We kicked off the week with a Networking Breakfast at Penoyre & Prasad which was attended by over 100 supporters from across architecture, construction and property industries. We had presentations from Olympic triple jumper Larry Achike, Connie Henry from Track Academy a London-based educational, mentoring and sports charity, Craig Goldblatt from Giving Africa our project partner in Burkina Faso and Article 25 staff. The event launched a whole range of activities that our supporters can get involved with, which you can find here.

On Wednesday, Colleen went up to Edinburgh to talk to our Student Chapter about School Design in International Development and braved the sleeper train home!  

On Thursday, we were invited to L’Altro Uomo’s Book launch at Chinawhites. The book is published twice a year and covers a range of cultural topics from art and architecture to fashion. This edition features a two page spread of our 10×10 Drawing the City event.    

We also had Sandra Piesik, fresh from the UAE, come in to talk to us about her new book Arish: Palm Leaf Architecture.  We are going to be working with Sandra on her upcoming exhibition and Palm Leaf House Build event at the Royal Geographic Society, so watch this space for more info and opportunities to get involved.

As the deadline looms, we’ve had an overwhelming response to our Haiti Research Design Competition, so are very much looking forward to receiving the submissions.

And finally we would like to thank Craig and Giving Africa for the beautiful piece of Burkinaba art now regaling our walls.

• Crises in a New World Order: Challenging the humanitarian project  - New Oxfam report warns Western donors and relief groups must build up the capacity of local and national organisations to respond to disasters, or the international humanitarian response system will fail to cope with an expected rise in emergencies.
• Will the ‘girl effect’ really help to combat poverty? – Guardian
• Uganda: From Brick Making to Peace Building – e-architect, report on our project in Patongo.
• UK’s largest prefabricated straw bale building is officially opened – Archinect
• Japan Earthquake & Tsunami: Reconstruction 11 months on – National Post, amazing images of Japan’s post-tsunami reconstruction work. Check out the boat!

Craig Goldblatt, CEO of Giving Africa our project partner (photographed above) opened the presentation with a heartfelt explanation of why he got involved in the charity sector and how Article 25 has helped the project progress.

Jemma Houston, a member of our Design Team leading on this project then gave a presentation of how the project has developed, the latest updates including news from their site visit in December and a demonstration of the design features. This school has been designed to deal with the climactic conditions of the area – temperatures in the existing school building can reach a staggering 50+degrees – to use locally available laterite stone in the brickwork, and to revolutionise the way children in this area are taught. We are also hoping that this school will provide a prototype for future development in the region.

The presentation was attended by our Trustee Peter Murray as well as supporters from Penoyre & Prasad, Scott Brownrigg and the RICS.

The next presentation will take place on Thursday 23^rd February on our vocational training centre for former child soldiers in Uganda. Nigel Edward-Few from our project partner Jubilee Action, architect Henning Stummel and our man on the ground Alex Llado will all be speaking on their experience with the project.

• In Focus: The Future of Aid – Alert Net, multimedia platform exploring the future of humanitarian aid
• Where Afghan humanitarianism ends and development begins, IRIN
• How the built environment became a leading cause of death in the 21st Century, Plantezin / The New York Times
• Government backs away from pledge to enshrine 0.7% aid level in law, Guardian
• Food Aid: doing more harm than good in conflict-torn countries? Alert Net
• Article 25 launches ideas contest for Haiti’s National Palace, Architects Journal

The aim of this competition is to explore how a designer can respond to the cultural, environmental and political conditions at the centre of the world’s biggest disaster so far this millennium. It is unlikely to be built, but it could break creative boundaries critiquing the situation or provide solutions to some of the problems identified on the site.

We are looking for a conceptual proposal for the National Palace that combines its official function of office and residence of the President and its relationship to the informal settlements and communities in its environs. Take into account the space as a symbol of the crisis, democracy and power as well as the necessity for security.

Click here to download the full brief and submission requirements.

Competition dates:
Submission deadline: Monday 19th March
Competition presentation: Thursday 29th March

Submissions will be judged on research potential, innovation, creativity and evidence of an understanding of the situation in the design response. A shortlist of submissions will be invited to present their work to a panel of expert judges in our London office. Winner will receive a selection of influential humanitarian architecture books and have their work  eatured on the Article 25 website, blog and RIBA Knowledge Community for Development and Disaster Relief.

For more information and to submit expressions of interest and final submission please email competition@article-25.org

Please feel free to forward this email on to anyone you think will be interested in the competition.

