A post, a journal

It's a little ironic that I haven't written in my urban planning blog in a while, having two weeks ago moved to Boston to start masters program in that field. Luckily obligation forces me to restart. I have an assignment in my Sustainability class to write a journal entry about a positive event occurring in the domain of sustainability. I found a topic last night that does the trick, although I must admit I'm a little loathe to write about basketball, being a hockey fan and at least a soccer admirer. Nonetheless this story is particularly relevant to me.

World Changing reports on a project by Architecture for Humanity in Mahiga, Kenya. They have built a "net-positive Rainwater Court". Ostensibly a basketball court, it has many other purposes. The court is sheltered from the elements by a rain collecting roof and solar panels power a UV purification system. The court's structure allows its use "as a basketball court, assembly space, dining area, and outdoor classroom for students" and for the community "farmers markets, local music and arts performances, movies and meetings in the only large, sheltered gathering place in the area". The solar power will power the adjacent school complex and the purified rainwater will be used for drinking (90,000 liters per year.) The sustainability factors abound with the employment of "100 percent local, sustainable, and recycled materials during construction, such as Nike Regrind (a forgiving surface made of used tennis shoes) for the court floor." Furthermore on the localization front, AfH uses all local workers for construction. The project is the accompaniment to more ambitious work by a group called the Nobelity Project which will improve the school with "a new computer lab, electricity, purified rainwater, as well as a good dose of motivation." They also plan a four-year high school to provide free continuing eduction the 400 students after their eighth year. The project is featured in an upcoming documentary called "Once Peace at a Time."

Now that I have parroted the report, I'll explain what this project means to me. I don't usually take a big interest in pilot programs unless low cost and low barriers to completion mean that the project can be scaled or duplicated extensively. AfH does not report costs for the project. The use of local labor and local and recycled materials suggests the cost is low. I imagine the complete court being in the low tens-of-thousands of dollars, which is certainly affordable if a good donation network is established. On the question of whether this represents an incremental or paradigm shift, I think it is one of the more inspirational examples within the multitude of sustainable projects in the third world, and thus is part of an ongoing paradigm shift more than an incremental improvement. One thing that makes a lot of the third-world sustainability projects interesting is that the same projects would be useful in both urban and rural areas of the "first" world.

What makes this project particularly relevant to me is that my friend is planning to film a documentary about the building of soccer fields in Kenya by California high school students this winter break, and I'm signed up as an unskilled assistant. That project is called FundaField and has already built five fields in Africa. The nonprofit was established by high school soccer players, and is obviously a story in itself.

I am particularly interested in exploring new ways of structuring our neighborhoods in urban areas. Besides car-free transit improvements, I believe that building and street design should be modularized, so that messy, difficult to change, construction ceases in our neighborhoods, and is replaced by the use of intelligent components that are simultaneously structurally sound, energy and water collecting, and easily manipulated. This rural basketball project promotes the multipurpose theme. It creates a useful structure in terms of activity but also in terms of resource collection. Though the components are perhaps not modular, they at least promote reuse of materials, which is the next best thing to cradle-to-cradle style reuse of inorganic materials for a single purpose.

In terms of community this project hits all the targets. It vastly improves a school, gives the community a meeting place, and creates jobs, albeit some temporary ones. It provides the opportunity to promote economic exchange by sheltering a market and doubtlessly promoting other commerce, in addition to the plenitude of free community events.

I am inspired to find out if there are other possibilities for the soccer-field project of which I intend to be a part. Can we make the field have other uses besides soccer? What about creating a shaded area on the sidelines for resource collection? One thing is for sure, good ideas inspire others.