It’s been a while since we last posted something with substance. The Post-production phase was hectic, with the symposium, exhibition, various presentations, and off course the publication which is technically still in progress. So technically we’re still in Post-Production Phase (3) but we consider this now as the fourth phase (Phase 4: Aftermath). This means we’ll focus on significantly updating this blog with old and current data and establish this blog as a platform.

The current situation after hurricane Ida shows how important it is to try to understand these circumstances of living in disaster prone areas. We’ll hope to gather information about this which will help us in our descriptions of the case study El Salvador.

Much love to all of our friend in El Salvador!

We were able to reach a lot of community members of sector Montreal in Mejicanos, who showed enthousiasm in their work and presentation for the camera.





We will prepare the result graphically back in the Netherlands.

Our second survey for the case study Mejicanos is focusing on an incentive, initiated by NGO Procomes, a settlement called ´Bendición de Dios´ in Cucatancingo.

Survey Mejicanos (2): Emergencias Urbanasa en Cucatancingo

Survey Mejicanos (2): Emergencias Urbanasa en Cucatancingo

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A new and final workshop for our case study Mejicanos. Well aware of the fact that we ask for specific, sometimes complicated information, within the small timeframe of a community meeting. We hope to get some great insights.

Workshop (2) Mejicanos: Dwelling_Explanation-ENG

Workshop (2) Mejicanos: Dwelling_Explanation-ENG

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Workshop (2) Mejicanos: Dwelling_Explanation-ESP

Workshop (2) Mejicanos: Dwelling_Explanation-ESP

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Aside from the fact that we are obviously rookies in organizing workshops, we had a good time and gained some great information for our workshop.






We will prepare the result graphically back in the Netherlands.

Today we start our first workshop for the case study Mejicanos

Workshop (1) Mejicanos: Scenario Spatial Planning _Explanation-ENG

Workshop (1) Mejicanos: Scenario Spatial Planning _Explanation-ENG

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Workshop (1) Mejicanos: Scenario Spatial Planning _Explanation-ESP

Workshop (1) Mejicanos: Scenario Spatial Planning _Explanation-ESP

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Workshop (1) Mejicanos: Scenario Spatial Planning _Scenarios-ESP

Workshop (1) Mejicanos: Scenario Spatial Planning _Scenarios-ESP

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Workshop (1) Mejicanos: Scenario Spatial Planning _Work sheet-ESP
Scale 01

Scenario01 Scale01

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Scale 02

Scenario01scale02

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We are covering this workshop with multiple tools: videocamera, tape recorders etc.
We hope to have some footage online soon...

Introduction

We are currently in the last stage of our research, specifying our objectives and trying to gather as much information as possible on site. Besides the fact that we prioritize data gathering and not (significant less) graphic production, as our blog indicates, we need more time to verify important information. We’ve been addressing in depth interviews the issues of cultural influences on spatial planning (grass-root culture) and how/if (international) aid in the form of post-disaster responses could help develop urban vitality. A lot of this information is subjective and can be verified with sources of information, so we’ve been gathering local data in the form of reports/books/investigations etc. Our goal is to keep expanding our network that could be helpful for our specific objectives and use the time and facilities in the Netherlands during the post-production phase to process them in greater detail.


Actors

The collaboration, positive or negative, between different key-actors has repetitively shown to be very influential for the ‘successes’ or ‘failures’ of responses and incentives. We organize the actors in:
- NGO > incentives on a communal level
- Habitants/people > organized communities, individualism
- National government > decentralizing > institutions for regulations
- Local government > (financial) capacity > distribution and prioritization
- Church > influence, preference/trust from civilians
- Private (stakeholders) > obtaining/developing land, small incentives
We’ve been talking to people affiliated to all actor groups but lack information about the role of church. We aim to strengthen this contact within the coming days. Besides establishing contact we came to understand that it’s important to understand how and for whom people look for/rely on leadership (grass-root culture).


Surveys/workshops

In remaining weeks we are currently setting up workshops and continuing to process and develop more surveys. With these tools we aim to document: specific information, reach out to a lot of actors/visions and cultural perspectives. For example with the surveys we’ll try to get a clear picture about the cultural perspective on leadership and about awareness among people.


Case Studies

Mejicanos is our case study which provided a lot of information for our contemporary analysis. With this we are able to understand more and more about incentives, dependence to the city center/connectivity and vulnerability. A couple of issues we want to point out at this moment are:
- social problems
- land rights (owner)
- environmental issues
- risk reduction
- politics

In the case study of Santa Tecla we investigate the ‘migration’ of people, from the emergency phase to transitional and permanent settlements. The incentives and the reasons why people choose to migrate to certain places are key. We are critical on the way opportunities for future development (especially economical and educational) are integrated in urban planning. We’ll have to investigate the vision on these topics from the planners, so we plan to have more in-depth interviews with involved Municipalities, architects and NGOs.

For the case study CHSS (Downtown: Centro Historico San Salvador) we investigate the non-psychical, with the focus on gaining cultural perspective. For example:
- Political: the process of obtaining building permissions to develop/construct.
- Economical: city/country dependence, public space occupation by vendors
- Development: area of focus and growth to suburbia

We aim to have a more detailed description and simplistic illustration soon as well as more of our documents online.

