Breaking the Communication Barrier Between Architects and Builders Across Cultures

EMILY GOLDENBERG: OK, good morning everyone. Thanks so much for joining us the morning after the block party. I'm sure it's a struggle for a lot of folks, so we appreciate you being here. This is breaking the communication barrier between architects and builders across cultures. My name is Emily Goldenberg. I'm a senior design associate with mass design group based in the Boston office.

SARAH MOHLAND: And I'm Sarah Mohland coming in from the Kigali office.

EMILY GOLDENBERG: If anyone was at AU last year, you may have seen our colleague Christian Benimana on the main stage. Just to point out, we're not as dashing and smooth as him, but we'll do our best in this presentation. So just to give you a brief overview for this, we're planning to just do a kind intro to who we are, who MASS Design Group is, the kind of work that we do, give you a sense of the context that we work in, and then to run through some of the pro bono work that we've done with Autodesk foundation.

So we are MASS Design Group. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit architecture firm. We have offices in both Boston, Massachusetts, and Kigali, Rwanda. And the reason that we're structured as a nonprofit architecture firm is really so that we can work with our partners, develop partnerships with organizations to have maximum impact with the communities that we're serving.

Our mission is to research, build, and advocate for architecture that promotes justice and human dignity. We really believe strongly that buildings either can heal or they can hurt, that they can really have an impact on the communities that they serve. And we do that through multiple facets. We're designers, we're architects, we're structural engineers. And we do that by innovating buildings that improve people's lives in measurable ways.

And we tend to focus on communities and with buildings that can serve them and to promote education, to promote health, and to promote equity. So some of our projects span in the education realm. We're working on a project in Montgomery, Alabama, that's a memorial project as well. And then we've really started out in the health sector working on hospital projects and buildings.

Additionally, we think that research is a really important aspect of the practice. We like to investigate. We seek to investigate how architecture can really affect lives, and really committed to understanding what the short term and the long term impacts of the buildings that we build are. So the research that we do can span from working with government agencies to develop infrastructure standards for the government that we're serving to understand the impacts of some of the health facilities that we're working with, understanding carbon emissions for our buildings as well.

And for us, advocacy is also a big part of what we do. Finding a way to tell our story is really important to us. But not only tell our story, but tell the story of the communities that we're working with, the process of the builders that are doing the buildings, and the individuals who are affected by the buildings.

So this is kind of a collection of who we are at the moment. We started out in 2008 as a really small architecture firm. A few people working pro bono. I'd say around like four or five. And now we've grown to around over 75 individuals. So currently, we have around 25 staff in our Boston office, and around 40 or more in the Kigali office.

We partner with a lot of different organizations as a nonprofit. You can see this kind of spans the gamut here. We work a lot with government organizations, but then also we work with developers such as for a low income housing project in Boston.

And we have built projects in around nine countries. I think that's growing recently. You can see a lot of our focus is in Africa, but we are spreading our work throughout the US as well. We have a few projects in Haiti too. And so currently, we have around four active construction sites. A few in the US, in Rwanda, and in Liberia.

And so what we've learned is that instead of thinking of what a building is, we really need to think of what a building can do, how can it impact the community, what a systemic change can bring to the people that it's serving. And the way that we do that is through what we call an IDM process, which is an impact, design, methodology process. We go through this with a lot of our clients basically trying to understand what the mission of the project is and what the goal of the project is, and we sort of workshop through this with them. So identifying what the mission is, what the method is, how do we achieve the mission that we've defined together, what the impact is of that, and really importantly, what the behavior changes through the buildings that we design or the projects that we work on.

And to just go through a quick example of that, this is the first project that we worked on, which is the Butaro Hospital Project. It's located in Rwanda, Africa, in the northern province of Burera. It's around a two hour drive outside of Kigali.

And so for this project, the mission was really to redefine what a hospital could be, and to look at the way that we could design a building to heal the patients within it. And for us, the method was about finding ways to think about a hospital differently than the norm. So you can see the one example on the right at the top with the x is showing what a normal patient ward would look like. And for us, it was about reinventing that so that we could put maximum impact on the patient's experience. So rotating it so they have use towards the outside is sort of one part of the process that we work through.

The method as well is to partner with organizations who are really like minded to mass. So you can see on the left hand side is Paul Farmer. He works with Partners in Health and is a doctor there. He's the one that was really the mastermind behind the Butaro Hospital Project. And then also partnering with the Clinton Foundation with the Clinton Health Access Initiative.

