Natural Building & Carnival Architectonics

WITH MICHAEL LEE POY

This land-based program invited students to a 15-day workshop in Freeport Trinidad (Trinidad and Tobago) to Wa Samaki Ecosystems, a 35-acre permaculture-designed and operated farm. Students were guided through the core ethics of the program: Care for the earth, people and community. These ethics provide a framework for the principles that foster a regenerative relationship between land and people and are instrumental in designing and developing sustainable human settlements and institutions.

Students investigated the Wa Samaki site and applied permaculture design principles through a variety of project-based exercises. Students learned about the theory of permaculture and the evolution of site-specific design practices from Traditional Ecological Knowledge, as well as natural building techniques by assisting to build a functional cob house structure. This interdisciplinary course helped to support students and teach them how to incorporate holistic approaches to sustainability and use hands-on, studio-based practice tools to generate innovative responses to site-specific challenges.

Students will also be considering how Carnival arts can be a teaching tool in sustainability and express practices of resistance to unsustainable social, economic, material systems. Moko Jumbie and Blue Devils masquerade practices will be investigated and designed to be featured in the Toronto Caribbean Carnival 2023.