We started to import GPS data into Arcmap. The illustration shows a track of Mejicanos while mapping the economical activity. To give the tracks and gathered points of interest (including pictures) more context, we imported the given Autocad map of the Greater San Salvador.


Unfortunately we came across problems, resulting in some questions

- Why presents Arc map the GPS data mirrored? What in the import process went wrong to cause this?

- How is it possible to position the Autocadmap more accurate? Now we use layer properties - transformations to transform the coordinates to the coordinates of the correct location.


We will consult our teachers in Delft, but please comment if you came across the same problems.

Meeting Report: Ricardo Barrera
Location: Alcaldia de Mejicanos
Date: 27/04/09
Time: 9:00 – 10:00
Main topic: Future plans of Sector Montreal.
Present: Ricardo Barrera, Victor Perez, Pecco and Dieuwer

Two weeks ago Ricardo Barrera gave us some drawings of a future plan of Sector Montreal. This future plan contains networks, infrastructure and land use. To get to know the ideas behind the plans we arranged this meeting.
There are some problems while making a future plan in Sector Montreal. First, to plan public buildings or recreational areas the municipality needs to find and obtain unused land first. Next to the scarcity of unused land, which gives no freedom to implement any recreational, educational or economical space within the plan, it is often difficult to find the owner of the plot. In this situation the municipality starts to clean the land and wait till somebody comes to demand their property. [If so, the municipality tries to buy the land, if not they declare it as a public space and are able by law to develop it for communal use. The process is called ‘expropriacion’.] Second, the geographical layout of the area creates difficulties for connectivity and plan infrastructure. Third, there is no money. All the plans are still far form being constructed. The aim is to create a funding with help of NGO’s like Fundasal and Procomes. The future plan where we talk about is far from being realized. The plan of the land use is still just a proposition and nothing concrete. It gives the opportunity to have a critic look at some of the aspects. The infrastructural part of the plan only contains the main roads and intends to create a better connectivity. The passages are not included, which leaves out an important part of the risk reduction in the most vulnerable spots of the area. Because this plan contains the whole area of Sector Montreal it focuses on the scale of the urban area and not on the scale of a community. To reduce the social problems, especially in the north part of the Sector Montreal there is heavy gang activity, he wants to increase the social control by creating recreational areas and public buildings. All is limited of course by the unused spaces. To create more connectivity there is a new road planned. This road connects the main road of Sector Montreal to the mountain ridge on the west. The connection is made halfway, which improves the connectivity and create a better integration, but still to leaves the north part badly connected. It would be much more effective, in terms of creating social control, to make the connection in the north part; at the end of the community of Buenos Aires. Ricardo agrees, but explains that the possibility to create this road is cut of by the just constructed El Corintho; a big gated community housing project for the middle class. This is a prime example of the lack of urban planning. There is no integrated plan. Which is this example blocks, what might have been a big help to the social problems in Buenos Aires.
The gang activity in the north of Montreal is fed by the bad connectivity, but also by the connection that this area has with two other municipalities, not by using roads but by crossing fields to Cuscatancingo and Mariona. Victor explains how the gangs were pushed out of the community of Iberia, which was the headquarters for the ‘marreros’, by just the activity of creating infrastructure. The presence of the constructors and the activity around the construction made the ‘marreros’ move to Buenos Aires. It shows the importance of social control and activity of the public space.
Within the visits to Sector Montreal we had been told by a ‘law’, which enabled the municipality to construct and help at a private owned piece of land. This ‘law’ turns out to be a figurative law and is a regulation which is carried out by the municipality to prevent favoring individuals, in fear of getting accused for corruption.
One of the drawings shows a plan of all the existing black water plants and the new planned water plants. There is a little group of people that has a black water system, but the majority has dry tanks, a hole in the ground that serves as sanitation system. The problem with these holes is that there capacity is limited and it is dangerous to dig a second hole because of the risk for collapsing. There are already cases where people dump there black water illegally in the rivers, rivers wherein the women still washes the clothes. Clearly there is a desperate need for a sanitation system.

Meeting Report: Mercedes and Jorge
Location: Fundasal
Date: 27/04/09
Time: 15:00 – 16:30
Main topic: Urban Matters
Present: Mercedes, Jorge and Dieuwer

Urban matters is a new program which is a collaboration between Cordaid, Fundasal and an umbrella of different governmental, non-governmental and private organizations.
Instead of doing a project with a community or with a municipality, this program will work integrated on multiple levels using as well as Dutch as El Salvadorian resources. The main focus is to give life to urban planning on the scale of the municipality, which is unknown in Central American countries. The biggest problem in El Salvador is the lack of resources and the short ruling period of the local government. Creating a platform where the municipality can work together with the national government, private sector and NGO’s (of Dutch and El Salvadorian origin) to create a development plan for a number of years, should lead to durability and a continues process even if the local government changes.
Urban Matters will be implemented at Sector Montreal, Mejicanos and Sector Limon, Soyapango. Both are half slum and half popular housing and evolved without any planning. First the people came, and after the municipality implemented infrastructure, basic services, and other networks. Both have gang related problems, are vulnerable for yearly repetitive disasters and outskirts of the greater San Salvador. Limon contains a population of 30 thousand families and Montreal 10 thousand. Where in Limon there are spaces to create parks recreational areas and economical activity, there is a lack of space in Montreal. Adjacent to the lack of space the area of Montreal has a geographical layout which is hard to coop with. To create improved dwellings for instance, there are two possibilities; to build a better house at the same place or to create a new settlement, which opens the possibilities for more social and economical activities. But the question is if people will give up there peace of land.
For Fundasal it is an exception on there regulations, while they intend to help only the poorest people, to work on this project. In this new program the whole area is involved, and not only the poorest people and poorest communities. But the opportunity to create the start of integrated urban planning in El Salvador could not be refused. The idea of an integrated plan goes from dwelling, infrastructure, networks, education, health, recreation etc. as far as to social programs and economical stimulation.