And then for us, the impact here was really how could you make something that is an economic catalyst? And for us, that means involving the local communities and making it so that this project becomes something that everyone is really proud of within that community. So hiring locally and hiring throughout the villages in that country. And then also another impact is building skills. Looking at materials in a different way than some of the builders are used to, redefining the way that this stone could be used on the building.

And then behavior change here was really creating a stronger community. Beyond the Butaro Hospital Project, this is now the doctors housing that we also work with Partners in Health on that's not too far from the hospital itself. And so because of the success of the hospital, Partners and Health asked us to build housing for the doctors on that campus so that they could have something as well that's beautiful, and something that they could stay in that could impact the way that they bring care to the patients.

And then on top of that, we also think about what we call the Lo-Fab Movement. So the locally fabricated. Thinking about how you can hire locally, you can source materials regionally, and you can train the local community with new skills. And at the same time, invest in dignity. Invest in the way that people have ownership over the materials that they've produced.

So this is an example of a project in Haiti and talks through sort of this locally fabricated movement.

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JEAN WILLIAM PARE: We believe people in order to develop their full potential, they need to have health opportunities, education opportunities, and job opportunities.

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JEAN WILLIAM PARE: We are looking at a place where building itself will be comfortable for patients. And that's when we activate it. But at the same time, it's linked to every other aspect of health and economics.

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EMILY GOLDENBERG: So that's just an example of what we call the Lo-Fab Movement. We've been doing that with a lot of our projects in Africa. Haiti is a really amazing example of that as well. But throughout the process, we're continually working with local artisans, local builders, and local foremen.

And so what we've learned in that process is that there are communication barriers that exist between designers and builders. And what we've been working to understand over the past few years as a part of working in these complex contexts is how do we break those barriers? And how do we work more efficiently and effectively to make the same impacts in these projects?

SARAH MOHLAND: And we don't want to presume that this is a issue that's unique to our work. I think obviously communication is one of the biggest challenges that we face as an industry. And to realize that building, there are numerous stakeholders involved with different various requirements.

And just to kind of get a sense for who we have here today, could we get a quick show of hands for anybody that's represented an owner or acted as an owner's representative? Could you raise your hand? So we've got a few of those. What about architects, engineers, designers? OK, a few more of those. What about builders, contractors, subcontractors? Anybody I missed? [LAUGHS] Probably a few.

So even in this room, we have a number of builders and designers, people involved in a project in much different ways. And as an architect, I think we like to think that we have figured this out. Communication is a big part of what we do, and we're one of the oldest professions in the world. And through centuries of iteration and development, we've established standards and codes and guidelines to sort of levers the profession and on many iterations of each. But in a place like Rwanda, architect is a very new concept. In fact, there's no word for "architect" in Kinyarwanda.

Many of you probably don't know where Rwanda is. Rwanda is a tiny country in the Middle East, Africa. It's landlocked bordering East Africa in the DRC. Quite small. It's about the size of Maryland. So our office is based in Kigali, which is about in the middle of the country, and a lot of our work is in Butaro in the north.

And in Rwanda, the future of architects is very, very recent. Or the history of architects. The first architectural firm with Rwandan architects was opened in 2001. And shortly thereafter, there was a process for registering these architects, and only eight were registered in 2006. And only very recently were the first graduates of architects from a Rwandan university. In 2013, we have several of the graduates on our staff.

Without architects, you might wonder how do you build? How does that happen? And typically, it's a very informal process. There are experts within that community that are builders that can produce very similar typologies and work with owners to understand what they want. And it's generally done informally.

But Rwanda has huge ambitions. This is part of the master plan, a development called Vision City, which is being built by Chinese contractors. And it's about 4,500 dwelling units sort of designed, extentualized, and funded by the Chinese, which has its challenges. In realizing this really ambitious master plan, this big development, there are-- often, the people that are the most under resourced are the ones that are sort of getting the short end of the stick. And you can see here that this is an informal settlement that was entirely wiped out for a new development since I've lived in Rwanda.

And the need is greater than ever before. Kigali anticipates to grow to 2 million inhabitants in just five short years. And to get there, that would require almost 300,000 new households, which is an average of 37,000 households a year. And the skilled community to do that is very limited. Compared to the United States, the East African architectural community has quite a disparity in the ratio between architects and the population.

