planning and design for sustainable communities

by Gertrudes Samson

Who else can best convince people to practice solid waste management than people from their own community who practice it themselves and could prove that it is possible? TAO-Pilipinas is currently assisting the St. Hannibal Empowerment Center (SHEC) and its assisted organization in Pasay City called the St. Hannibal Christian Communities (SHaCC) on solid waste management (SWM) by training people from the community to become trainors themselves.

On April 11 to 12, 2008, the community trainors trained by TAO-Pilipinas held a two-day SWM Training Workshop at the SHEC office in E. Cornejo St., Pasay City to orient the second batch of 85 SHaCC members on the importance of solid waste management and how they could implement it in their community.

SHaCC is the second community to have undergone trainor’s training on solid waste management. The first was the Samahan ng Nagkakaisang Maralita ng Navotas (SANAGMANA), a community in a fish pond area in Tanza, Navotas. Like SHaCC, SANAGMANA community members were also trained in solid waste management. A month after the training, TAO-Pilipinas visited the workshop participants to see if they put into practice what they learned. Among those who practiced, potential speakers were selected for trainor’s training. They conducted the succeeding orientations in their community and then later served as resource speakers for the first workshop in SHaCC in Pasay in April 2007.

The successful result of the first workshop inspired SHaCC to seek the assistance of TAO-Pilipinas to help them build their own team of resource speakers, who then led the second SWM workshop in April 2008. Continue reading →

An Australian volunteer in Manila

by Maggie Lee

I came to Manila, and specifically to TAO-Pilipinas and the Institutional Network for Social Action (INSA), to learn about the community development process and to witness how these two incredible organizations worked with informal settlement communities to help them improve their quality of life.

“I came to the Philippines knowing the country well in theory only…so, I stayed eight months in Manila watching theory come to life”

I am a masteral student, with a focus on environmental and social issues in cities in developing countries. I came to the Philippines knowing the country well in theory only, having chosen to focus on the Philippines and its housing policies as part of my masteral studies. So, I stayed eight months in Manila watching theory come to life. Unlike many other international volunteer placements which are organized through an agency, my placement was self organized, partly through an association with my home university Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) and Miriam College. The advantage of taking this path was that I was able to create my own experience, by approaching organizations that interested me, and who would give me the experience and knowledge that I was seeking.

Shaping my own volunteer experience had its advantages—I didn’t have a fixed role or duties, so in a sense, I was free to do what I pleased. And its disadvantages—as an international volunteer with a limited command of Filipino, there was only so much I could do, and had to continually rely on using my initiative to look for and create work. During my time I visited several different communities in Metro Manila, attended community consultation meetings, built relationships with the community members, performed research and helped my organizations where I could. This ad hoc approach has blessed me with a kaleidoscope of experiences.

My reflection, I feel is best seen through the lenses I wore throughout my Philippine experience: Intern, Researcher and Observer-Learner. Continue reading →

by Arlene Lusterio

Taiwan is located north of the Philippines and is the recipient of many typhoons that leave the country. It is also sandwiched between the Luzon-Philippine and Euro-Asia tectonic plates. Taiwan is exposed to four out of five natural hazards: typhoon, flood, earthquake and debris flow. Some of the worst disasters that have hit Taiwan are the Chi-Chi Earthquake on September 21, 1999 which had a magnitude of 7.3; the flooding due to Typhoon Nari in 2001 which shut down subway systems and the function of the whole city of Taipei; and debris flow in Central Taiwan in 2004.

The Taiwanese have strived to learn from these disasters. For example, the damage done by the 1999 earthquake has been preserved in the Earthquake Museum (left photo) in Tai Chung City. The actual ruins of a school housed in the museum show how buildings respond to seismic forces. Findings from research on the ruins of the earthquake have served as guides in structural designs of buildings after 1999.

An Emergency Operations Center was also established in each city to respond to emergency situations and serve as a hub for emergency operations. For example, Taipei has an Emegency Operations Center (EOC) housed in a building built just for disaster response, which can withstand an intensity 7 earthquake. It uses top of line technology and real time monitoring of emergency situations with support from scientists and technical experts from the National Taiwan University. It has a conference room where experts can meet in times of disaster and a special room for the commander or the county mayor. It has a 24-hour monitoring system, and disaster response can be initiated with back up power supply. They even have sleeping quarters so the emergency operations staff can work in shifts. Continue reading →

Handbook on Good Building Design and Construction: Aceh and Nias Islands

Published by the UNDP Regional Center in Bangkok and The Secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction available at TAO Resource Center or download at UNISDR

This handbook is a simple guide on proper design and construction of houses that provides basic but important information on how to make a disaster resilient house. The best thing about this handbook is that photos were given as examples of good and bad building design and construction methods. All the photographs that were used for this handbook were taken during the reconstruction of Aceh and Nias Islands. These islands were greatly devastated by the great tsunami and earthquake of December 2006.

The content of the handbook can easily be understood by home owners, designers, and builders. It is divided into two parts namely, the design principles and construction and materials principles. This handbook is short and contains more photos than text so readers will not get bored reading it. It even has a house building checklist that the readers can use to assess their house. Over-all, this handbook is very useful to people with no technical background but would like to know more about good building design and construction which they can apply at their own houses.

