A couple of us visited Mireya and her family this past holiday season. We were excited to see how she was doing and whether she had found the ammenities that were included in the design of the house as useful as we had expected.
Mireya told us she had moved in Christmas Eve and she looked very happy to see us. During the time we spent with her, it seemed she could not find the right words to express to us her extreme gratitude. Instead, she found many others that, when combined, said it all.: “No saben cuanto les agradezco.” “Antes eramos pobres, ahora somos ricos.” “Muchas gracias.”
This was not something any of us could have expected. In my experience working in volunteer groups, I had never been involved in something that affected someone this strongly.
But this wasn’t the theme that any one of us who went back had in mind when we arrived. We were expecting to see the “hand of the architect” at work; the various passive energy solutions and techniques implemented had been so important to us that we had forgotten another aspect of this quite interdisciplinary field–sociology.
Mireya told us the house had been broken into, and that those who had broken in had stolen the metal parts of her stove. Her family helped her put up a fence and an addition to the southern part of the house. To our dismay, these additions caused changes in both the presentation of the front entrance of the house and the ventilation scheme. It could not have been more unsettling to see how much the physical structure of the house had changed.
When I arrived at home and looked at the pictures we took, I had a hard time finding the right set of emotions for what we had just experienced. As architects, some of us are trained to photograph the building, with no people present, such that the design say it all. Well, this time it was one of those non-architectural photos that had the last word. Mireya and her family could not possibly looked any happier. And no amount of “tweaking” of the architect’s vision could have offset the way I felt when I looked at this picture and remembered how our hard work will make their lives better.
To all the volunteers those who supported Eco-politani in this valiant effort, I hope this photograph and Mireya’s words do for you what they have done for me.