Which led us to kind of asking how can we increase our impact in the profession of architecture? How can we leverage this newness as an opportunity? How can we think about architecture in a way that is more impactful than traditionally?

And that led us to investigate what existing education institutions there are in East Africa. And you'll see that there are very few for the amount of area, and they're all quite dated. Most of the curriculums really lack modern training and interdisciplinary learning. And we found that that was really not going to meet the needs of development and the infrastructures required to meet the growing population.

And in learning from some of the great successes in our projects, we have really been able to maximize the impact on every project by training local architects. And you can see this is the site of the doctor's housing, which we trained John Paul-- who's a local architect-- and developed confidence and understanding of the building process through design implementation, which led us to develop the curriculum for the African design center. It's a 20 month program for post graduates in architecture and engineering. It focuses around the process of design and implementation, as well as weaving in other impact related building methodologies, including research, craft, and foundation skills.

So in September, we welcomed the first class of Fellows, and these are them. In September, we had 11 Fellows, so now there are architects and engineers graduates from all over Africa. And we're currently in the process of designing a school they will be building.

And I think to really understand what a challenge it's been to implement the projects we have over the last 10 years. What does it mean to build in different contexts? And what does it mean to build in a place of a different culture, different religions, different languages, different standards of practice? And to kind of understand the ways that we try to modify our processes to each project, and how we have that opportunity to do so with the flexibility of the growing sort of developing practice.

So as with many projects, there's intent and there's challenges that you face that are unexpected. I think one of the projects that we tried to navigate the issues in language and dry comprehension through conveying details through three dimensional drawings, including both English and French. However, on this project, we found that we were really the only ones that were using the drawings.

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SARAH MOHLAND: Which why are we drawing? And in other ways we've been more successful I think in using more simple methods of representation. I think using a lot of color is not something architects like to do. But in this case, we used to depict different sizes of framing elements for a roof structure, which allowed us to work with builders who were not familiar with reading drawings, and it was difficult to really understand these complex joints. And in other ways that we've looked to convey the construction process through on sequencing of rendering. So you'll see this is the sequence of building and setting out of the primary school that we built in the middle of the Congo jungle.

And we've also looked for more less conventional ways of using drawings on site, which I think many of you have probably been to. Some BIMField tutorials here. You can almost see the iPad, and there's a lot people gathered around it. But we've used digital models on site to use 3D representation to really understand what we're trying to build.

But unfortunately, that doesn't always work. And All the things that we intend to do, there's challenges. And I think this is quite an honest rendition of some of the challenges we have gone through, and all personal experiences of my own. And I think it really sort of illustrates the challenge we have in communicating.

So this is one detail that was maybe a bit fussy for us, but we really wanted to achieve this sort of cantilevered step that you'll see in the porch. And we did our best to detail it and explain it to site, and the next day we go back, and it's cast in the ground. Minor issue, we were able to fix it, but it's one of those things where fussy architectural details can be challenging. And some less fussy and more sort of integral to the intent.

We had a similar issue with the Ken Weaver in which we hadn't really drawn the condition in a way that was well understood. And despite it being conveyed in the structural and architectural drawings, the contractor decided that he was going to cast the Kennerly [INAUDIBLE] element into the ground. So this was a challenge to kind of explain to the client this is important to us, and this is worth the time and effort it to do it right. And in other instances, it can be far more-- have higher end complications and impact.

So in another construction site, we deal a lot with seismicity and need to build in different ways and what local people are used to. And one of the projects we have is designed to use find masonry, which the framing elements are meant to be built with the walling so that the walling is acting as part of the structural frame. In this case, despite having tried to diagram that process, we found that the contractor went ahead and built some of the walls without the masonry elements. In the end, we found that it was fine and that we had just enough safety net built into our structural design that it wasn't an issue, but this would have a pretty severe complication and a misunderstanding of the design intent.

And as with many architecture firms, I think we're challenged to really understand where we've been successful in meeting the intent, and where we haven't. How do you understand and track things that didn't go well, things that weren't interpreted well, and methods that do work? And what can be the impact of being more inclusive in the construction process? What does it mean to be have all stakeholders in the process understand the design intent? How can that result in a better building?

EMILY GOLDENBERG: So as we're posing these questions-- and I think we've been asking these for a few years now-- we had an opportunity to work directly with the Autodesk Foundation. We were one of the foundations grantees. And we took advantage of what we think has been an incredible opportunity to participate in the pro bono trips. And this was a way for us to sort of feed some of these challenges that we've been dealing with into a process in which we could workshop directly with some of the builders and foremen.