The structure of Dutch and El Salvadorian stakeholders should help and create a bigger participation of the El Salvadorian private sector. At this moment it is hard to find corporate funding or sponsorships because the companies don’t have any social affiliations. The Dutch private sector that is involved consists out of specialists in recycling (the mobile factory), waste and water, but also urban management (Osborne and Arcadis). Out of the Dutch ministry of VROM there will be help to create waste water treatment plants.

Meeting Report: Intercomunale 2
Location: Community center Iberia
Date: 24/04/09
Time: 18:00 - 20:15
Main topic: Intercomunale de Montreal: workshop of Fundaspad, survey

The inter-communal meeting is organized every Friday evening. Every other week there is a meeting with a workshop provided by FUNDASPAD and the other Fridays are reserved for the communities to discuss their problems.

FUNDASPAD

FUNDASPAD is a social organization that exists out of six volunteers working for three years to establish a sense of people’s power in different communities. They accomplish meetings in these communities to be able to teach about social and economical issues like human rights, legislation, how to get organized etc.
This meeting FUNDASPAD teach about exploitation. A small workshop is given to teach the people the boundaries of exploitation at work and their rights. When they are taken advance of, the inhabitants of the different communities can unify to plead their cause and have a better chance to accomplish their rights. The main focus of FUNDASPAD is to teach the people how to analyze their situation and construct ‘people’s power’ in the lower classes of society. In the last three years they had different experiences with these workshops
There is an attendance list kept by for the inter-communal meeting, here we can check which communities how often show up.

Survey

Some people of the communities that didn't receive a survey didn't understand the reason why and felt missed out. Victor helped explaining that a research about a part of Montreal would provide information to get a better understanding of the whole Montreal.
The willing to participate of the survey seems high. To illustrate this, one community that only received a single interview as an example, copied this in order to make the complete survey. Willington and Vera Cruz that didn't complete the survey yet will pass it through Victor Perez.

At the next meeting, the eight of May we will give a short presentation on the survey and our analysis so far.

We presented a quick update of our findings today to Fundasal. With minimal graphic illustrations we aim to portrait gathered information for the Contemporary Urban Analysis. We'll continue to report observations, meetings, results from surveys & (planned) workshops in the remaining time of our Field Research. Graphic representation will follow in the post-production phase, back in Delft.

Also check out the Location choice presentation here.

update Presentation Week 12

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(First draft)

Observation Report: Housing Project Procomes, Cuscatancingo
Location: Cuscatancingo
Date: 20/04/09
Time: 14:00- 16:00
Main topic: Risk reduction, Maria Auxiliadora, ‘Bindicion de dios’
(A new housing project for people of community Finca Argentina, Montreal, Mejicanos).

As part of the risk reduction program in the north part of Sector Montreal Procomes initiated a housing program for a 28 families of the people of the community Finca Argentina, who were heavily affected by hurricane Stan in 2005. Together with the municipalities of Cuscatancingo and San Salvador Procomes found a more safe (according to disasters) area to built 32 new houses for 28 families who were living in Finca Argentina and 4 families that were living at a high risk place in San Salvador.
The project was initiated in 2006, it took till the summer of 2008 till the last families moved into their new homes.

The people of community worked together under supervision of constructors to build their new houses, ending in a lottery to divide the houses over the families. The process of constructing the houses everyday from 7am till 4pm was not easy, especially for the people that had to work next to these construction hours to pay the rent of their old houses. This story is told by the woman who lives with her two kids in the first house. While constructing the new houses she still had to pay a rent of 32 dollars a month, while she was earning 7 dollars a day in the ‘Maquilla”. After she finished constructing these 32 houses she found a job as masonry, so next to a new house she found a new job with this program. Al though the difficult program constructing the houses together created a stronger community.

Comparing to her old house, she rented a cement house in Finca Argentina, the new house in a big improvement. The biggest improvement is the reduced risk; she doesn’t have to be scared of water coming to her house anymore. The place itself and the construction of the houses give the people a save spot to live. The connectivity to the centre of Mejicanos, where she goes for her groceries and medical help, is not different then in Finca Argentina; a 15-20 minute bus ride. The connectivity on the smaller scale seems to be improved. The passages and paths in Finca Argentina did flood and were covered with mud during the winter, while the new excess to the main road is hardened and even supplied with a hand rail. Although the women we speak to keeps on denying the fact that she puts less energy in reaching the main road, we can assume that especially elderly and children are better of with the new situation.

