Lota Agua

The project will be focused on a low tech shower and bath with the reuse of grey water for gardens and green space for Lotina communities living on illegal land with no potable water, where the full use cycle is taken into account.

When researching the temporary housing, every interviewee mentioned that their primary issue is water. The issues related to water are mostly political ones, however what the people of Lota in temporary housing need is a reliable system now, not in decades if the political situation is ever resolved. After all water is a basic need for survival.

Currently, there is no running water and transportation, storage and pouring is accomplished through the use of buckets. In some houses, water is stored in large garbage cans. Such communities have no managed method of water disposal and often grey water is poured to a body of water surrounding them. Others wash their bodies, clothes or dishes by the river with toxic chemicals. Most of the housing in illegal land have difficulty washing themselves as there is no running water.

There is opportunity for a personal and possibly communal washing space since the biggest problem is the act of washing and since is no designated space for the disposal of used water, a possible garden. Infact this all can be part of the same system. Currently in the community, buckets are used in order to store, trasport and use as a tool for pouring.

Although many were relocated and the municipality provided materials for housing and some help with plumbing, many people due to delayed allocation of land moved to illegal land where they made their own houses with the supplies given to them. These communities remain with no running water and have simple temporary housing, with temporary bathrooms, no showers and sometimes no stoves. Many still wash their clothes in the body of water nearby and others dispose their water in the dirt pathways around the house where greywater sits and can be more contaminated. I went to several temporary housing communities. The one that made me realize design can be a solution to is temporary housing number one and two. Even when i asked the communities, where do you throw the water you use, they kind of put their head down and said that in the nearby water or road. Infact in the Lota charrette at DUOCUC the residents of lota were very concerned about this issue.

Finally, when i went to the Toronto Charette in November, ironically I had the chance to work with the water group and we designed emergency shipping containers that could serve a need, in this case water. We worked on this project for days and every day at 5:00pm we talked to experts in Water, Industrial Design, Architecture and Development. And what I came to realize is that although basic needs are very important, sometimes design is about added value, its about dignity and about social and psychological aspects. Many of Lotina's needs are met but the in the most crude and uncomfortable way. They CAN wash themselves, they CAN get water to drink but it is not something they look forward to. I want to design a scenario where you look forward to doing the activity.

Imagine:

warm water falls from your shoulders, run down your body slowly, you breathe in, you can feel the warm air, the steam of it all, makes your body relax. As you sit and ponder about the day and the people you are around, you take in slowly the most incredible, indescribable aroma of lavender and herbs that you are softly stepping on. You are sitting in a space where you can gaze in to the ocean, its endless.

As the water drips down your face, down to your chest, to your legs , knees, feet, it finally reaches the ground... now the soil is drinking it in, thirst is replenished and the water runs down travels slowly through the soil, filling every hole where thirst made a home.

This is what I want. I want to create an experience that is much beyond meeting a basic need, because sometimes thats dignity, pride, and a sense of self.