PLAYPUMPS: HOW THEY WORK

While children have fun spinning on the PlayPump merry-go-round (see 1 in the diagram), clean water is pumped (2) from underground (3) into a 2,500-liter tank (4), standing seven meters above the ground.

A simple tap (5) makes it easy for adults and children to draw water. Excess water is diverted from the storage tank back down into the borehole (6).

The water storage tank (7) provides a rare opportunity to advertise in outlaying communities. All four sides of the tank are leased as billboards, with two sides for consumer advertising and the other two sides for health and educational messages. The revenue generated by this unique model pays for pump maintenance.

The design of the PlayPump water system makes it highly effective, easy to operate and very economical, keeping costs and maintenance to an absolute minimum. The pump is capable of producing up to 1,400 liters of water per hour.

Benefits of the PlayPump Water System

Access to clean drinking water is the critical first step for addressing a wide range of health, education, gender and economic issues. With access, children and their families live longer, healthier lives.

While the health benefits of a clean water supply are critical, other benefits flow from the PlayPump water system as well:

• Children play and stay in school instead of hauling water. While they are having fun, children are learning self-confidence and interpersonal skills. Play stimulates bodies and minds.
  
• Women benefit too, as they no longer risk injury from transporting heavy containers of water over great distances, and they can use the time saved to better care for their children and start small enterprises that bring additional food and income to their families.
  
• Public health messages on PlayPump billboards promote healthy behaviors that limit the spread of HIV/AIDS in rural Africa. Also, in order for HIV infected people to remain healthy as long as possible, adequate water supplies and sanitary facilities are of the utmost importance. Clean water is needed to take medication.
  

In addition to helping to provide access to clean water, the PlayPump water system is uniquely sustainable and creates economic benefits.

The 2,500-liter water tank provides a rare advertising opportunity in rural communities. On each PlayPump storage tank, Roundabout Outdoor leases two sides of the raised storage tank for consumer advertising and leases the other two sides for public health messaging.

ENGINEERS WITHOUTH BORDERS: PlayPump International

The PlayPump systems are innovative, sustainable, patented water pumps powered by children at play. Installed near schools, the PlayPump system doubles as a water pump and a merry-go-round for children. The PlayPump system also provides one of the only ways to reach rural and urban communities with potentially life saving public health message.

THE MISSION
Operating with a slogan of “Kids Play, Water Pumps”, PlayPumps International’s mission is help improve the lives of children and their families by providing easy access to clean drinking water, enhancing public health, and offering play equipment to millions across Africa. PlayPumps International is a Nongovernmental Organization (NGO) registered in South Africa and a sister of three NGOs in the United States. PlayPumps intend to carry out their mission by installing 4,000 PlayPump water systems in 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa by 2010. This will bring the benefits of clean water to up to 10 million people. More than 1000 PlayPump systems have already been donated to communities in South Africa, Swaziland, Mozambique, and Zambia.

CONTRIBUTORS
There are more than 700 PlayPumps in sub-Saharan Africa, providing clean drinking water to more than one million impoverished people. On September 20, 2006, at the Clinton Global Initiative, First Lady Laura Bush announced a $16.4 million public-private partnership to install more PlayPumps – the beginning of an effort to reach the goal of 4,000 pumps by 2010 to provide water to 10 million Africans. The announcement includes $10 million from the U.S. government, $5 million from the Case Foundation, and $1.4 million from the MCJ Foundation.

THE CREATOR
In 1989, South African advertising executive Trevor Field wasn’t looking to start a charity. One day, during a visit to an agricultural fair outside of Johannesburg, he stumbled across a curious invention; an irrigation system powered by a merry-go-round. As children ran to spin it, they powered a pump that pulled gallon after gallon of water from the ground. He already knew that about as many people die from bad water in South Africa as from HIV or malaria, and most who do are under the age of five.

Trevor Field figured that paying for such a pumping system would be a snap because he could convince a company to slap an ad on the side of the tank. Today 18 years later, Field’s accidental advocacy campaign called PlayPumps has swelled into an international aid organization with offices on both sides of the Atlantic. It has built more than 900 such water systems at a cost of $14,000 each, serving roughly 2 million people in four countries.

Trevor Field’s bright idea to create funding for the PlayPumps is to sell advertising spaces on the PlayPump tower. This is expected generate a lot of money that will be donated for the construction of the PlayPumps.