The plot is very small for the construction of 32 family houses; therefore the houses are built site by site with just a single wall to divide two houses. Procomes has five different blueprints of houses. It is depending on the situation and the money which type of house is being constructed. Within this program they include some of the basic services; water and sanitation, infrastructure, disaster risk reduction, but couldn’t include electricity. The electricity is illegally tabbed from the network. Cables hanging low and weak wooden poles are used to keep them up. The electricity company putted down steel poles in the area where houses appear or being constructed. The community now is negotiating with the municipality in order to get legal electricity.

Next to the process of slowly getting al the basic necessities, the community and procomes hired a lawyer to legalize their land rights. Every family pays 16-25 dollars per person to obtain these land rights. There is a good hope the process will be finished by the end of this year.

The first problems we come across are related to the surrounding of the houses. While in finca Argentina people had bigger plots and more room to grow some vegetables and fruits, they don’t have any personal space in the new area. The people together are Obtain the land around the area by growing plants and fruits. Another problem is a small piece of deserted land just above the settlement where people used to dump the garbage. When the spot gets too polluted they make a phone call to the municipality to clear the area.

Electricity poles put down by company, negotiating with the municipality
Pay 16-25 dollar family per person.

Contact: Maria Auxiliadora
Neighborhood: Bindicion de Dios

Meeting Report: Community Meeting Sector Montreal, Mejicanos
Location: Community house, Iberia
Date: 17/04/09
Time: 18:00-20:00
Main topic: Introduction to Urban Emergencies and distributing the survey

Every Friday a community meeting is held to create a platform for communities to discuss their problems and point them out to the Municipality. The organizational structure is set up with a board of directors for the whole sector (who are leading the meeting), and two spokesmen of any community who are the directors of their community. The municipality is represented by the promotional workers in the Sector: Victor and Hector. Next to the municipality there are two spokesmen of the catholic organization CEFO who worked in the area starting after the earthquake of 1986, [mostly housing.]

The community meeting starts of with the subjects of the previous meeting. The second point on the agenda is the explanation of our Urban Emergencies study followed by the distribution of the survey. Not every community is present at the meeting which makes it difficult to distribute the survey to all the intended communities. We give out an envelope with 30 surveys to the communities of Buenos Aires, Artiga, Veracruz, Iberia and Finca Argentina, and an envelope of 20 surveys to the Willington community.
While the directors and the municipality try to get all the directors to the meeting, not everybody shows up. Illustrative is the presence Buenos Aires, who attends for the first time to the meeting. After they get applause for their first attend, the sector director, Victor Perez and CEFO all give their personal appreciation to this attend. The repetitive appreciation shows how young and fragile the organization of the sector still is.
Next to the directors of the Buenos Aires community, there are four other men from the community. Their intention for this visit gets clear after we distributed the survey and the communities get the chance to point out some of the problems they have to deal with: A lower part of Buenos Aires has a problem with grey water that comes from houses at the upper part. The four present men are affected by this problem and made a plan of how to solve this problem, but the community is in need of money from the municipality to be able to carry out this plan. It seems the community is attending for this reason, reactionary to the problem.

After the discussion of this problem Victor Perez wants us to leave the community meeting, he doesn’t make clear what the exact reason for our early leaving is.

(First draft, text between [...] has to be verified)

Meeting Report: Protecion Civil
Location: Alcaldia Mejicanos
Date: 16/04/09
Time: 09:00-10:30
Main topic: Working methods of Protecion Civil (in Mejicanos)
Participants:[??], Victor Perez, Wouter & Sofia (UCA)


Introduction

This Protecion Civil (Civil Protection) is a department of the Alcaldia (City Hall) of Mejicanos dedicated to social development. We asked to meet with them in order to get an understanding about the involvement of the local/central government in social development and other support in Mejicanos. Accompanied by Victor Perez, we could inform about the most vulnerable zones in Mejicanos and the accessibility and possibilities to investigate these areas. They promised to share an investigation which could provide us with (general) facts and figures about […] Mejicanos. We can expect this on a digital CD, which Victor will bring with him next community meeting (Friday).


Most vulnerable zones

To choose our area of focus within Mejicanos we also informed to the most vulnerable zones concerning natural disasters. They responded with:
- Montreal
- San Ramon
- San Roque
- Chancana


About Protecion Civil

The inefficiency between the local and central government was immediately addressed; “the central government doesn’t help”. With the capacity that they have, they focus mostly on critical poverty. In order to increase their capacity (and that of the community) they are building capacity, to organize people. These projects are implemented on a national, Municipality and community scale.
In Montreal for example, after an emergency, they organized the people and distributed plastic materials (budget). They collaborated with Procomes, who shared tools with the Alcaldia while Protecion Civil was focussing on raising more awareness in developing an early alarm system [called “alarma temporal”].

