe-inspiring mountains and the smallest traditional mud huts, it became clear how different life is there from everything that I know.
Thanks to the amazing team of researchers and builders based at the Ifakara Health Institute (IHI), I learned and experienced some of the realities of life in central Tanzania that I had no idea about. One of the most important realities is the incremental process of building that is prevalent in the region. Owners design their own houses not only to meet their specific needs, but also to their ideas of what constitutes a modern house. They buy the land, materials, and then get workmen to build what works best for them. Limited by the amount of money it takes to build, families strive to improve their living conditions step-by-step. They use every bit of land that they must grow crops so that they can afford to build more. I often saw banana trees and corn being grown inside the shell of half-built brick walls all for the completion of their house. This agency in creating their own spaces is inspiring to me. It is something that design should not hinder but enrich. These are people trying to improve their lives, and nobody can say what will do that if they are detached from the people themselves.
Agency is baked into the brick project. The goal of the studio is to provide molds for brick makers to locally make our newly designed brick and for them to be used in whichever way people choose. We went to visit a designated brick making site in Ifakara to see bricks being made in real time. I was surprised to see that the molds they use were in two parts so they can easily be laid out to dry. This was very different from how I was thinking about mold building when I was designing my brick. After seeing our designs, the brickmakers said that it would be easy to create these bricks and started trying to work out how to do it. Understanding their process will be critical in future iterations of brick designs and had me rethinking my own mold design.
When design is based in a community, it can bring people together and allow people from widely different backgrounds to come together around a common goal. During my visit, I saw this first-hand as I spoke with the people in Mtimbira and saw the excitement on their faces as they heard about our brick designs. I saw it in the laughs of the brickmakers as they joked about how easily they could make these bricks. And I saw it in the openness of all of the folks at IHI as they told us all about these communities. Being there, standing beside the brick pits and handling masonry, not only initiated a material connection between us, but also taught me about the realities of residents everyday lives which will undoubtedly help future students to improve upon our initial designs.
This experience has given me the opportunity to understand what community-based design can be, and I am a better designer for it. As architects, it is our responsibility to design with the people and the community in mind. When we design with the community, we are not only creating spaces, but we are also creating a sense of belonging and identity for the people. It is about creating spaces that are functional, sustainable, and, most importantly, meaningful to the people who will use them.