Compiled by Angel Sales

Year 2007 was a time of extremes for meteorologists. Several extreme weather events occurred in various parts of the world. According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the global land surface temperatures for January and April in 2007 were the hottest since recording began in 1880. An increase of up to more than 1 degree Celsius was recorded last year. From heat waves to flooding, here are some of the extreme weather events:

Wettest summer in Britain causes massive flooding
Month occurred: May to July
Damage assessment: 3 billion pounds worth of damages
50,000 people without power supply
140,000 homes without potable drinking water
Extreme condition: More than 200 percent increase in the average recorded rainfall in some areas of Britain Continue reading →

A graduating architecture student learns a different way to design

by Ownery Diala

It is really true that life outside school is very different. When I worked with TAO-Pilipinas as an intern, I was assigned to design a chapel for the Samahan ng Nagkakaisang Maralita ng Navotas (SANAGMANA) relocation area in Tanza, Navotas. And as one of the requirements, I was instructed to facilitate community workshops to know the residents’ preferences and ideas. I was excited and at the same time nervous because I had never facilitated a workshop before.

The design process used in the workshop, which is called participatory planning, is far different from the one that is taught in academic training. Participatory planning involves a lot of people―the architects, engineers, and the community members. Many minds are involved to solve a problem. The plan itself will come from the owners of the project―the community members―and with an acceptable design outcome, there is a sense of ownership because their ideas are integrated in the design. Continue reading →

What the slums can teach us about green design

by Benjamin de la Pena

We think squatter colonies are just about the least green places on earth. They are often dirty, rank places, that (at least in our imaginations) are rife with diseases. And yet, people who live in squatter colonies have the smallest ecological footprint of any population in our rapidly urbanizing earth.

In the sanitized environment modern technology has given us, we have learned to forget that we actually live in the closed ecosystem of a single planet. We are separated from our consumption and our effects. We are deluded and we do not realize that what we do, what we consume, what we throw away affects the whole ecosystem and that we use up finite resources or bring toxic waste into the environment.

Though I do not wish to condemn anyone to live in or to continue to live in the squalor of slums, there are a few lessons we could learn from the squatters about the principles of green design:

1. Keep your s**t. Slum areas do not have sewer systems, or septic tanks. In many places, raw sewage flows down the middle of informal streets and gathers in pools so that everyone can benefit from the aroma and partake of the diseases.Why? Because most of us live with dotted lines to our ecological system. We flush the toilet and we don’t know where our waste goes. (Most likely to septic tanks that leach into our aquifers or to gravity sewer systems that just lead to outfalls into our rivers, lakes or seas.) Our sanitation systems separate us from the damage we do to our environment.Green design will take away those dotted lines, give us direct feedback (so we know where our s**t goes) and give us a closed loop system. Continue reading →

What to consider in developing seaside settlements

Architects, engineers and planners should take scientific data and practical information on water-related natural phenomena (tides, wave action, typhoons, storm surges, tsunamis) into consideration when developing settlement areas, according to Dr. Laura David, Deputy Director for Instruction of the University of the Philippines Marine Science Institute. She emphasizes that the Philippines is an island country where land is not limitless and 67 percent of Filipinos live close to the seas and ocean, and that consequently, these have implications on how we develop our built environment. Dr. David presents the following practical guidelines for designers, planners and developers:

• Tides are actually related to earth’s distance from the sun and moon. This means that when doing site assessment, the best time to visit a site is during a full moon in the period between the late December to early January because the tides are at its highest level.(January is the month when the sun is closest to the earth.) One can see the effects of tide especially in coastal areas at full moon.
• Wave action creates areas of embayment and protrusion in coastal land forms. It is considered better to locate a building site at the area of protrusion since embayment areas are constantly eroded by wave action. Continue reading →

Essential references in solid waste management

THE GARBAGE BOOK:
SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT IN METRO MANILA
PUBLISHED BY THE ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK IN 2004 (96 PAGES).
AVAILABLE IN THE ADB PUBLICATION INFORMATION CENTER, 6 ADB AVENUE, MANDALUYONG CITY 1550, PHILIPPINES. CONTACT THEM AT +632 6325894.

This coffee-table book illustrates the gravity of the solid waste problem of Metro Manila through an eye-catching layout with compelling photos and imaginative collages. Statistics are presented in creative ways; for example the volume of waste that Metro Manila will generate over the next 30 years is shown as a “…line of waste trucks going three times round the earth and over halfway to the moon.” This book is a tool for understanding, as well as a reminder of the urgent need for change in the system of solid waste management in Metro Manila. Continue reading →

*prices (except for glass) are based on the Philippine Business for the Environment’s Waste Market on April 2007

PAPER

About 12 percent of Metro Manila’s solid waste is paper. Unlike metal or glass, paper can only be recycled five to seven times before the wood fibers become too short and brittle to be made into new paper. Some types are harder to recycle than others. Papers that are waxed, pasted, gummed, or coated with plastic or aluminum foil are usually not recycled because the process is too expensive. Continue reading →