The Building Hope Project
A Community + Water Initiative
Under Construction
Awards and Recognitions
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Featured in 2016 Annual Emerging Professionals Exhibition It Takes a Community
Location: Washington D.C. Exhibition Dates: July - September 2016
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Showcased in Third United Nations Conference on Housing and Urban Sustainable Design (Habitat III)
Location: Quito, Ecuador Exhibition Dates: October 17-20
Location: Los Angeles, California Exhibition Dates: October 5-7
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Showcased at Greenbuild 2016
Project Donors & Sponsers List
- The Ella Lyman Cabot Trust
- Hope Families (NonProfit)
- Promise Children
- Grace Community Church of Orange County
The Building Hope project seeks to utilize the power of architectural intervention to address critical issues of resource scarcity in the community of La Villa de San Francisco Honduras. Through the help of our growing list funders and sponsors, the project seeks to address issues through the design and build of a community center. The center is designed in such a way, that it serves as an immediate observable, replicable model for locals to then implement in their own residential applications.
The projects conception began on Chris Mansfield's personal volunteer travels to Honduras. In initial travels, he was able to observe the people of the country struggling to obtain basic elements needed to sustain life. Some of the issues such as a need for clean water and cost effective building strategies seemed to be potentially addressable through architectural intervention.
During his first trip to the country, he had the opportunity to network with Hope Families, an existing non-profit community organization that runs a community help program in La villa De San Francisco. The Hope Families non-profit quickly became an invaluable partner to the project that will eventually run the new center, with a faith based focus on community families and children.
While the projects primary intent is to construct a demonstrative, faith based community center, the scope of the research includes a serious emphasis on how the centers demonstrative properties may eventually be replicated and applied by community members.
A new center with a program that builds community and provides needed resources stands to potentially curb neighborhood conflict and begin the community healing process. The center stands as not only a replicable model, but also as an immediate community element to bring neighbors back together physically in daily interactions and emotionally in the new resources being provided.