Sponsored by Unique.

Good news! Unique has agreed to sponsor us. They will assist

 our team with designing and acquiring legal permissions process. On October 14, they sent a survey team to Lamhin site with professional machines. They should be really to present us all the information in the short time.  We really appreciate their help. For more information about Unique, visit www.unique.co.th

Some Inspiration

A Bridge Too Far

" If architecture is not for people people, I don't know what it is for.
Architecture is not for our us, not for our ego, not for our own fantasy."- Professor Edward Ng

In Gansu province of Northwest China, the Po River separates a remote and humble village, Maosi into two parts. Given the limited types of local construction materials, local people resorted to a primitive and unstable footbridge made simply of mud, straw and tree branches over the waters. This was the only crossing for village children to go between school and home. Wading across the river was their daily ritual. Slipping, falling, bruises and cuts were not uncommon. During every rainy season, the bridge would be washed away. The school children could not but suspend classes, stand at the riverside and watch the flooding waters resignedly.

In view of this, Professor Edward Ng from the Chinese University of Hong Kong launched a joint-university bridge building project entitled “A Bridge Too Far, A Dream Comes True”. Gathering the synergy of professionals and students from various universities in Hong Kong and the Mainland, Professor Edward Ng and over 60 volunteers from both Hong Kong and the Mainland erected a permanent bridge with their bare hands in 6 days.

A video of Professor Edward Ng's Lecture at the National University of Singapore:
http://www.arch.nus.edu.sg/guest-lectures/vod/edwardng.html

International Development Fair @ MIT

Updates updates!

So the blog has been quiet for awhile as we're getting settled into our day jobs (full-time students!!) on both the MIT and Chula side. We've been working on our respective continents and campuses to organize volunteers and gather more funding opportunities. Hope you've been enjoying the soundbites from the 3 proposals we've sent out so far!

Today at MIT, the Public Service Center hosted the annual International Development Fair for all student groups related to development. Go Lamhin! had a table with SIGUS and got to meet tons of students who were interested in plugging in with projects. We had quite a few people stop by our table and leave their contact information. I'll be contacting them soon with ways to get more involved.
Next up ... more grant writing, particularly targeting MIT funds and other traveling fellowships for students. Wish us luck!

Proposal Updates "BSA"

Summary of BSA proposal:
Prompt: BSA or Boston Society of Architects started a program in 2004 to promote research in Architecture with a focus on design as research and research conducted in practice environments. It encourages students to work on a wide range of issues from materials and technologies that shape physical form; to abstraction of ideas supporting theoretical projects; drawing upon social, economic and political dimensions that inform program or process; across physical scales of design from the nano-particular to the megalopolis; and from the historical past, the current moment or as projections.

Small-scale infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, forms the physical skeleton of any human settlement. However, many rural communities in Southeast Asia’s developing regions lack these critical components. With the growing urgency of food at a global scale, small-scale infrastructure is crucial for rural agricultural communities to take advantage of economic development opportunities and alleviate their own poverty.

B.Y.O.B (Build Your Own Bridge): Designing and Implementing New Forms of Rural Infrastructure proposes a multi-phase, cross-disciplinary approach to research, design, and prototype a new bridge that is
appropriate and scalable for developing rural communities throughout Southeast Asia.

Our research consists of three phases:
1. Conducting a comprehensive survey of successful precedents in small-scale infrastructure
projects, particularly bridges
2. Observing first-hand and constructing a bridge in Lamhin, a rural community outside of
Bangkok, Thailand
3. Designing and prototyping of an affordable, pre-fabricated do-it-yourself bridge for potential
implementation in other rural communities beyond Southeast Asia.

Final deliverables include a constructed bridge in Lamhin, Bangkok, a comprehensive report including background precedent study research, interviews, photos and detailed documentation of the bridge construction process, and a full-scale model of an affordable pre-fabricated do-it-yourself bridge which tests and demonstrates our innovative design solution.

Proposal updates "RVA"

RVA proposal was sent in during the August, and the Australian Embassy Discretionary Fund (DF) for Thailand was sent in during early September. Thanks to the everyone who has been working so hard on these proposals! The BSA grant (Boston Society of Architects) is due Thursday and Esther is currently working hard to get that one done!

For those of you who are wondering what these proposals are about here is a brief summary taken from the proposals.

