Since Architecture Brigades moved from Panama to Honduras in 2010, our focus has been on building secondary schools in rural Honduran communities. So far, the secondary school in Zurzular is complete, and during the winter brigade season, we are hoping to make significant progress on the school in Santa Rosa. Once the second school is completed, we plan to expand the scope of Architecture Brigades to include the health sector as well by building a health and community center in the community of El Canton.
As many of you already know, the design competition is one of the more unique aspects of Architecture Brigades. For each of our new projects, we provide all Architecture Brigades chapters with the opportunity to design the new structure. The design competition is open to all interested chapters, however it is not necessary for schools to participate in the competition in order to go on a brigade, which consists of actually building the designs from the competition. For more information about the design competition, click here.
Architecture Brigades will host the next design competition in early 2012, for the design of El Canton’s health and community center. Construction will begin shortly after. The land has already been designated for the site of the future structure, and Program Lead Tyler Macy has been meeting with the municipal government to lay the groundwork for this project by working out such issues as who will staff the health center, and where the equipment and medicines will come from. We recently learned that because of El Canton’s central location among multiple surrounding communities, about 5,000 people will benefit from the construction of this basic health care facility! We hope that you share in our excitement over the significant expansion of the Architecture program into the health care sector.
