fadu

san telmo, buenos aires

FADU, or facultad de arquitectura, diseño y urbanismo, will be the host for my experience here and the past couple of days has consisted of introductory meetings. i will be on a team with fellow gringos kristing and shriya, under the supervision of architect carlos levinton, and the exact nature of our work is not completely clear. my parallels to james bond begin there.

yesterday morning, we met carlos at his basement studio and it felt like the seen where bond meets q. rather than introductions to rocket propelled porsches, stun-gun watches, or shoes with lazers, prof. levinton showed us some of the innovations that he has been developing and delivering for the past couple decades (if not more). these include:

• a paper-machete type mash of newspaper, consolidated into a dense brick the size of an expensive calculator, that can burn and provide fuel for two hours.
• insulation for homes comprised of used orange juice containers, ironed together with a thin blended coat of aluminum.
• a network of the top halves of 2-litre soda bottles used to capture rain water for reuse.
• tying together thin strips of 2-litre bottles to create 30 meters (from 1 bottle) of strong rope.
• paper cartons, with a layer of styrofoam, fused together with a coating of aluminum to serve as a solar panel. the panel is folded into a funnel where a pot can be placed at the center. levinton says that it would take 7 minutes to boil a quart of water.

we returned in the evening to rehash the glory days that were shop class from 6th grade. with blocks of wood the size of chalkboard erasers, we sawed ourselves little forklike devises, complete with razor blade, used to strip two litre bottles. the possibilities for this include the rope mentioned earlier, but also the ability to weave the strips into bags, storage pockets, or whatever use someone may be able to think of. such a small devise could be of such great use to someone living in the poor villas throughout this city. while i don´t know much about our day-to-day, we may be devising a plan to better distribute such innovations throughout the villas and/or study their effectiveness. i´m cool with that. hasta luego.....