Summary of RVA proposal:
Prompt: Projects to Focus on Transformations in the Built Environment Within Dynamically Changing Societies

This year, Rafael Viñoly Architects will award up to five grants of up to US$60,000 each for studies focused on transformations in the built environment within dynamically changing societies. Singular grants have been a vital component of the practice's training and research programs since their 2005 introduction. This year, to commemorate

The call for proposals, released in April, solicited original research projects focused on any region of the world, though there is particular interest in studies addressing relevant issues in China, the Middle East, Russia, and South America. Study subjects might include new demands for housing and infrastructure due to urban immigration in China, South Asia, and Africa; the proliferation of new cities in sparsely populated regions of the Middle East; threats to historic resources posed by development or changing political climates in Russia, Eastern Europe, and former European colonies; and more. The firm seeks insights into how these and other transitions are reshaping the work of architects and others charged with managing our physical surroundings.

Studies could be framed in reference to aspects of architectural design, engineering, construction, planning, project delivery, and conservation; the techniques, technologies, practices, and materials associated with these; the governmental policies, economic, and social factors that shape them; or the trades, crafts, and professions with which they are involved.

Our Lamhin Abstract:
Small-scale infrastructure, like paved roads and sturdy bridges, forms the physical skeleton of any human settlement. However, many rural communities in Southeast Asia’s developing regions lack these critical components. With the growing urgency of food at a global scale, small-scale infrastructure is crucial for rural agricultural communities to take advantage of economic development opportunities and alleviate their own poverty.

Our project proposes a multi-phase, cross-disciplinary approach to research, design, and prototype a new bridge that is appropriate for developing rural communities throughout Southeast Asia. Our research consists of three phases:

1) At MIT, Conducting a comprehensive survey of successful precedents in small-scale infrastructure projects, particularly bridges;

2) Observing first-hand and constructing a bridge in Lamhin, a rural community outside of Bangkok, Thailand;

3) At MIT, designing and prototyping of an affordable, pre-fabricated do-it-yourself bridge for potential implementation in other rural communities beyond Southeast Asia.

Final deliverables include a constructed bridge in Lamhin, Bangkok, a comprehensive report including background precedent study research, community meeting notes, interviews, photos and detailed documentation of the bridge construction process as reference and resource for future researcher, and a full-scale model of an affordable pre-fabricated do-it-yourself bridge which tests and demonstrates out innovative design solution.

Summary of DF (Austrailian Embassy) grant:
Prompt: The Australian Embassy Discretionary Fund is part of Australia’s overseas development program. Funding is provided through the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and managed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). The DF was designed to enable the Embassy to consider and respond quickly and effectively to requests to assist with small-scale development projects by providing small grants for development projects.

What we hope to achieve:
Lamhin is a small agricultural community on the outskirts of Minburi, Bangkok. In many ways, it is like neighboring villages, with its 200 residents dependent primarily on distributing and selling the rice it cultivates to local markets. However, Lamhin lacks avenues of transportation for its goods because the Lamhin canal physically seperates it from Liab Wari, the main road in the region. The only way to cross the 10-meter span of the canal is a wooden footbridge. Also, the wooden bridge does not have the capacity to accommodate the passage of vehicular traffic, which is the ideal method of transporting large quantities of goods to local markets and bringing in crop-harvesting tractors.

While neighboring villages with access to the main road are reaping the benefits of development, the Lamhin community is stuck with literally no way out. This brings about high cost of doing agriculture, low or limited income for residents, and ultimately holds back further physical development of the already disadvantaged, low-income Lamhin community by literally barring the physical passage of construction materials to the site. Additionally, the absence of a connection for automobiles has forced villagers to put their existing limited resources at risk. Residents who own cars have no choice but to park their vehicles outside the village, far away from their homes. Vehicles are sometimes damaged and even destroyed when they are left in these remote locations.

Lamhin Bridge Cost Estimation

How our bridge would work!

NOW

A tractor is too big for the bridge on Lam-Hin side(Liab-Wa-Ree17) so it has to go in on a truck from Su-Ka-Thong side (Liab-Wa-Ree19) and each time a rice-grower has to pay 500baht entrance fee to the Su-Ka-Thong landlord.

Because of the small size of a rice carrier, a rice-grower can have it cross the first bridge on Lam-Hin side to his/her field in order to avoid the cost on an entrance fee.

The farmers use the tractor to harvest and fill rice into a bag then use the rice-carrier to take bags out from the field to the other truck that parks on Liab-Wa-Ree17 Road...not efficient at all!