CONSTRUCTS: INNOVATIVE APPROACH TO URBAN PLANNING

(The graphic above depicts a unique design by Constructs, an architectural firm with projects in USA and Africa, for the Make it Right Project in New Orleans)

“Constructs is a company that synergizes architecture, urban planning, landscaping, and building technology into a single unit geared towards bringing modern architecture and building techniques to Africa.” Joe Addo is currently the CEO of Constructs. He was born in Ghana, West Africa and moved to London to study architecture. Joe is also the founder of the A + D Museum in Los Angeles. The museum’s mission is to advance knowledge and to allow people to appreciate and understand architecture and design.

Constructs materials are unique and their approach to utilizing these resources is uncommon. They use the newest lightweight and high-strength materials. While building a structure that is designed to last, Construct’s advanced building techniques help to keep down the cost of construction.

Urban planning and outdoor spaces are the vital for the social life of a city, connecting the various people and structures of the contemporary urbanscapes together to create sensible living spaces and social networks.

Urban Planning is one of the primary conceptual toolkit employed by Constructs. The company and its founder have created the Organization for Urban Improvement (OUI) which is solely devoted to the development of functional, innovative, and exciting urban areas.

Urban Initiative Manifesto

Over the past few decades, many urban areas have suffered neglect and have increased in poverty. There is growing lack of confidence in schools, a greater fear of crime, an unhealthy environment, and poor housing. One of the key political challenges of the new century is to make towns and cities not just fit to live in, but to be able to thrive in an evolving future. A lot of people find it hard to maintain their successful lifestyles when faced with rapid changes.
This renaissance of cities such as Barcelona has been achieved through a philosophy of Urban Planning. The success of this philosophy derives from studies performed all over the world.

Two examples of the Urban Planning Manifesto at work, in two very different geographical settings are:

1. Watts Façade Improvement
   


2. Kumasi Façade Improvement
   

For more on these two urban planning initiatives of Constructs – one is an inner city area of Los Angeles in USA and the other in the second largest city in Ghana, Africa – visit the blog entry entitled “California and Ghana: Urban Planning Initiatives by Constructs.”

CALIFORNIA & GHANA: URBAN PLANNING INITIATIVES BY CONSTRUCTS

Watts Façade Improvement


The statement “Watts is LA” is to remind the city, region, nation and world that Watts is not an isolated island but an integral part of the cultural, intellectual, and economic fabric of Los Angeles. Watts, the inner city African-American neighborhood, shot to national prominence when six days of intense rioting over perceived police racism destroyed much of this area of Los Angeles.

The project by Constructs will be focused on Central Avenue, an urban artery that stretches for over 15 miles. It is the heart of the area known as Carson, and it is also known for its historical significance. As you pass through various neighborhoods, the character and qualities of Central Avenue are constantly changing.

The improvement objectives are:

• Revitalization of the business district

• Strong sense of shopping identity

• Streetscape for the commercial façade

• Upgrade the appearance of entrance to this area

• Improve the quality of its physical environment

The following Design Objectives capture the aesthetic goals of the urban situation:

1. Unified Rhythm - visual pleasure

2. Street Rhythm - existing structural line

3. Scale - adjusting the size

4. Horizontal and Vertical Harmony - to create a human scale.


Kumasi Façade Improvement


The form and layout of towns and cities is more than a backdrop for the urban life. The way in which we design buildings, neighborhoods and districts has a direct impact on the urban experience. These in turn impact upon the urban form by promoting more compact, mixed and integrated neighborhoods.
Kumasi is the second largest city in Ghana, in West Africa. It has a rich Asante culture. All the early European visitors to the area noted the distinct Asante architectural style.

In the urban development project for Kumasi by Constructs, the main reconstruction is via the notion of “streetscaping” because people respond to beauty in cities. They choose to walk from one destination to another along favored routes. Constructs finds that that the areas showing signs of wear and tear or neglect can often be repaired with modest investments in landscaping, lighting and street furniture.

Streetscaping solutions in Kumasi will include:

1. Royal Palms at 20-meter intervals and other lower height trees in between to address the human scale.

2. New bus shelters.

3. Street furniture, garbage bins and kiosks.

4. Ground Entry markers

5. Banners and Signage

Joe Addo, CEO of constructs, believes that decentralization may be necessary to relieve the city from its pressure of congestion in the central areas. In short term, beautification using local materials, services of unemployed youth, ideas from design professionals and schools are expected to revitalize this great city and bring fresh enthusiasm to its residents.

