For the Haiti Challenge, the Architecture for Humanity team provided on-the-ground reports from Haiti.
At the start of 2010, very few people who didn’t live in South Florida paid much mind to Haiti – unless it was subject of some Hollywood misappropriation. But no one could ignore the earthquake, and the world scrambled to learn about this small Caribbean nation and how to help. Some folks in the States, however, already had deep insight into rebuilding in Haiti.
Schendy (pronounced “Sken-dee,” though he often goes by Schendiesel, Skerniman, or similar interpretations) Kernizan was a young Haitian American with a US architecture degree when he reached out to become the first field Design Fellow for the Haiti Rebuilding Center, and a regular correspondent for Students Rebuild. His fellowship concluded in 2011, and Schendy went back to the States – to Boston – to continue his architectural training. But his home never strayed far from his thoughts. Last year Schendy came back to Haiti with a new objective to work in a local Haitian architecture firm, share his wisdom and help improve the architectural industry.
I had the pleasure of catching up with Schendy last Saturday morning, (and lo, the Skype gods were gracious) and he shared everything from life in a Haitian architecture firm to his times as a student, news on Diandine and his survey and projections for Haiti’s recovery. Our conversation will be posted as a series.
Karl Johnson: First question. How’s it going?
Schendy Kernizan: It’s going–let’s hope it keeps going! (referring to Skype)
KJ: Yeah let’s hope. So. You’re back in Port-au-Prince.
SK: I’ve been back since June and I’m going to be back in Boston next month. So I’m trying to wrap things up before I leave again.
KJ: Had you always anticipated just doing a stint in Port-au-Prince and heading back?
SK: The plan was to come back to Haiti to devote my time to a local firm. Originally I had found a job, and when I got on the ground the first week there I was turning my thumbs and being bored, not doing any work – which I coulda done in the States if I wanted to.
I got in touch with Yves (François, upstairs neighbor of and longtime collaborator with the Rebuilding Center, principal of YCF Group SA) and said “Listen I’m in Haiti, looking to help out – what’s up, do you need any help?” And that’s how I got involved.
My brother last October says “hey I’m going to South Carolina for my Master’s, what do you want to do with the apartment?” I decided I needed to go back to Boston and make sure I didn’t lose the place.
Karl: You don’t have any cats do you?
SK: No…
KJ: Oh. That’s good. So at this first local firm – were they not doing any work, or was it not exciting work?
SK: They were waiting to get work, and that’s not the deal we had. When we first talked they had work, but when I got there it was put on hold. They weren’t sure when they would get the job. I wasn’t just going to sit around!
KJ: They were just waiting for that one job to come through?
SK: Yeah! I was like “what happens if you don’t get the job?” “Well, we’ll figure something out.” (Chuckles) I said, “well, I don’t want to do that so…”
KJ: It’s funny – with all the reconstruction going on, I figured there’s no shortage of jobs down there.
SK: They did drawings, but I think their main focus was supervision of construction. But they weren’t getting any work in that department. In Haiti, there’s a lot of work going on, but there are also a lot of businesses trying to get the work. There’s a lot of competition. A lot of times, if there’s one good firm, they might get most of the work. And of course, they might get overloaded as well.
KJ: (chuckling) So by contrast, how’s it been at YCF?
SK: It’s a different environment! When Yves was starting YCF they were starting a new architecture practice, something that Yves really wanted, to do design along with the construction. His background is as a contractor, build build build, so for him, this is a new experience. We’re getting a lot of work but we’re small only 4-5 bodies. It’s different from AFH where you have teams on projects – on YCF you have one person managing multiple designs.
KJ: Could you talk about a project or two that you’re working on?
SK: Well I have THREE right now 🙂 It was a blessing, I guess. There was an NGO, Islamic Relief Worldwide, Haiti, who came up with a plan to design and build five schools that they had already preselected. They shopped around to see who would do the work. Yves was awarded one of the schools. Eventually one became two, and then three. Those projects fell in my lap. I had to make it work. One of the schools was in Croix des Bouquets – a well-known school in the neighborhood and around Port-au-Prince: Lycée Jacques Premier.
It’s a big building, 15 classrooms, and had suffered some damages due to the earthquake.
After doing structural assessments we came up with a plan to reinforce the building without having to knock it down. Meaning we had to bring down the weight of the school. You know a lot of schools here have those concrete windows. We needed to take those out, and create a new design with metal shutters, more lightweight, secure, you can lock it up at the end of the day, but it’s also flexible: if there are an emergency and the door’s blocked you can open them up to get out through the window. We also wanted to take out any concrete partition walls and replace them with light-gauge steel. That became the philosophy behind this school. And creating this new entrance for it.
Now, we’re pretty much done with demolition. Next week we start building the reinforced sheer walls to make sure the building’s structurally safe, then adding ramps, new stairs and fabricating the windows. It’s been more of a cleanup situation this past week – removing debris and preparing for construction. We started in November and are trying to finish by April…if everything goes smoothly. We got written approval of the drawings from DGS (“Direction Génie Scolaire,” Education standards makers).
KJ: Yeah! Are those the same standards that came out in 2010 with recommendations for electricity in every bathroom?
SK: Right. They’re still not perfect, but we use those, we use the IBC code to make sure we have enough egress, ramps, etc., but work with DGS and explain why we made the design decisions we’ve made. Some rules are still confounding but it’s a process.
KJ: They must be busy approving drawings.
SK: Well we made the right move by organizing initial meetings with them in July and keeping them in the loop; through the whole design process. They’re always aware of our progress and projecting when to hold future meetings. It took two days to get approval for all three schools.
KJ: So, from what I’ve understood about working in Haiti, contractors weren’t accustomed to the bid/tender process as we know it in North America. How much of this is new infrastructure since the earthquake, and has there been a nationwide adjustment period?
SK: The bid process is not THAT new. The thing is: a lot of people send out drawings to bid, and most of the time contractors don’t review the drawings – they assess the program, and throw a number at that. Yves will tell you that all the time, and with the NGO we’re working with Yves made a point to say “this is what usually happens, and we should come up with a plan so we don’t fall into that hole.”
When we send out the tender package, instead of providing the square footage for a classroom we let the contractor deduce it, and kept our numbers to ourselves, to see if they did the calculations, and/or how far off they are, to see if they actually reviewed the drawings.
We had a walk through with 14 contractors a week ago for the other two schools. Some of their questions told us that they’d looked at the drawings and paid attention. We took down the questions and recently sent them answers.
