4.170/4.171
International Workshop: Hawaii
Units: 3-2-7Level: U/G
Prerequisites: Permission of instructor
Instructor: Jan Wampler
Room: 9-213
wampler@mit.edu
Phone: 617-253-7904
Low Cost Housing for Hawaii
Hawaii. A community group would like to build one of the houses once it is designed and permitted in January The land is about 100 acres that extends to shoreline cliffs. The owners want to create a small agricultural community and have the funds to build necessary infrastructure.
Hawai‘i is the most isolated inhabited landmass on the planet, approximately 2,500 miles removed from the continental United States and Asia. Between 85% and 90% of the food consumed in Hawai‘i is imported, rendering its food supply particularly vulnerable to natural disasters and other events beyond the control of local markets and local government. Any major political or physical disruption would put Hawai‘i at risk of running out of food in approximately two weeks. Additionally contamination of the imported food supply with invasive species creates a significant risk to the State’s ability to produce its own food. Opportunity lies in expanding local food production to decrease these risks. The Hawaiian Islands, blessed with a moderate climate and year-around growing seasons, provided for 100% of its food supply prior to Western contact in 1778, and sustained a population upwards of 700,000 to perhaps a million people. With access to affordable land, improved agricultural technologies and a larger, well-educated agricultural work force, Hawai‘i should be able to achieve a high degree of food self-reliance and provide its current population of 1.2 million people with a safe, secure, and fresh supply of local products.
A 2008 study conducted by the University of Hawai‘i College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources concluded that replacing just 10% of the consumption of imported foods with those produced locally would result in $94 million in sales at the farm-gate, generating an estimated economy-wide impact of $188 million in sales; $47 million in earnings; and more than 2,300 jobs. Hawai‘i Island, the largest of the State’s major islands, with 820,000 acres of farms that constitute 63% of all the farmland in the state, has the potential to capture between 40% and 50% of these sales, earnings, and jobs, significantly contributing to the overall growth of its faltering economy.
The success of such an import substitution strategy depends on the ability of farmers to price their products competitively in the global food market—a particular challenge given the high cost of imported fossil-fuel based agricultural inputs, the exceptionally high value of land when used for resort and high-end residential development, along with zoning restrictions, development pressures, and high prices of imported building materials that severely limit the availability of low-cost housing—meaning low-cost enough to be affordable for a person or family earning a living by farming.
On Hawai‘i Island there is a shift away from the historical plantation model of industrial agriculture to small family farms using local organic inputs to produce diversified crops, but due to the high price of both land and building construction, making this transition is difficult for local families who want to start or maintain such farming operations. One step in facilitating this desired agricultural transformation would be provision of simple model farm dwelling designs that meet county building regulations, are efficient and cost-effective to construct, and can be easily expanded if families grow and prosper. These small homes would also be part of a community agricultural land trust that includes additional buildings for social gathering, product processing, product sales and/or agricultural tourism, along with shared systems for water and electrical power delivery.
The work for the semester will be to design a low cost house using local materials as well as a group of houses around community facilities.
A trip is planned for a weekend in October with a second trip planned in January to actually build a prototype house.
First meeting to determine meeting time, will be on Wednesday Sept 9 at 2PM in 9-213. If you can not make this meeting please email me with times that you could meet for 1 hour twice a week.