A Sampling of MRVDV Projects

“The Hungry Box”




The image of the Brabant Library project in the Netherlands designed by MVRDV in 2000 can be seen at “The Hungry Box”. This is an exhibition of the utopian works designed by the Dutch architecture group.

The exhibition “The Hungry Box” is a display of 10 MVRDV projects designed between 1997 and 2007. These designs highlight the characteristically Dutch theme. Their projects aim to maximize density by seemingly swallowing endless interiors.

When it comes to the design sensibilities of the Dutch radical architects MVRDV, turning conventional architecture on its head takes on a whole new literal sense. A good example would be the famous “Mirador” that was built in Madrid, Spain.

MIRADOR





At the frontline of a more ecologically conscious generation, MVRDV seeks to create a more fluid relationship between indoors and outdoors, inhabitants and nature. For that purpose, light and the surrounding landscape are incorporated in the design.

MVRDV have a utopian quality even though critics would be tempted to slam some of their plans. Their urban vision is best reflected in their KM3/3D city project. “Presented in the late 1990s, KM3/3D is a proposal for a global urban grid with cities sitting in 5-kilometer-sided cubes, each 100 kilometers apart, leaving the natural surroundings untouched.”



Visitors to the Benaki exhibition, which was organized by the Netherlands Architecture Institute, can examine the “Hungry Box”.

MVRDV – Lifting Houses

MVRDV was invited by Make It Right (MIR) to design prototype houses as part of revitalizing the Katrina-devastated neighborhood. MVRDV developed 5 escape houses which are all lifted in different ways. The most striking design is shown below.

MVRDV is a Rotterdam, the Netherlands-based architecture and urban design practice founded in 1991. The name is an acronym for the founding members: Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries. MVRDV produces designs in the fields of architecture, urbanism and landscape. MVRDV has extensive experience in collaborative design processes. Such collaborative design processes are used in virtually all projects by MRVDV.

MRVDV was picked by the Pink Project because of their fascinating designs and the firm’s methodical research on density. “They use a method of shaping space through complex amounts of data that accompany contemporary building and design processes.”
The products of this approach range from buildings of all types and sizes, to urban designs, to publications and installations. One of their major projects includes the Dutch Pavilion for the World EXPO 2000 in Hannover. This became an innovative business park.



MRVDV’s mission statement for a project incorporates the ideas of their clients and specialists. The clients are intensively involved at an early stage of the design process. The client’s reaction can create a high degree of support for the design or encourage new insights that can lead to specific innovative solutions. The products of such an approach can vary completely from the original ideas that the architects may start with.

MVRDV is not just about style. It is about the future of architecture at large. The firm therefore encourages in a wide range of projects such as exhibitions, films and books.

MVRDV’s approach to architecture often takes the form of a research endeavor. They often work with 'datascapes'. These refer to “a method that involves charting the spatial consequences of all the visible and invisible factors that play a role in the design and construction process.” A few examples are building regulations, technical requirements and legislation.

GRAFT Projects

GRAFT Projects

Brad Pitts Studio

This studio was remodeled to incorporate Brad Pitt’s interest for multicultural references and the necessity to accommodate a hybrid lifestyle. They designed it so that living and working would be in the same. They created an environment that was flexible between professional and private life.

Graft used a contemporary fusion of traditional Japanese and European proportional systems. The house also incorporated with Chigaidana. This is a sort of cupboards, and is often the only bit of real furniture in the usual Japanese room.

KU 64



The typical environment of any dentist office makes you feel crammed and some say it puts you in a psychic state. Most people would agree that going to the dentist is not on their favorite things to do list. Graft came together with Stephan Ziegler, owner of KU 64, to design a new radical understanding of hospitals and well being and relaxation.

The incredible design makes you feel like you're in an A-list member’s club. This unique design is certainly not the usual ambiance associated with dentist offices. They also created a spa center as the waiting area. It was designed to resemble and outside sun deck.

The model of dune landscape with hills and valleys gives the customers a preferred privacy. The floors and ceilings reflect as a similar shape so that it can create space. The cocoon like spaces are filled with light, creating an elegant sense of flow and space. It makes even a session of root canal seem inviting.

Their goal is to let patients forget about their fears and relax in a way they would usually expect from a spa. Their mission states, “Why not embellish the reality, that a dental clinic provides beauty, health and wellness?

