European-style houses, i.e. square buildings made from concrete, even though this is disadvantageous for the indoor climate in the tropics.
The Importance of Anchoring the Building Projects Locally To realise the architectural ambitions, it is important to understand and work with the local community. As of October 2013, Masanga Architects has completed three houses constituting six homes. The project is one of the only of ASF-DK projects with an evolving process over its course. This has given the group substantial knowledge about how to build in the tropics, and how to approach cultural challenges in the design and construction phases. When working on the first house, the group plotted every detail in advance,
When the work is done, Masanga Architects write recommendations for the craftsmen to support them in their future search for work, and in case they should apply to an educational institution. ASF-DK and the Masanga Hospital have long been concocting a plan to make a school for the local workers. This will likely lead to better employment opportunities and could, in the long run, enable people in the area to start up small businesses as an alternative to the strenuous and often dangerous work in the mines. “Many are very skilled, and some not as talented, but they learn from the process. Some have gone on to a school in Makeni after finishing working on the project, because they wanted a formal education.” (Røien) A local school for workers would be an important step toward ensuring a continuous development of building techniques, and at the same time it would anchor the process of developing solutions to the local challenges in Masanga. This would, however, require long-term planning and an upgraded infrastructure. “If you are patient and tolerant you can go really far. But there is a constant shortage of time and money, the projects can be clogged up by corrupt officials or gangsters, or nothing happens because the labourers vanish, or materials and tools do not arrive on time or are simply not obtainable in the country. The projects and the contexts you are bound up in are so rampageous that anything can happen.” (Brandberg)
Theme I — Case I — Article
Why Change the Traditional Way of Building Houses in Masanga at All? One issue is that many of the local houses have floors of rammed earth. The floors are fine, and favourable in terms of the climate, but when they become dry, cracks start to form and bacteria can move in. As a consequence the children get sick with diarrhea from sitting and eating on the floor. Building concrete floors would help to alleviate this problem. Another issue is that the houses have no windows, but openings without glass or shutters which allow mosquitos to enter easily, resulting in many cases of malaria. “Many improvements could be made, but for people there, getting sick from diarrhea and malaria — and some dying because of this — is a fact of life, and it has always been like this. They do not think that if you would build the floor in a different way or better the windows, fewer people would get sick. There are many things that we, as architects, would include when building the house, that they do not think about or do not have the means to do themselves.” (Brandberg) It is therefore important, according to Anne Katrine Røien, to enhance the local knowledge of craftsmanship, and at the same time promote design solutions to demonstrate that things can be done differently, for example in regard to health issues. “The projects serve to broaden both of our horizons — theirs and ours. Not only in relation to the Masanga project, but generally speaking when thinking about developing new ways of building and coming up with solutions. Together we can find new and better solutions to the challenges.” (Røien)
with explicit precision, exactly as it was supposed to be. Whereas the most recent building, Paula’s House (Case III), was based on a ground plan and section, and a continuously changing 3D model. “You have to explain your ideas very clearly. To the local labourers, measurements are not just measurements as on a tape measure. They are by eye. Just as saying: here is a drawing, the house is to be built like this and this, is a no-go. Something has to be there already, the building has to be commenced, or you draw the plan 1:1 on the construction site so that everyone can see what you are talking about. A scaled drawing is too abstract.” (Røien) After constructing three houses in the same area, several of the workers know how to decipher the drawings, and meanwhile the architects have realised that things move a lot faster if the workers use sticks as measuring tools. Many of the workers are illiterate and cannot read tape measures, and, moreover, exact measurements are not that useful since the dimensions of the materials are seldom precise.