On the weekend of the 11th and 12th January, the Nakuru Project began with the first volunteer workshop at the Welsh School of Architecture in Cardiff to begin to design a new home for the kids of the St. Jerome's Children's Home in Nakuru, Kenya. This was the first opportunity for the Orkidstudio team and volunteers to all meet together following the team's selection in November. We were privileged to also have Gemma Marie Steele, Beth Shelvey and Hazel Preston from St. Jerome's Children's Home join us for the workshop, who will hopefully be in Nakuru in August and September when we fly out to build the Children's Home.
The workshop began with a series of short talks, including one from two of our volunteers from the Macintosh School of Architecture, Catherine and Martin, who had been doing some research on vernacular Kenyan architecture. Gemma, Beth and Hazel also gave the team a great introduction to Nakuru and the kids at St. Jerome's.
The afternoon was spent developing initial ideas about the children's home, through a combination of small group charettes and wider team discussions. At the end of day one we had made exciting progress and the team got to know each other better over a home-cooked meal made by the volunteers and trustees based in Cardiff.
We began day 2 of the workshop by trying to consolidate some of the best ideas from Saturday, and over the course of the morning some strong designs began to emerge. Some time was spent focusing on beginning to look at the detail of smaller elements of the design, such as bedrooms and snug spaces.
By the end of the day the project had really begun to take shape, and the team will now go away and continue to develop the project until the second workshop in March. The volunteers will also be running various fundraising events in aid of the project, each aiming to raise £2,500 to help cover the cost of the project.
Many thanks to all of the participants in the workshop, as well as Jonny Campbell, one of our previous volunteers who kindly volunteered to film the workshop for us.
You can keep track of how the project progresses through facebook and twitter, and if you would be interested in helping us meet our overall fundraising target for the build of £35,000 please donate or get in touch.
Jan. 27, 2014