HOTEL Q

They have designed a new super lifestyle hotel in Berlin, named 'Q'. This 5-star hotel earns a spot on “Conde Nast Traveller's” roundup of best hotels for its inventive and striking design.

Thomas, Lars, and Wolfram are the trio behind designing this unique room experience. For the first time in a hotel, walls are no longer just the boundaries of a room but actual pieces of furniture. Therefore, guests can change their interaction with furniture and architecture. Wolfram commented, “It is as if the room has been formed by movement. The rooms at “Q” convey energy, tranquility and inspiration and remind you of futuristic cocoons.”

Some customers have described their experience as “Sleeping with your eyes open.” This hotel is made to feel like you are in a home. Stay in exclusive rooms where beds and baths melt together like ocean waves. The natural materials convey warmth, vitality and inspiration.

Moonraker

Moonraker was an exhibition designed for Volkswagen as a marketing incentive. Volkswagen employed graft because of their expertise in commercial advertising. The purpose is management’s recent drive to better understand the US car market.
There were 4 major questions asked:

1. How will Americans live tomorrow?

2. What new technologies are changing the way we live?

3. How will taste cultures develop?

4. What are the future conditions of our daily life?

Graft suggests that the increasing paradigm shift of the relationship between living and working the idea of a home will be changed. People long for convenience as well as safety. New technologies will open allowing more people to interact with space and information.

Graft will design and build according to their knowledge retrieved from the four questions. They will construct stages that will transform into visual communication.

The concept of Moonmaker is to provide a tangible and engaging experience representing the needs and desires of future Volkswagen customers. The architectural showcase will present the automobiles as the “driving way”.

The execution of the system will concern “Life Settings”. These settings will forecast futuristic lifestyle themes and scenarios for the year 2020. These life settings consist of four built environments: user types, interests, competencies and aesthetics.

GRAFT: Innovative Elevated Design for Post-Katrina New Orleans

(Above is the design proposed by GRAFT for the Make It Right project. GRAFT will receive a $10,000 stipend with every house sold.)

A main challenge for the Make It Right (MIR) rebuilding project in the post-Katrina New Orleans was elevating the project houses five feet off the ground. This was problematic because a “Life Safety Standard” limited construction costs and emphasized the importance of preserving the region's “traditional resemblance between porch and street.”

GRAFT, a full service architectural firm located in three global cities, Los Angeles, Berlin, and Beijing, took up the MIR design challenge. GRAFT had been the architectural firm that redesigned actor Brad Pitt’s Hollywood home. When Brad Pitt launched the MIR initiative to help Katrina victims in New Orleans, he persuaded to join the MIR panel of architectural firms.

GRAFT was established in 1998 in Los Angeles, California by Lars Krückeberg and Wolfram Putz. Thomas Willemeit joined the firm in 2001 and opened an office in Berlin, Germany the same year. In 2005, Gregor Hoheisel, who had been partner in Los Angeles in 2000 to 2001, became Partner of GRAFT Beijing, founded in 2001. In 2007, Alejandra Lillo became partner for GRAFT LA.

GRAFT designs and manages a wide range of projects in multiple disciplines and locations. They are known for their Urban Planning, Exhibition Design, and Music techniques. Their professional experience covers a wide variety of building types in Arts, Education, Institutional, Commercial and Residential sectors.

“GRAFT has always maintained an interest in crossing the boundaries between disciplines and "grafting" the creative potentials and methodologies of different realities.” Grafting is the joining of two separate structures, such as two stems. This is reflected in the firm's expansion into the fields of music, car design, art installations, academic projects, web design and "eventings". They view architecture as a means for crossing cultures and disciplines.

We live in a world with increasing needs for flexibility and major transformations. This firm has been awarded numerous awards in Europe as well as in the United States for contributing to major transformations in arts, design, and construction. In New Orleans, Graft hopes that its design will add aesthetics as well as safety to the new constructions in the flood-ravaged Lower Ninth Ward.

Inno-Native Home Architecture from Africa

Joe Addo, CEO of Constructs – an innovative architectural firm in Ghana in West Africa, designed a home that would come to be a test for him and his wife as a new couple. He says that every relationship is like a building: you have to start from the bottom up.