Andy also told those in attendance further details of their global projects. He began by sharing the story of Masdar in the United Arab Emirates, a city being constructed by the company, and how with careful architectural design it will be a zero emissions city. He revealed the project would take time to complete. He advised: “You’re not going to be able to build a whole city in a day”.

He gave further case studies such as the company’s work in the Canary Islands, Dharavi in India, Hearst Tower in New York, the Commerzbank building in Germany and their work closer to home, such as Langley Academy in Slough and More London Plot Seven.

Mr Haigh ended the afternoon by saying: “Consumption is a consequence of demand and demand is a consequence of design”.

GENEVA – Natural disasters such as the huge earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan caused a record $366 billion (285 million euros) damage in 2011, the UN disaster risk reduction agency UNISDR said on Wednesday.

A total of 29,782 people were killed in 302 disasters last year, the body said. Storms and floods accounted for up to 70 percent of catastrophes but earthquakes were the biggest killer. However, the number of disasters was down on 2010, when 385 occurred, according to CRED figures.

In total 206 million people were affected by disasters last year. This includes 106 million hit by floods and 60 million by drought, mainly in the Horn of Africa.

“Reliable statistics and data should be a priority for better and more timely preventative action,” Guha-Sapir of CRED said.

Click here to read full AFP story.

Explore two years of Haiti earthquake 2010 disaster risk reduction news reporting on activities to date, and calls for continued action from governments, UN and international organizations, private sector, civil society and academic institutions.

Two years on, reports on the situation still highlight the shortcomings in response, growing resentment amongst the people of Haiti, and the persisting challenges on the ground. It seems that the phrase “One year on” in reports from January 2011 could just as easily be replaced with “Two years on” today. Reconstruction has been slow, or as some agencies say, stagnant.

Problems identified in the response to the earthquake have been numerous: inadequate coordination of humanitarian response; overabundance of information; lack of required funds; weak governance; insecure land tenure; lack of readily available reconstruction material; additional disaster events; cholera epidemics. The saddest part in this whole story is that Haiti was the first and only state to be born out of slave revolution, inspired by the French Revolution. However the period that followed this promising start was one of foreign occupation and violence – characteristics that continue to mark Haiti to this day – creating a state of underdevelopment which damaged the prospect for adequate disaster resilience.

Haiti is now facing an era of occupation by dependency on the aid community. Before the earthquake there were nearly 10,000 NGOs operating in Haiti, a UN Peacekeeping presence, and a national budget that was propped up to the tune of 40% by foreign aid. None of this made the country resilient to a known earthquake risk. In the months after the earthquake around 400,000 foreign aid workers descended on Port-au-Prince. Two years later that presence remains. It is unsurprising then that activity on the ground now has prompted one citizen to proclaim Haiti “La republique des ONGs” – the Republic of NGOS.

Whilst a lot of the work being done in Haiti is essential for basic recovery and survival of the affected population, some say the international community has done more harm than good with efforts driven by the needs of NGOs and donors rather the needs of Haitians. These circumstances have not encouraged the re-establishment of the social and political institutions necessary for long-term resilience but have heralded an era of entrenched dependency in a country already marred by underdevelopment. If we were to look at what is missing for the approach to recovery in Haiti, it is long-term strategic and development planning and the institutional and financial framework behind it that makes such planning possible.

Consistently the main difference between disaster response in developing countries against that of developed countries has been lack of management and capacity to organise. This year’s earthquake in Japan illustrates the speed at which clean up and reconstruction can take place with the appropriate strategic planning and financial and physical infrastructure. Japan is a unique case with the economic and financial means to produce a rapid clean up, but even with large-scale investment from the US and international community, Haiti was unable to do so. In addition, the stronger earthquake that took place in New Zealand the same year showed the life-saving difference good construction standards make in earthquake zones. Long-term reconstruction must address underlying vulnerability and focus on long-term resilience of communities – building skills and empowering communities rather than entrenching dependency on the aid community.

Article 25 is working in collaboration with partner Outreach International and local communities in Haiti to ensure that the best design and construction practice is applied to build culturally-appropriate, earthquake and hurricane resistant buildings that rely on locally available skills.  We have been on site since February 2011, and to date we have completed 4 projects and are currently in the process of searching out new sites for water & sanitation projects and funding for long-term school reconstruction.

“Never before has this world suffered so much economic loss due to natural disaster, most of which has been in Asia and the Pacific,” Sanjay Srivastava, UN regional adviser for disaster risk reduction, told IRIN in Bangkok.

Of the global US$270 billion of economic losses to natural disasters in 2011, 90 percent was in Asia, he said.

To read more click here