In addition, there are some rice-growers who do not have a rice-carrier or an access to their fields through the first bridge that belongs to the school owner. These people have to carry bags filled with rice and walk across other bridges themselves.


IN THE FUTURE (HOPEFULLY)

The tractor and the truck would get in from Liab-Wa-Ree17 through the second bridge to the rice field. Rice-growers would then be able to harvest and fill in the truck with rice right away, not having to use rice-carriers or anyone carrying bags anymore...a lot more efficient!

Pics of July 19 Community Meeting

On July 19, Chula and CASE went to community to discuss with the residents on what the bridge is going to be like. Technical information was acquired. Ploy will send out information to CASE engineer this week. Cost estimate and required materials should be known within a week after the engineer receives the information.

Some of the names of community residents who sign up to help build the bridge

Ploy leads the measurement team.

Measuring the dept of the canal.

Tien works with P'Aree, the community leader.

The Go Lamhin Team gathers with the community residents on the bridge that (hopefully) will be replaced by a bigger and stronger one.

7/20 MIT-Chula-CASE Meeting #2

A quick update about what we discussed at our second Skype meeting:

• Chula + CASE did a great job of gathering all of the technical details about the bridge. Ploy is going to prepare the materials to be sent to an engineer. We are expecting our first cost estimate and required materials list within a week.
• MIT is going to prepare a couple of grant proposals and start to find other funding opportunities.

Keep checking back for more updates! A lot of things should be happening this week.

Google Earth Map

Shows the relationship between Sukkatong and Lamhin. Notice how Sukkatong's development is clearly directed and defined by the road that the government built for them several years ago.

7/12 lamhin-chula team meeting

Yesterday, we (Chula team~ Big, Thian, and Pim) along with Ploy (CASE) and her architect friend named Kluay visited the Lam-Hin community for our first group-meeting at around 2.30pm. There were more than 20 people attended, mostly rice-growers and fish famers. The meeting went on quite smoothly in very friendly environment. We had people sitting down and started to introduce ourselves and discuss about the bridge project we are working on.

The Chula team working on the map at CASE with Ploy and Kluay (the guy in red shirt)

The community getting together in front of Lam Hin Health Center

Discussion: why do they need the bridge?

The community helping us out with the map

People discussing and thinking
See the guy in black+red shirt? He is the head person of this Moo 9 (Lam Hin+ Sukathong)

Hands up...who wants the bridge?
seems like everyone does :D

The work continues

This coming saturday, Chula team will go to Lamhin community for the fifth time along with ploy (CASE) to have the first group meeting with (hopefully) the whole community. Stay with us, we will tell you about the meeting as soon as we can. 

Map

First Survey

Yesterday Chulalongkorn team went to Lamhin Community. We spent about 4 hours talking to Aree (the leader of Lamhin) and walking around. The purpose was to get the big picture of the community. This is what we learnt from the first survey. 

The drawing above is the rough map of the Lamhin Community.

It has about 30 households and a population of about 200 people.

(we will get exact figures  in the later stage).

Our bridge will be on top of Lamhin Canal (5-6 meters wide) connecting Lamhin community to Riebvaree 17 Road.

Aree informed us about her plan of building a road in front of the community (the red road in the map) along the canal after the bridge is built.

She told us she would write a proposal to government asking for money to build the road, which should be easy after they got the bridge. The road will allow cars to go to almost any parts of the community.

So if we have time and raise enough money, we can even build the road for them. That ‘s something we can think about. But even if we are not capable of doing so, the bridge itself will do the community a lot of good.

The next step is to talk to people in the community and also Minburi district officers.

On the coming Sunday, 9 people of Chula team will be 

divided into three groups to get more information from people in the community. The goal is to find out

1.  How many percents of people want the bridge to be built?

2.  How (exactly) the bridge is going benefit them, in terms of individually?

3. Can the bridge create conflicts? If yes, In what ways?

4. How many people in the community are willing to help us building the bridge?

So if you have any particular questions you want us to ask the people, send them to our email. 

Chula Team

lamhin.chula@gmail.com

Here we go!

Hey everyone! It seems like the basic plan that the Chula team worked out with Ploy had the essential elements in it, but we need to take another look at the timing. Here is an overview with some minor edits from the last post. Please comment with suggestions!

