Jack's Picks

Jack's Picks is a carry-over from my 'zine Prose and Cons: a lit. 'zine for penned pens. Here are some recent flavors o' the month:

Home Energy magazine just published two articles of mine on the rebuilding efforts in Haiti after the earthquake.

Many people had a hand in these articles, such as architect Darrel deBoer, dance hall preservationist, Patrick Sparks, and engineer and genius, Randolph Langenbach. Natural builder Kevin Rowell, currently on the ground in Port-au-Prince is foremost. He arrived shortly after it happened, and began introducing himself around the meeting tents of the large players in the rebuilding groups there. Invited and not invited to these tables, amidst beaurocratic and post-disaster cluster-fucks, he has shown up, spoken up, determined who the people to meet were, met them, and is now the go-to guy for many of the NGOs and Govt Orgs there looking for answers about building materials. Find out what he's up to currently on the Kleiwerks, Interntional website.

I had a lot of help putting these together, and am super-happy that so many of our readers have come forward to say they appreciated seeing them there. I am grateful to Home Energy for letting me direct so much of my attention in telling these stories.

The first article Blind Monks Examining an Elephant, in the July/August issue is about why the concrete houses fell down, and how the country's vernacular buildings--such as wattle-and-daub--survived better, and how research on the Gingerbread district in Port-au Prince may point to ways to rebuild using their own culturally and climactically appropriate ways. Thanks to the magazine's building science reputation, and the validating nature of print, Kevin says it is being quoted among Haitian government officials.

The September/October article, Co-Laboratory for Sustainable Development, introduces a project that is testing materials in a lab from the buildings that are still standing, and working with Haitians to design methods to use what works, toss what didn't, and evolve what's possible with modern available materials.