UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI SCHOOL OF ARCHITECURE'S LEADERSHIP IN HAITI CHARETTE
FOLLOWING DEVASTATING EARTHQUAKE STRENGTHENS TIES AND LONGTERM
COMMITTMENT TO HELP REBUILD NEIGHBORING NATION IN NEED
By Steve Wright
Haiti -- an island racked by centuries of poverty, government scandal and life-and-death struggles -- was dealt an unspeakable blow by a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 earthquake whose epicenter was just outside the capital city of Port-au-Prince.
The Haitian Government reported that an estimated 230,000 people had died, 300,000 had been injured and 1,000,000 made homeless by the January 12, 2010 disaster. The numbers, almost too overwhelming to comprehend, included an estimated 250,000 residential and 30,000 commercial buildings that had collapsed or were severely damaged by the quake and its aftershocks.
For Miami-based architect Boukman Mangones, a Haitian-American whose family's roots in Haiti run back to the early 1800s, the heartbreaking events stirred a passion to help out. But how? How? he wondered.
"The earthquake was very personal," said Mangones, a project manager at R.J. Heisenbottle Architects, whose principal Richard J. Heisenbottle is a University of Miami School of Architecture graduate. "Myself and my wife both have family down there."
"I was desperately seeking ways of helping out," said Mangones. "But I'm not a doctor, I'm an architect -- so I wanted to get involved in architecture."
Wright has contributed thousands of stories about town planning, architecture, urban recovery and transportation. Contact the Miami-based writer-photographer at stevewright64@yahoo.com
TOMORROW: PART 2
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