Phase 1 - Surveying and Fundraising (1-2 months: June - July)
Chula+CASE team collects more detailed information from Lam Hin community. This information needs to be clearly documented and translated for Esther and anyone else who wants to help write grant proposals for funding. Fundraising will be ongoing, since we can use as much money as we can get!

Phase 2 - Bridge Design + Cost Calculations (1-2 months: August - September)
CASE leads team consisting of local architects/engineers and students from Chula or other Bangkok universities. It would be great for MIT students to be involved, but we will have to work out how to communicate.

Phase 3 - Legal Issues (2-4 weeks?: October)
Probably either Chula or CASE will have to contact local government and confirm permission to build on the land. This should happen as soon as we have finished the bridge design.

Phase 4 - Community Organization and Awareness (1 month: November)
MIT, Chula and CASE recruit students, Lam Hin community members, local professionals, anyone who want to help build.

Phase 5 - Construction (1 month: January)
MIT, Chula, CASE and community members build a new bridge for Lam Hin!


That version of the timeline doesn't even include December, which gives us a little room to breathe. Let's be flexible as we start to work things for real...

Now for the interactive part =P Drop a comment to let us know if...

• you have suggestions/concerns about the timeline
• you want to be added to the blog
• you want access to our Google Calendar, which will eventually have all the dates and deadlines that we need to communicate across the teams
• you want to help with fundraising and writing grants (we have a lead already, due on August 1st!)
• you know about any other grants or scholarships that we can apply for.

I heard from Big that the Chula team visited Lam Hin today. An update with more information about the community as well as pictures should be coming soon. Stay tuned!

First Steps

Here is the first update from the Chulalongkorn team.

Thian, Pim, Big, and Non (MIT) talked to Ploy (CASE) yesterday and she seemed very interested in helping us on the bridge project. She is interested in working with us and she even said that she can get some architects and engineers to work on this project.
It was a good two hour talk and we worked out a rough plan as follows.

1. Collect general information (2 months)
Chulalongkorn team would go to the site area to talk to Lam Hin people to get the general information. We will answer the questions of who would mostly from the bridge, a single person or the community as a whole? Would the bridge by any chance create conflicts within the community? and etc.
So basically during this process, we would make sure there are no problems that would be arise from the existence of the bridge.

2. Bridge design (1-2 months)
At this point, architects and engineers would be working with the community in designing the bridge. Since people in the community probably know more about their own area better than outsiders, we would need to work with them to figure out where the bridge should located, what size it should be, what materials should be used, etc.
During this process, we hopefully will get the actual design of the bridge and also find out how much the bridge would actually cost.
We are thinking of getting architecture students from Chula or other universities to do a workshop with CASE in designing a bridge as well. So I would say this would also be a good time for MIT students to come to Thailand to work on the bridge design. Non told me that MIT students will have a fall break during October. So do you think it would be possible to plan some kind workshop between MIT and CASE. Or if October is not a good time, when should it be?

3. Legal Issues (2 weeks)
Because the bridge will be connected the public road, we have to ask permission from the district to build the bridge.

4. Preparation (1 month)
We will try to get people in the community and also Chula students volunteer to help building the bridge. One month should be enough to do the work.

5. Construction; should be during January
We heard that all MIT students have a four weeks off during January. So I think January would be an appropriate time to start building the bridge. Esther told me that she wants to come during January. Tim might be coming as well.
The fund raising process would begin after we get a concrete design of the bridge.
So It would leave us roughly about two months to get the fund before January.

So for MIT students, can you help us answering these questions.
1. Would it be possible to set up an MIT team to come to Thailand to work on this project? If yes, in what form? a class doing a workshop or individuals? Are you interested to come? When would be the appropriate time for you to come to Thailand? According to our rough plan, we think the good time for you to come would be during October (bridge designing process) and January (Bridge building process). But it is still a very rough plan and can still be changed.

2. Non told us about organization at MIT called UROP. Do you think it would be possible to get UROP or other organization (may be private sector) to sponsor this project.
Esther will represent the MIT group. She and Tim were in the group observing Lam Hin during the MIT-Chula workshop, so if you have any further questions, they might be able to answer those.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please don’t be hesitated to make any comment on this blog or contact us via email. From now on, this blog will be the main channel of communication between Chulalongkorn and MIT people, we will keep you update via this site.
For those of you who did not participated in MIT-Chula workshop but would like to help either by providing us human resources or financial resources, you are more than welcome.

Let ‘s make a difference for the Lam Hin community.

Chulalongkorn Team
lamhin.chula@gmail.com