Malawi, Africa

In contrast to Western prosperity, imagine a place stricken with poverty and illness; a place without the post-industrial consumer; a place isolated from modern advancements in medicine, education, technology, production, transportation, and building; a place where sustainable living occurs by default. In Malawi, Africa, circadian patterns of everyday life hinge on survival and persist according to available resources. Within mud-hut, thatched roof villages, Malawian women spend their days grinding their own grain, carrying baskets of water on their heads, carting firewood for cooking, washing clothes by hand, and laying nsima (similar to grits and made of ground maize) on bamboo mats to dry in the sun. On the other hand, the men hand make sun-dried clay bricks and gravel, transport barrels of wood on bicycles, fish, and farm using a drip irrigation system (mainly for the production of maize [corn]).[1]

In an age overrun by industry and its sustainable countermovement, studying a culture that survives without industry becomes increasing relevant to understand how design results from necessity, functionality, and resourceful invention. To a certain degree, the countries primitive state acts as a pre-industrial blank slate. For a similar reason, Rem Koolhaas desires to study the “self-organization” and informal development within various regions of Lagos, Africa because he “professes to be seeking in his own design practice ‘to develop more informal ways to plan cities.’ ”[2]

While designer have a unique ability to learn from the vernacular traditions this antiquated culture, they have an equally unique opportunity and responsibility to aid in the development of Malawi. Much of their progress in terms of education, medical facilities and medicine, orphan care, and sustainable agricultural solutions[3] is the result of faithful organizations, such as the Malawi Project. With the aid of the Malawi Project, hospital equipment and mattresses (20-30 years old) are being replace, 80,000 mouths of orphans are being fed with VitaMeals (produced in a local plant near Lumbadzi), and housing projects, such as Mtendere Village houses and educates orphans (There are approximately one million AIDS orphans in Malawi.)[4]

Posted by: Linnea Cook

[1] www.malawiproject.org; www.flickr.com/photos/malawiproject
[2] Joan Ockman (in class reading)
[3] such as a portable chicken coop designed by David Goolsby with Healing Hands International in order to “protect poultry and contain chicken manure” but to be later moved, so that the manure can be used as fertilizer
[4] www.malawiproject.org; http://www.flickr.com/photos/malawiproject