Joe Osae-Addo was born in Ghana, West Africa, and trained at the Architectural Association in London. He worked in Finland, the UK and the USA and had an architectural practice in Los Angeles in 1991. Addo’s work is guided by the ‘genus-loci’ idea, the architectural philosophy term coined by Christian Norberg-Schulz and that translates as “sense of place” or “spirit of place”. Architecture based on the genus-loci idea should respond to site specific elements and meet the needs of people who will interact with it. Addo moved back to Ghana in 2004 and is currently the CEO of Constructs LLC, an inno-native design firm based in Accra and Tamale in Ghana, West Africa.

Combining the terms “innovative” and “native”, the “inno-native” architecture of the projects undertaken by Constructs pay special attention to what is important to local communities and how site, climate, materials, and weather interact to create designs and architectures that are suited to native conditions of the project.


Addo’s residence was built on family land in his hometown of Accra, Ghana. The stylish and eco-friendly home is perfect for the new couple because they were both born there. Incorporating the eco-friendly atmosphere Joe decided to harness nature’s elements. The trees, wind, sun, and water were used to create harmony.




























The architect was determined to build with the materials found primarily in rural areas: timber and adobe mud blocks. “Adobe mud block doesn’t exist in cities in Ghana, which meant I had to create it,” says Addo. Even though the house is on the grid, solar panels provide backup power for lighting and heating water, and deep timber overhangs to provide shade.

Joe Addo wanted a “no air-conditioning” philosophy. His wife didn’t agree seeing that temperatures could reach around the 90 degrees Fahrenheit. By raising the structure three feet off the ground on a wooden deck, they could take advantage of cooling under-floor breezes. “For cross ventilation, the house has sliding slatted-wood screens that neighbors thought were crazy in the damp, hot climate, and floor-to-ceiling jalousie windows.”

The Addo residence “features a timber framed wall & roof structure with non-bearing adobe blocks which reduce total construction costs by 50% compared to a similarly specified concrete structure.” He recruited workers from Ghana that did not have much experience in his unique design methods. The purpose is to help people in Ghana increase their knowledge of new and locally adaptive architectural methods.

Firms like Constructs and “inno-native” architects like Joe Addo are building the foundations for improving the habitats and living conditions of the billions of citizens of developing nations.

The Pink Concept

“The Pink Project” is the specific proposal led by actor Brad Pitt and Make It Right. This aim of this project is to bring the world’s attention to the devastation from Hurricane Katrina. But the main focus is not on the destruction; rather it is on the renovation effort that the “Pink Project” is bringing to the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans.

The “pink” buildings are Pitt’s way of communicating to American citizens worldwide, to help rebuild the neighborhood in the Lower 9th Ward. The plans are to raise $150,000 per home for 150 homes, totaling a price tag of $22,500,000. Anyone interested in donating to the project can do so on the website by sponsoring a whole house or smaller aspects that result in the final completion.

Each pink building is constructed of a large framework. Specifically, each building is made up of four modular pieces. These four modular pieces make moving and assembly much more efficient and timely. Over a period of six weeks, the 150 buildings will be placed in their designated locations until all the donations have been completed.

Previously, Pitt sponsored an architecture competition organized by Global Green with the goal of generating ideas on how to rebuild sustainability. Several of those designs are currently under construction in the Lower 9th Ward.

Make It Right assembled a team of fourteen local, national and international architecture firms. The four main guiding principles for the designs are:

1) Safety
2) Affordability
3) Sustainability
4) High design quality

The International Firms include:

• Adjaye Architects – London, England
• Constructs – Accra, Ghana
• Graft – Berlin, Germany
• MVRDV – Rotterdam, Holland
• Shigeru Ban Architects – Tokyo, Japan

The Make It Right Project: Lower 9th Ward

Hurricane Katrina was the costliest and one of the five deadliest hurricanes in the history of the United States. The most severe loss of life and property damage occurred in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. “Levee breaches created floodwaters that tore houses off their foundations, threw houses on top of cars, and left the entire community homeless.”

Brad Pitt targeted this location not only because of the severe damage but because it was one of the richest cultural communities in the country. Make It Right wants to rehabilitate the community and bring the history back to its roots.

Even through all the efforts of rebuilding the Lower 9th Ward, crime is still a major concern. Some residents asked the architects if bars would protect the houses’ windows, or if the architects could position windows high off the ground and locate bedrooms away from exterior walls. They are in the process of discussing and addressing these concerns.

