A digital platform that hosts student and faculty projects for ARCHIVE, the upcoming ACSA online exhibition celebrating 100 years in architecture education.
UPLOAD YOUR WORK to compete for special recognition by guest curators, have your work as an online portfolio, and show people everywhere how architecture schools are doing things that matter.
MOSAÏQUE DU SEL [cultivating salt : engaging people + land + sea]
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Haiti, devastated by the catastrophic earthquake of 2010, has been left with the pressing burden to mend its already fractured community, ecology, economy, and health. This project aims to establish a new Haitian identity that grapples with its fractured systems. MOSAÏQUE DU SEL re-imagines the salt production process, which interfaces land and sea through harnessing Haiti’s abundant resources (sea, sun, wind, and coast), to cultivate salt and agriculture as the catalyst of change. MOSAÏQUE DU SEL not only produces food, but also an improved livelihood for Haitians using modern salt production techniques. Compared to modern tiered systems, current Haitian salt operations create a product with high impurity levels, iodine-deficiencies, and reduced quantities. Building upon existing salt production practices, this coastal agriculture project will create a diversified living system that fosters community through the production of salt, potable water, agriculture, aqua farming, biodiversity, and biofuel production¬. This modern system will promote a better quality of life and a viable economy, while embracing Haiti’s native ecology and creating a safer place to live. Re-using rubble as a resource to protect against storm surges and support the structure for this system will allow for the regeneration of the urban fabric where rubble once was. This migration of materials illustrates that MOSAÏQUE DU SEL’s coastal focus also has inland implications. Coastal agriculture will change Haitians’ current appreciation of the coast, proving that this land, which is currently an untapped resource, can become valuable once again. Finally, this community-oriented, prototypical system allows for replication and expansion with the potential for integrating eco-tourism into Haiti’s new economy.