They work before, during and after the emergency. During the emergency phase the have more community meetings instead of the weekly normative. They make inventory on necessities etc. and they receive help from national police, Red Cross and the army. NGO mostly helped by distributing clothes and food. Victor gave an example of ‘small’ disaster to illustrate the relation between citizens and the Alcaldia. There’s a lot of wind during summertime, trees can fall down. (He explained that he was contacted in the middle of the night by a family whose house was destroyed by a tree at 2 am and the problem was solved at 7 am.)
Before and after is more in the sense of prevention; building capacity and raising awareness. The educate how to use the community house during an emergency and about the infrastructure leading to it. Then they evaluate the system [after scenario training?] and educate the people how to use the measurement tools for quicker evacuation and prevention [help from Municipality]. The route of evacuation is identified with risk routes and they don’t have the financial capacity to improve the roads. In order to map the behaviour of people as a result of these projects (incentives) we asked about the experiences with this prevention trainings. It seems that in the summer, when the risk is lower than during winter, only a few people participate in the projects. While during the winter people experience the risk (all over again) and the participation is very high. We were told that this could be generalised as cultural perception; that people are very reactionary. [He illustrated this with the example of a volcano eruption that happened 15 years ago, killing 300 people and after that the settlement was exactly rebuild in the same way. The same could be set about the area Las Collinas, where they first earthquake of 2001 destroyed the settlement and now there is another settlement built on the other side of the hills/mountain.]


Future development

When we asked about the plans for future development, regarding for example job oppurtunities and accessibility to schools, they explained that there is no plan. There are different plans regarding subjects like security, healthcare and environmental issues but these are never integrated. To improve the liveability they explained that the (financial) capacity obstructs them to reach and improve this for more people. They focus on improving the pavements and put up protection walls on the scale of urban conditions. They look, put the responsibility, to the national government to develop an integrated plan and adjust the laws (rules & regulations). They indicated the flaws in the current political system with the example/scenario where (big) construction companies build a settlement in an identified high risk zone, volcano zone. Regardless of the problems and risk they intend to capitalize quickly and (unconsciously) add to the risks in those areas, with deforestation etc.

In the end we made to appointments with Victor Perez. One is to start attending the community meetings in Mejicanos and the other to meet with Procomes.

Meeting Report: Jamie Choto (Procomes)
Location: Procomes office
Date: 14/04/09
Time: 09:00-10:30
Main topic: Working methods of Procomes (in Mejicanos)
Participants: Jamie Choto, Eduardo, Victor Perez (Barbara, Dieuwer & Wouter)


Introduction

We were already familiar with some of the work that Procomes did in multiple communities in Mejicanos. They currently work in 9 out of the 14 departments.
Jamie Choto explained that they work closely with the Municipality and with national government in shelter response. Procomes has connections with different actors, see figure ##. The chair is formed by people from the community.




Organization

The main interest is to prevent, secondary is to react and they also help during the emergency phase. The organization has been working for 24 years in 4 programs:
- (local) people development
- basic houses
- enterprises/businesses
- microcredit
The process of covering needs:
1. Intercommunity (Intercommunal) center, group of people belonging to each community
2. Talk to mayor of Municipality
3. Organize principals
4. Decide with Municipality how to use funds
They make ‘Inventory-trips’ to define problems for community meeting. Choto explained that they are forced to first define 5 main problems, formulate solutions, project development, get funds and then solve. About the financial capacity they repeated the situation of last year, when there was 1500$ to be distributed over 16 communities for interventions.
Capacity building

They explain their way of capacity building: assist and guide people with building houses, so later on they can help other and/or take on a new job. There are success stories about this and we have the opportunity to meet two women who experienced this incentive, implemented by Procomes.


Risk prevention/reduction

They explained that since 2008 the efficiency of the alarm system improved. With the help of a metrological system, they get information about floods, strong winds and earthquakes. The information goes through SNET (national government) to inform the Municipality and communities.

During the summer they have scenario trainings and programs in the schools to raise risk awareness. During this time they have the opportunity to focus more on prevention, e.g. they go around the neighbourhood checking on trees which form a risk. The added with an example where heavy rains caused erosion and electricity poles and wires were damaged last summer.


Documentation

We received documentation in the form of educational guides and digital information on CD with lectures. We can contact them through e-mail, find more information their website and request information about the necessities lists, work plans and the places of resettlements in the community of Montreal.

We planned to visit to an area in Cuscantancingo accompanied by people of Procomes. They constructed a settlement there to move 32 families from a high risk zone to safer environment. With observation and interview as our main tool we aim to gather information about what incentives this response caused.

During the last two weeks most updates are post in reports (see Downloads, to the right). If you missed out on this and would like to read up on our work, please download the most recent reports. We will inform you from now on with quick posts to link you directly to the newest updates.

Due to ‘Semana Santa’ (Holy Week), inconsequential access to internet and the lack of working places during this vacation we’ve been focusing on getting the case studies of the ground. As a result of the Revision, we’ve chosen the combination of Mejicanos, Downtown AMSS and Santa Tecla. See Location presentation

For the last few days we’ve been meeting with key contacts of these locations to update and brainstorm on further development of the case studies. For every case study a short overview of objectives, actions and needs were made and are available for download here. We continue in to identify ourselves and the research in more specific detail to others in order to collaborate more efficient.

For the organization of the blog, we plan to update our findings in graphic illustrations and reports, tagged according to the case study. For a clear overview and quick navigation we advice to look for the tags: Mejicanos, Santa Tecla and Downtown AMSS, on the right.

For our research concerning Architectural Body we plan to update our photographic analysis, also tagged with Architectural Body. We continue to gather more information concerning the material flow and updates for the blog will follow soon.

We look forward to your replies and are thankful for the interests shown (mostly through mails) regarding our progress.