There are several community groups that have joined together to rebuild the community. Some include: New Life Intracoastal Community Development Corporation, Common Ground Relief and All Congregations Together (A.C.T.).

The Make It Right core team assembled by Pitt includes experts such as William McDonough, a world leader in environmental architecture. Cherokee Gives Back Foundation, a firm that specializes is redevelopment is also involved in the project. A third company involved is Graft, an international leading architecture firm.

A Vision is more than a Mission

The intention of a genuine mission statement is to keep members and users aware of the organization's present business purpose. A strategic vision shows the route an organization intends to take in developing and strengthening their business and surroundings. It also outlines the destination for the organization’s actions and provides a rationale for going there.

“Improving conditions and addressing the global housing crisis should be a high priority for national governments and international donors, but, for reasons that are not clear, it is not. In many countries around the world, opportunities to achieve economic, social, and civic development goals through housing-related initiatives are being missed.” (World Urban Forum)
There are many organizations dedicated to these causes. A leader is Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI), a nonprofit housing organization. HFHI seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world, and to make shelter a priority.

Habitat for Humanity has shown that building homes does more than simply putting a roof over someone’s head. In clean, decent, stable housing:

· Families can provide stability for their children
· A family’s sense of dignity and pride grow
· Health, physical safety, and security improve
· Educational and job prospects increase

The main focus of Habitat for Humanity is to decrease poverty by increasing the housing supply across the globe. Sufficient housing is vitally important to health of the world’s economies and communities. “The United Nations projects that by the year 2030 an additional 3 billion people, about 40 percent of the world’s population, will need access to housing.” Their mission is to prevent this dramatic escalation of the housing crisis. If the international agencies want to succeed in the fight against poverty, then the expansion of housing has to become a priority.

Engineers Without Borders International assist collaboration among its members toward improving the quality of life of the disadvantaged communities. Furthermore, the executions of sustainable engineering projects, contribute to the experience of engineers, and to the education of students. Their vision is to be recognized and respected as an international organization whose members deliver stable solutions to developing communities worldwide and make use of their diverse technical expertise to solve critical problems affecting the health of our planet. One advocate said, “We see a world where ALL people have access to the knowledge and resources with which to meet their basic human needs and rise out of poverty.”

Engineers Without Borders International advocates strong values and underscores the participating engineers’ beliefs in their international vision. They believe that if change starts now, it can interrupt and even reverse the cycle of poverty. Their partnerships with other organizations are important for development. Members and partners have to be willing to assist in building toward a more equitable and sustainable world. Sustainable projects allow the capacity for people to solve their own problems.

Education is a valuable asset in Engineers Without Borders International. It develops a new generation of engineers, who will benefit from seeing the many components of engineering solutions as well as problems in developing communities.

Yet another organization devoted to sustainable and social building is Make It Right. In December 2006, Brad Pitt organized a group of experts in New Orleans to brainstorm about building green affordable housing to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. Pitt realized that an opportunity existed to build houses that were not only stronger and healthier, but that had less of a negative effect on the environment.

After discussing the obstacles associated with rebuilding the devastated area, the group determined that the project would be focused on green affordable housing while incorporating innovative designs. The group settled on the goal of constructing 150 homes in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. This area was one of the most devastated areas of New Orleans. Pitt hopes that this project would become a catalyst for recovery and redevelopment throughout the Lower 9th Ward and across the city of New Orleans.

Pitt said, “Having listened to one former resident's plea to help "make this right," I was inspired to name the project "Make It Right" (MIR).

Welcome to the "Building on Dreams" blog

The typical b-school student is instrumental, driven by concerns of job and money. It is not that Ana Alves, the creator of this blog, has anything against money. In fact, someday she may become an entrepreneur with tons of money.

What is distinctive about Ana's approach to business is the desire to see how personal goals and skills, in her case the desire to be globally minded and to employ her skills in building and construction, can be matched to her social goal of assisting those who need such skills -- in various parts of the world.

The needs for building skills arise in various settings -- reconstruction after natural disasters, building habitats for those lacking good housing, and constructing simple infrastructures to help communities. Ana explores all these settings.

In this blog, Ana Alves and her associates explore the worldwide trends in socially oriented building and architectural activities.

We hope that as the blog builds, one posting at a time, so does the world of needed housing and infrastructure, one nail at a time.

Nik Dholakia, Ph.D.
Professor
College of Business Administration
University of Rhode Island