Our goal is to design and build a better, affordable housing prototype for those who live in the colonias of Tijuana, Mexico.
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Last weekend we visited the site on our mission to test the soils, hunt for materials, and work on logistics. We arrived at our site amazed to see all the work that had completed. Jaimie, an affiliate of Project Mercy, has taken a special interst in the project because he knows the Ramiez family personally. He has been dedicating personal time and money into our project. He had a pit dug for a cistern tank and begun the footing excavations for a new concrete masonry unit retaining wall. It appears that we will have to revise our site plan according to our new site.
After reviewing our modified site we broke out the shovels and got to work. Following instructions from the draft of a upcoming earth plasters book by our friends, Bill & Athena Steen. We began to conduct tests concerning the amounts of clay in our soil.
It appears that we have a decent mix. The topsoil contains the most clay and underlying soils contain more sand. We feel that with the help of a little lime our soil mix will be just right. We brought two buckets full of soil back home to test this hypothesis.
Pallets. We had another last minute idea to use pallets for the wall construction. Tijuana has an excess of pallets, being an industrial city with plenty of cargo shipping. It is already a common recycled building material, as one can see from some of the construction of the neighboring latrines and fences. The typical size is 40″x48″ which will fit in our structure if we sister studs to them at approximately 48″ on center. We are currently looking into cellulose insulation availability in Tijuana. When joined together the pallets appear to have significant strength and should be a timely asset to our construction schedule.
Fortunately there was a stack of used pallets at a neighboring home and we were able to lay a few out and join some together. Jaimie informed us that he has a friend who may be able to get us pallets from a warehouse he works at. We are hoping to get quality recycled pallets of the same size for our wall construction. We are currently working on finalizing the engineering, obtaining a materials estimate, logistics, and scrambling for funding.
It’s been atrociously hot here in LA this week. I’m not sure the rest of the team is faring much better in the the the Bay Area. But I feel like a complete whoosie when I consider the fact that my house is properly insulated, and I can always flip on the A/C. We wanted to get this house built for the family before the rainy season – but suddenly, I wish we’d also gotten it done for them before August turned Baja California into a frying pan.
With our construction date nearing, we’re getting into full gear tying up loose ends and making sure things run course. This coming weekend (8/13), we’ll be back down in Mexico to put in orders for materials we need. Among the things we’re securing: adobe, materials for adobe plastering, and materials for a composting toilet system (no sewage system for at least 5 years). We’re trucking along, yes we are…
Mireya and her five children will be moving into their new, Eco-politan designed house in Setember.
Their new house will provide them with approximately 450 sq. ft of usable living space. They will have three bedrooms centered around a common living space with kitchen. This space — along with the covered patio in the front of the house — will afford them views of the surrounding areas and greater accessibility to the outdoors. This will also make it easier for Mireya to watch over her kids, who spend a considerable amount of time outside.
Here is a snap of our site taken during our visit last weekend. As you can see they have already begun grading. Our visit forced us to quickly redesign our prototype. We are still burning neurons in our quest for a design that meets our sustainable desires and the existing site condition. With the steep site we realize that we must plan for future retaining walls and possible terraces. For these we will likely use recycled tires, which are commonly used in Tijuana.
We also learned that the neighbors did not submit their plans to the city and their house is built a few feet past our property line. Actually I am not even sure if they have a residential building permit department in Tijuana and have not heard of any one submitting plans. People here just build to survive. We are currently working with a site that is approximately 27 feet wide by 86 feet long. We also have a change in elevation of about 10 feet.
Here are is an axon of our new design
We are currently working on the site plan and we will post it as soon as possible.
Please email us any comments or suggestions…..especially those pretaining to our design and site
Our dates for construction have been set! We will be heading down between Sept. 1 (Fri) – Sept. 11. (Mon) to Mexico to build the house. This encompasses Labor Day (Sept 5) for those of you who would like to use your day off to help out your neighbors and get some hands-on experience in construction. It would be great if you can stay the whole week, but I know time isn’t always on our side. Come down for as long as you can – it will help us keep construction moving throughout the week.
Sam’s got a friend in TJ that is going to let us stay at her place – so accomodations are good to go. However, some people are opting to camp out at the site – this would be a good option for you if you are interested in getting to know the local environment and people. (At least one of us will be there always, otherwise building materials might disappear).
More info later ( including carpooling), as logisitics get hammered out.
If you’re interested in coming, email info@eco-politan.org. Tell us if you’re a yes or maybe, and we’ll keep you posted.
Well, Project Mercy has graciously provided us a site to build our project. Here’s the photo they sent:
We’re going to have to go down in the middle of July to check it out – the slope is a little concerning. We’re going to have to see how much of this lot is actually buildable space. But hey, it’ll be a house with a view.
We’re hoping my friend Yvonne will be able to come down to Mexico with us next time – she just graduated from Landscape Architecture school – maybe she can weigh in on a good strategy for dealing with this land.
Hey everyone -welcome to the Eco-politan blog. This is where the team will put up posts about what’s going on, and how the project is developing. If you are reading this, you probably already know that we are designing and building an affordable housing prototype in Mexico. For more info, go ahead and hit the “About” section for our project goals.
We hope you’ll enjoy this site. Much thanks to Lou Huang whose talents and creativity made this site possible. So yeah, go forth, click around, and thanks for your support!
-The Eco-politan Team
