ARCHIVE founder Peter Williams posted the following article to the Policy Innovations blog on an open innovation competition his NGO ran to find housing designs for Haiti that can improve ventilation and public health. Check it out:
After an earthquake, we often hear the expression, "Earthquakes don't kill people, buildings do." When it comes to beating infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, the focus has historically been placed on developing better drugs and perhaps one day finding a vaccine. But for people at risk of catching infectious diseases, what if homes built with disease prevention in mind were an equally valid solution?
Currently 1 billion people around the world live in city slums, and according to the WHO this figure is projected to double over the next 25 years. Those living in conditions of urban deprivation are at far greater risk of opportunistic illness, particularly if their immune systems are already weakened by HIV/AIDS. We know that poor heating and ventilation cause mold and fungus, allowing bacteria to thrive, all of which compromise the respiratory system. Yet there is a solution: Improve ventilation and reduce indoor humidity and you significantly reduce the risk of an HIV-positive individual contracting tuberculosis.
One-third of people living with HIV/AIDS are co-infected with TB. In fact, without proper treatment, 90 percent of people with this condition die within months of contracting the illness. But it is not just those whose immune systems are compromised who are at risk. Respiratory diseases in children under five claim more than 2 million lives annually.
At the nonprofit organization ARCHIVE (Architecture for Health In Vulnerable Environments), we believe that many of these deaths are preventable by simple design solutions. ARCHIVE is the only international development organization to concentrate on improving health through innovative housing design and improvement.
I was born into a low-income Jamaican community where I was exposed to many of the same cultural, climatic, and socioeconomic challenges faced by people in vulnerable communities today. This left a deep impression on me when I went on to study architecture at Columbia University. While there, a three-year Kinne research fellowship set me on a path to discover more about the links between architecture and health.
My research initially focused on the association between architecture and HIV in South Africa, and was later broadened to include infectious diseases generally. I realized that it was an under-researched area of architecture, and I looked for ways to share and discuss my ideas with a wider audience. This open-source approach still underpins my work as founder and director of ARCHIVE today.
ARCHIVE identified Haiti as a suitable country to pilot its first major project in May 2009. According to World Health Organization statistics, Haiti has the highest TB rate in the Americas. Our Kay e Sante nan Ayiti project (Creole for housing and health in Haiti) began with thorough research and consultation with local organizations and community groups to gather baseline data for the second phase of the project—an open innovation, global design competition calling on architects, engineers, health specialists, and the general public to pool their knowledge and submit housing designs to help tackle TB transmission.
A design brief was issued by ARCHIVE after consultation with the target community, and it was informed by the latest public health recommendations. The designs were required to be sensitive to the economic and cultural environment; be replicable and inexpensive; utilize local building materials; and employ indigenous construction techniques and practices wherever possible.
Based on these and other criteria, an interdisciplinary panel of judges and community members chose five winning designs for construction. These designs will be deployed in an integrated community development and healthcare pilot project in the coastal port town of... [CONTINUE READING at POLICY INNOVATIONS