Jon Beswick, who graduated from LSBU in 2008, is currently on a 48,000km overland trip circumnavigating Africa.
However, during his travels Jon will build shelters for HIV clinics and help raise money for the UK charity One to One Children's Fund. The charity is intending to establish a network of pediatric clinics in 23 African countries.
Jon and university colleague Charlie Curtis are driving a Land Rover Defender with only a 3 ton winch, high lift jack, sand ladders, water purifier and pump, Engel fridge, roof tent, side awning, power inverters, satellite phones and GPS, compressor, tools, spare parts, and gaffer tape for company; a remarkable initiative in itself.
Until February 2008, Jon was working as an architectural assistant on high-end residential projects in Belgravia and Hampstead, often with construction budgets of £2,000,000. Confident there were other challenges in architecture to be met, he replied to an advert placed by One to One, and resigned his position in London; some months later, Jon was traveling down Africa's west coast to Burkina Faso. In a remarkable shift of culture and climate, the budget for each shelter in Africa, which Jon is also designing, is only a few hundred pounds including local labour and materials. Jon is writing a diary of his journey for World Architecture News; the Architectural Review will also be publishing three of his articles.
During his trip across Africa (so far to Morocco, the Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea Bissau, and Guinea) Jon has made an in depth study of indigenous building techniques including stone construction, thatch, fabric tents, pisé, and timber fishermen's' boxes. The clients for the clinics have asked for a range of buildings, including reception and waiting areas, accommodation, and cooking facilities. The photograph shows round houses of Jon's design in use; total manufacture and construction time was well under three weeks.
As Jon says, much African construction practice centres on the ability to improvise, sometimes using found materials. However, the general principle of thick wall construction gives excellent thermal mass, a sound environmental principle that much western architecture is only gradually adopting.
Posted: 20 November 2009
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