"Safe Box" Week with the French Students

French and American students working together for the "Safe Box" project 

Last week was by far the most fun week of school so far.  After returning from a week-long travel break, we skipped our usual Design and Structures classes in order to have a 5-day intense design charrette with the second-year French students.  Each American was paired with 3 or 4 French students, so finally, after all this time, students of both cultures were working together in the same room and got to know each other very quickly.

The assignment was simple and straightforward: choose a location, pick a disaster, and design a low-budget emergency housing unit (a "Safe Box") for the families who lost their homes.  However, with the added language barrier and different design backgrounds, a challenging and exhausting week ensued.  We were at school all day, every day -- hearing lectures, sketching our ideas, and consulting with our professors and teaching assistants.  I got lucky and was paired with 3 nice French girls who were very talented and motivated (Claire, Lise, and Barbara... they're so funny).  After they heard me speak a little French, they barely spoke English the rest of the week -- so my French improved a lot!

The three teachers for the week were guests from all over the world, and by the end of the 5 days, we loved them all.  There was Kevin Hinders from U of I, who gave a lecture on some of his sustainable work throughout the world; Jean-Christophe Grosso, a French architect who talked about his disaster relief work in Benin; and Yashar Hanstad, an Iranian-Norweigan architect from Tyin Tegnestue studios, who also did low-cost housing.  It was great to hear Professor Hinders' real American accent, something we realized we hadn't heard in months...  We also learned that Jean-Christophe used to work for Santiago Calatrava, which was awesome...  And everyone (especially the girls) fell in love with Yashar after hearing about his love for Radiohead and how his last project beat Zaha Hadid in a competition.

The 3 design teachers and the program coordinators

Yashar giving his comments

The final presentations on Friday were long, but they showed just how diverse our disaster solutions ended up being.  They were rather funny, too: while the French students had to present their parts in English, the Americans had to present in French.  Fortunately, no mocking occurred, and the day ended with a pleasant reception.  No one really wanted the project to end, because it had been such a success, both academically and socially.  (The number of my French friends on Facebook just skyrocketed! haha...)  We celebrated at a friend's apartment on Friday night, so several of the French and Americans got to mingle some more and talk about the week.  Yashar even showed up after his faculty dinner, and we talked about architecture while having some drinks until the early morning.  Overall, it was a great week that I'm sure none of us will ever forget.