Objectives (ENG) of all case study locations, available for download here (zip)

Location presentation 20090414

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Meeting Report: Victor Perez
Location: Alcaldia de Mejicanos
Date: 06/04/09
Time: 09:00 till 10:00
Main topic: Explanation objectives and create appointments.

Victor Perez is the promotional worker for sector Montreal in Mejicanos. He lived there for over 40 years himself and is working as a community man to strive for development of the area. The area had its biggest growth of population in the 1980s. In the end of the 80s the municipality managed to supply water and electricity for the most of the houses.
The most vulnerable communities of Sector Montreal are Buenos Aires, Willington, Finca Argentina and Iberia. These communities will have the focus of our study. In order to create a thorough analysis of the contemporary situation, the disaster risk and responses given to the area we plan observation visits, a survey and different interviews. Victor seems to have a lot of time and creates the opportunity to get the appointments really quick.

Architectural Body and Urban Emergencies

Our goal for Urban Emergencies is to map Urban Vitality on different scales and gather information about the incentives of natural disaster responses during the entire process. Ultimately our product is an analysis including data gathered in this field and processed to lay the foundation for further research. Especially the information gathered on the scale of liveability is complementary for our Architectural Body research. We process the observations made concerning materials and liveability in a technical perspective for Architectural Body. Our goal is to gather information about the material flow in El Salvador. Focusing on the process of extraction, the construction methods and use of materials, we analyze solutions, problems, opportunities and threats.


Organization: Work Plan

We plan to update our Architectural Body report on a regular basis. We gather information with literature, observations documented with photographs and we have the opportunity to visit places where materials are processed, accompanied by contacts from the technical staff of Fundasal headquarters.

We are able to distinct multiple housing typologies with the focus on material use. The interviews on site give us a lot of insight about the perspectives of people on the material use. For example people have more faith in the concrete panels enclosed by concrete pillars, a technique imported from Cuba. We are currently processing this type of information in illustrations which will be posted on the blog and included in this report and the Project Plan of Urban Emergencies.

To conclude this report is constantly updating with the ambition to have a weekly update available online on the blog.


Example of observation:
- Mejicanos (see Quick Scan: Mejicanos)
- Public space as incentive, initiated by NGO
- Dwellings connected to concrete staircaise
- Unused/unmaintained land
- Influence of greenery
- Example of construction typology
- Concrete grid, filled with bricks
- Steel sheet roofing: weighted down with stones

Update available, version 2.10.0. Download here

As a part of the Quick Scan phase, we've documented our personal views and combined this in the Revision, download here. This will lead to discussions and will finally result in the location(s) choice.

All Quick Scan reports combined in one report, download here

Quick Scan Report: Downtown, San Salvador
Accompanied by: Sandra and Vanessa + students (UCA)
Date: 24/03/09
Time: 09:00-16:00

Introduction

Downtown is the city centre of San Salvador with a history that characterizes the city on multiple levels. The population figures: former dominated by wealthy people who later migrated to the North. Architecture and public space: severely damaged by natural disasters and the civil war. Economic activity: dominated by small market stalls filling the streets. Abandoned buildings, issues of land rights and different views and responses concerning reconstruction illustrate the political individualism. The possibility for the location as a case study was initiated by word of mouth. The affection to the place is alive among the people, who all have a strong opinion eager to share. We visited the location for the second time, now joining a class of Sandra Poizat (UCA).

Buildings and public space

The centre is a centralization of economic flows. The migration into and out of San Salvador left buildings unmaintained and the earthquake of 1986 brought so much damage to the buildings that most are either completely or partially abandoned. The buildings were and still (partially) are shops and offices but the streets are the market. People living under the poverty line in greater San Salvador often go to Latiendonna (the food market) and Downtown for products. Whole families set up shops and stalls in order to have income. After walking through the streets, with a constant traffic flow which causes danger and an immediate noticeable pollution we can describe the street profiles. Enclosed by vacant buildings, the stoop for walking is narrow (fit for 1 person) because of the stalls. These stalls or parked cars are the boundaries for what is left for motorized traffic, including the constant flow of buses. On the other side of the road the same occupation is repeated. In some profiles with a two-way street, stalls are also implemented in the middle. It’s a different situation when it comes to public buildings like churches, the Cathedral or government buildings. These are well maintained with direct relations to squares and the absence of stalls. We visited an iconic Church, build in the late ‘60s with a construction method and raw material treatment very different from most buildings. It survived the earthquake of ’86 with only the tower outside the church being partially damaged. Next we visited a square, clean of stalls or other activity, enclosed by the Cathedral, library, National Palace and commercial shops/warehouses constructed in the ‘80s. Here we learned from Sandra that El Salvador had a strong movement in cultural development in their architecture, which stopped in ‘70s. The civil war and natural disasters caused very individual responses. The healing process from the war is continuous and the hope for a more united architectural vision on buildings and open space is strongly connected to political change.

