Reinventing Haiti: Recycling for the Future

Pedro Évora *

This week the future of Haiti will be reviewed under the auspices of the United Nations. Described as a ‘donor conference’, the forum will bring together the principle donor countries involved in reconstruction efforts for the quake-ravaged country, including Brazil, alongside the United States and the European Union.

There is much at stake. What is up for grabs is nothing less than billions of dollars in investment toward the reconstruction of Port-au-Prince alongside with long-term investment strategies for the entire Haitian territory.

As an architect, I traveled to Port-au-Prince on 30 January just two weeks after the earthquake in order to work on emergency projects with the UN Stabilization Mission of Haiti, or MINUSTAH. The fragility of the situation was inescapable, right down to the very floorboards I trod upon. Virtually every man-made physical structure was destroyed, including infrastructure, the principle buildings, its public institutions and many of the city’s symbols.

The current situation is one of radical circumstances. There is a near total absence of infrastructure and networks for energy, water, sewage, transportation and basic foodstuffs. There are no ports, markets, productive sector or services to speak of.

The school and public health systems, already weak, practically vanished. There are few institutions able to develop a coherent reconstruction project. And the future looks challenging: this is a country with depleted natural resources, exposed to hurricanes, rains and still more earthquakes.

The international community and the United Nations must pull out their checkbooks and potentially suspend wider ideological clashes in post-disaster Haiti. They should treat this as a humanitarian crisis. But they could also see this moment as an opportunity to demonstrate wider potential for mobilisation, transformation and expressions of solidarity.

One word that perhaps best defines this moment is “reinvention”. We would do well to support reinvention of and departure from existing patterns of urbanisation and organisation up to now around the world.

The earthquake generated a crisis of habitat for hundreds of thousands of homesteads. In Haiti, the problem of housing requires a new approach. Any investment in new solutions should account for the following three factors: they should draw on advanced technologies suited to environmental needs on the ground; they should be easily and cost-effectively reproduced industrially; and they should be culturally appropriate and mobilised by Haitians themselves.

There is already a lively debate underway on possible habitat solutions. But the debate on city spaces and urban planning remains just that – a debate. There is a need to articulate alternative visions, but also to transform these exciting words into real deeds.

In addition to addressing the extreme infrastructure fragility in central areas, there is widespread consensus on the need to promote wider decentralisation of city residents to the country-side. Some hypothesise that effort to decrease the urban density is key to establishing an alternative relationship between Haitians and the occupation of land,  Inevitably, this will also require increased spending and the creation of new networks of connectivity in to support new productive nodes.

The challenge will be to balance urban density at the centre and periphery while simultaneously preserving more fundamental symbolic features of society, While many of these very symbols may be hidden under the debris and wreckage,  there is a possibility of promoting new relationships between people and the land.

The downtown areas of the capital were without doubt the worse affected. Central neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince were reduced to rubble. Their reconstruction will require in the first instance a massive clean-up strategy, the identification of empty land and the generation of projects that will better service each are than in the past.

What is more, Haiti could be transformed into an expression of wholesale recycling. This process would occur not just in relation to wider aspects of urban renewal, but also in relation to the waste and wreckage accumulated in the streets.

In fact, “debris” itself could be re-cast as the primary material fueling the country’s reconstruction. Instead of being discarded once again, it could be transformed into material for landfills, the containment of precarious slopes, the ingredients of masonry and into concrete to rebuild anew. Also, plastic, like PET bottles and bags, could be transformed into panels and roofing for homes.

It is possible also to extend the recycling concept into organic waste. For example, the primary source of cooking fuel in Haiti is carbon, energy that is in short supply. It would be possible instead to collect human waste and sewage and subsequently transformed into natural gas through biodigester tanks. Meanwhile, rain water could be collected using communal cisterns to support home gardens, but also for wider city and regional consumption.

In Haiti there is still no building code to guide construction. In some cases, these codes have yet to be written. It is also likely that earthquakes and hurricanes will recur suggesting an urgent need to rebuild. The United Nations, donor countries and Haitian partners should take the slogan ‘build back better’ literally. They should also revisit was is really meant by ‘better’. 

Any physical reconstruction programmes in Haiti must be accompanied by equivalent social programmes. These interventions should incorporate the everyday informality and dynamism that is characteristic of social life in the country. To be effective, any new norms, including building codes, will need to be absorbed and accepted by the population.

Brazil has the capacity to assist in the reinvention of Haiti. It has the civil construction skills, materials, management and logistical know-how, and technological skills to move the agenda forward. As a well known proverb reminds us, simple problems should be faced with maximum attention while complex questions should be resolved simply.

One implication of any simple response is the recognition that there is no single solution to all of Haiti’s challenges. Rather, we must be thinking in terms of a system of responses sector by sector to help Haiti’s reinvention endure.

* Pedro Evora is an architect and a professor associated with the the Faculty for Architecture and Urbanism at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He is also a consultant to the Institute of Brazilian Architects and an associate of Rua Architects (www.rualab.com).