Vulnerability

Aside from the earthquakes the area is vulnerable to floods. Multiple reasons can be given for this vulnerability, like the alert system, the drainage system, the deforestation causing mudslides etc. We visited a street, were the water reached about 2 meters in 5 minutes (1921) and this street was situated higher then a lot of other places we later visited. Such as a lower part, that has an open connection to the downhill stream of a river leading to Los Manantiales. The problem with the prevention of flooding and pollution is that the intervention has to start sooner, with the origin of the river which might be in Honduras. We talked with a couple of police officers who explained that the alert system improved over the last two years. An organization called COIN, distributed the stream in more canals, diminishing the pressure on a single canal. The problem of the pollution remains, as the smell is noticeable in this area, where steel sheet houses occupy the land. Although according to the police their number one concern is not the disaster vulnerability but the murder rate, such as 360 casualties in one month related to gang activity.

Work in progress

Sandra took us to a location where her office in collaboration with two other architectural offices won a design competition. The street leading to the location has a religious sentimental value; it’s a walk from one church to another (on Easter). A year ago the area used to be gang territory but now it’s a very lively street. On this moment the public space on the side of the church is being constructed, with at least 30 men working at the same time in order to finish the public space as quickly as possible. The roads where cars pass through are finished; in the future it will be a car free zone. In this area we visited a housing complex, initiated by Fundasal in collaboration with architects and inhabitants and funded by a Swedish corporation. In a process of 7 years, they first started community capacity building which took about 4 years and then another 3 years for the construction, which is now finishing. On the scale of liveability we made a couple of notes. For example 12 families that used to live there, shared a single bathroom. Now every house (family) has its own. The open court yard shows the initiative to create public open space within a closed complex. Unique in El Salvador is the typology for housing different groups of families. This complex has a dwelling for a single inhabitant as well as a duplex for a large family. They used the social organization in order to build these houses as well as the nearby shelter warehouse, where the families currently dwell. The residents have to pay a form of ‘rent’, which is 25$/month for a period of 15 years. The project was funded and so they implemented this ‘rent’ in order to have financial aid for another community project. In the end the people do not own their house and do not own their land. This is another way of dealing with the land rights.

Potentiality

For now a couple of points make up the potentiality. This was the last quick scan report and after the revision every location will be evaluated on the suitability of a case study location.

Pro’s:
- City centre: history, connectivity, metropolis
- Influences and consequences on different flows and disciplines
- Evolution of these flows: economic (market), population (migration) etc.
- Importance of public space

Con’s:
- Very challenging for 2 month period to go in specific details
- Safety issues

QS: Downtown, San Salvador

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Quick Scan Report: Mejicanos: Montreal, Iberia & Guadalupe
Accompanied by: Victor & Hector (Municipality Mejicanos) + Sofia (UCA)
Date: 17/03/09
Time: 09:00-13:00

Introduction

We visited a part of Mejicanos on Thursday, March 12th. Mejicanos is a municipality just north of the municipality of San Salvador and part of the greater San Salvador. It has a population approximately 165 thousand people, of whom mostly earn there money in the city centre. In 6 zones of the municipal, an amount of 25 000 dollars was distributed over 26 communities for the reconstruction and prevention of disasters and social programs. Today we visited a couple of communities, the main focus was on: Montreal (32 families: 4-7 persons/family), Iberia & Guadalupe.

Team

For this visit we teamed up with our contact Sofia from the student association at UCA. She helped translating while we were guided around by Hector and Victor of the municipal. At the municipal they work on reconstruction after a disaster: earthquake and yearly landslides/floods caused by heavy rain. We finished the day with a meeting reported in Meeting Report: Antonio Rodriguez.

Community house and necessities

Every community we visited is vulnerable to heavy rains, because they are enclosed by the hills. On the scale of liveability we observed the houses and accessibilities to necessities for human life. We asked around for the flows of food and medicines and learned that the communities are depended on San Salvador, while only connected with one entrance. Most of the houses are constructed with steel sheets, wooden logs and bricks. But there are also house constructed with concrete blocks. These are more resistant and a couple of these serve as a community house. Because of the repetitive floods and landslides, the community is prepared. During the rain season the municipal measures the rain fall and when necessary all the people gather in a community house. Most of the community houses are partially renovated vacant houses. In the community Montreal these vacant houses are owned by the bank but nobody is taking care of the maintenance and nobody is living in them. The municipal constructed plastic and wooden roofs for these houses, which were destroyed by the heavy rain/landslide. In the community Guadalupe a construction took place and it’s the only example where we saw public space directly connected with the community house. This is used for weekly meetings and other gathering. The community house in Iberia is the most organized in the sense of the necessities. The community made a plan a presented this in order to get international help from Germany. They implemented a sanitation system for the neighborhood, with a system of tubes where black and clean water are transported separately within one pipe. For example Montreal also has clean water system but not a sanitation network.

Incentives

While these communities are not far away from each other, the responses are very diverse. NGOs like Fundasal, Procomes, Cantizano, Oxfam and Ayuda Humanitairs helped in different fields like water, sanitation and infrastructure. While construction companies like Avance ingenieros built a gated settlement nearby. A lot of international help lead to improvement of facilities, like the Catholic school in Iberia initiated by the Spanish embassy.

Social problems

While the area is very vulnerable to natural disasters and heavy rain, the main problems seem to be social. In the communities we visited social safety is an issue because there is gang activity. The collaboration between the national government and the municipalities is inefficient, because of political differences (see Meeting Report: Antonio Rodriguez). The municipal do want they can with the small amount of finance, resulting in construction of small playing areas, walls and with help from NGO or international actors implementations like water/sanitation systems, staircases and roads.

Potentiality

QS: Mejicanos2

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We tested/used the GPS during visiting our possible Case study locations. You can also get a good idea of the map and structure of the locations we have visited by viewing the tracks.

Paraisio de Osorio, 10-3-2009


The track of Paraisio de Osorio itself is accurate, only it seemed to be impossible to shift the time in a way that all the photos found the right location. A solution to this problem will be to synchronize the times of the camera and the GPS.


There are made many locations points at a place we didn’t mean to. Maybe the button was pressed without knowing it, next time no sitting on the GPS!

Santa Tecla, 11-3-2009


The track was pretty accurate, only when we entered a building there was some distortion.


The photos made in Las Collinas, our most important site to visit, configured with the right location points. Later on, travelling by car, the photos and the location points are not exactely put at the same place. It is probably even more important to have the time of the camera synchronized with the time of the GPS when travelling with a higher velocity.

Manantiales and Mejicanos, 12-3-2009



The track of Manantiales shows distortion at the places we stood still, this problem can be solved with the configuration, to log only when you have a minimum speed. In the Mejicanos track you see the exact same problem.

The camera was set on a different time zone then the GPS. We divided the project into two different projects, Manantiales and Mejicanos, because the time shifting gets easier with two different time frames for placing the photos accurate.

San Pedro Nonualco and Santa Maria de Ostuma, 13-3-2009



When we were in a building the track shows distortions. Next time we have to turn of the GPS when we are in a building.

The information of the GPS could be written easily into the pictures of the camera of Barbara's telephone, because the time of this camera is synchronized with the GPS.

Mejicanos, 18-3-2009



The GPS track is very accurate. The GPS information was written in the photos and they were are immediately correct placed. When we are in a building you see a little distortion. We booked a lot progress after doing all the tests and are ready to start mapping.

It’s ‘Domingo Quince’ meaning Sunday the 15^th: the day of the presidential elections. There was no escaping the suspense with all the political campaigning on the streets, TV/radio and off course in everyday conversations. The rivalry is between FMLN, the left, and Arena, the right party.

As we try to stay neutral and understand as much as possible about the context, we are mostly surrounded by FMLN supporters, the left party. According to a lot of people the left has never had a candidate as strong as Mauricio Funes. From the military rulers and two decennia of the right calling the shots, the left has never been in power. In the polls the left was winning, so the anticipation about this historic change was huge. As we learned more and more about the history; fraud, repression and tricks implemented during elections we began to realize the possibility of a big anti-climax.

The government, businesses and the people organized a lot of options for people to vote, like free public transportation, discounts in different restaurants for the voters, etc. So on this Sunday everyone was gone for most of the day. In the evening the results started coming in. The final result was the FMLN winning with a close 51%.

We were invited by our friends from the hotel to the celebration of this historic day in El Salvador. A gathering at Plaza Masferrer could best be described with visual aid.

We’re entering our second week with this historic event,
Keep on checking our blog, Salut!

This is the first week of our Quick Scan/Inceptive phase, meaning visiting different locations in order to select our locations for the Case Study.

We started off on Tuesday with a visit to Paraíso de Osorio accompanied by people from Fundasal. We drove up a mountain for quite some time and had opportunities to enjoy the view of the big lake.


When we arrived at the location we began talking to people about the natural disasters that occurred and the vulnerability of the place. It’s obvious that interviewing offers a lot more information that we imagined. We focused on the process and the solutions and/or possibilities for the future generation. We experienced a lot curiosity in the sense that we tried to make pictures while young girls were sniggering and making pictures of us as well.

Read more about Paraíso de Osorio in our Quick Scan report.

On Wednesday we visited Santa Tecla, with our friend Roberto from Fundasal who lives there. While we did not talk to anyone specific we drove around different places which had meaning in the response process. For example a partially deserted place where people were not able to return because of economical & political reasons, to a big open football fields where the shelters were placed.


Read more about Santa Tecla in our Quick Scan report.

Thursday was the day of Los Manantiales & Mejicanos. We already learned a lot about the programs of Fundasal and we could switch from generic to specific questions in the interviews. The weather on this day was the hottest of the entire week and we experienced a little envy to the children of Los Manantiales playing in outside swimming pools. Both places, Los Manantiales & Mejicanos, showed potential for case studies, but these as well as every other location we visited were mostly affected by the earthquake of ’86. We might have to reconsider the UE-norm of a 10 year timeframe for when the last natural disaster happened.



Read more about Los Manantiales & Mejicanos in our Quick Scan report.

We round up this week with a visit two more locations in La Paz, San Pedro & Santa Maria Ostuma. Here we met keyfigures of the response process, a community leader, a local priest and City Hall council. These interviews were very productive. We were able to learn a lot about the process, social networking and plans, provided that a lot of the key information was bodied in negativity about others. We round up the day by meeting a contact from UCA, during ‘Salsa night’ in the bar next to our hotel. We might have to brush up on our salsa skills as well as our Spanish.


Read more about San Pedro & Santa Maria Ostuma in our Quick Scan report.

This is it for this week,
Please check the Quick Scan reports for a detailed description of these visits