And so we did this last year in 2016 and as well in 2017 just a few weeks ago in Rwanda. And the purpose of this was really to design for positive impact in the world working with Autodesk Foundation. And for the Autodesk Foundation to send over volunteers who would work directly with us to workshop technology and workshop design and innovation, and community based partnerships. So this is a picture of the group that was over in 2016. We partner directly-- there was a longstanding relationship that we've had with the Autodesk Foundation between MASS, an Autodesk Foundation, and then additionally with Team4Tech, who came on board to sort of-- they're a nonprofit firm based in California, and they came on board to work with us throughout the process to do a lot of the communication, and to be on ground on site, and to help us develop a project scope.

And so as a part of this pro bono, we worked directly with Team4Tech and Autodesk for around probably six months in advance of this trip to really get a sense of what we could do, what the impact could be while they're in country. And the purpose was to use human centered design, to build community partnerships that we may not have seen on the ground and in Rwanda, and to develop software training as well. And so in 2016, the volunteers were split into two or three groups. A software training group, a knowledge transfer group-- which we'll explain a little bit more detail-- and a community outreach group. And in 2017 as well-- still heavy on the software training-- a communicating design intent group and environmental and economic impact group.

So here are our fearless leaders of the knowledge transfer team in 2016. These are all Autodesk volunteers. This is Ben, Laurie, and Vinit. And they really helped spearhead the process. They basically worked with us to develop a more detailed project scope of what we're calling this knowledge transfer team.

And what that really means is how can they work with us to workshop the problems that we've been dealing with in communication with the builders and foremen? And how can they lead those workshops? And then what tools could be produced? What are the outcome?

So potentially producing design tools or templates that our company could then take and then implement throughout the years. It's not an immediate process. It's a work in progress. And we've been doing this for two years now. And the indicators of success were really to increase comfort of our drawings between the builders and foreman on site, and also to reduce the amount of time that we're drawing. If we're drawing unnecessary drawings for no reason, to reduce that time so that we can place that time in creating bigger impact elsewhere.

So this is a two week trip. Just a brief overview. We're just highlighting a few of the work sessions in that trip. There was a site visit to the Butaro hospital and campus, a work session prototyping what buildings could mean without drawings, and then in the second week, a presentation back to MASS on the findings of those workshops. So the field trip to Butaro was really about interviewing the builders and foreman in context, understanding the challenges that they have when they're on site, the challenges they've had just reading our drawings or understanding what the intent was. And so we really wanted to focus on interviewing them at the buildings that they created with us throughout the years.

So you've seen this map already. The little red dot at the top is where we went to. It's a 2 and 1/2 hour trip outside of Kigali.

And the Butaro site visit was really focused around-- you can see the the dark green area is the hospital itself. The light green area are the doctor's housings. And then the blue area the top is a cancer treatment center. So we toured all of those facilities with the Autodesk volunteers to give them a sense of the work that we've done in that area with the ADC Fellows as well and with select MASS staff.

So you can see here this is the group just going through the tour. John Paul is in the left hand photo right there. He was the one who has worked directly with these builders for several years, and has constructed these buildings with us, and is a local Rwandese. And on the right hand side, you can see Sarah sort of talking through the process of the doctor's housing.

And then from that, we also spent time with the builders and foremen. These are two of the lead masons-- one is a woman, one is a male-- who have worked with us for several years. They worked on the Butaro hospital to develop the stone that I think we've shown in some of the images, and we'll show again later. So interviewing them, understanding from their standpoint what the challenges are. And as we're building these different projects, we also are looking to challenge the builders in different ways as well. And so to hear from them that some of the geometries and angles were challenging, it was sort of a process that we wanted to go through with them to see what the outcomes could be and how we could have them think about building things differently.

And so here you can see one of the ADC Fellows and the builder. She's talking through the process of how tight she was able to make the joins between the stone. If you were to go back and look at the Butaro hospital compared to this application at the shareholder housing, their skill has improved incredibly over the years. So much so that they have been asking to kind of go back and redo some of the work on the hospital. And that's been a part of the process of learning and being really proud of the work that they've done.

And then another work session. So we back to Kigali, and we're workshopping with ADC Fellows and volunteers this idea of building without drawings, trying to identify where the communication gaps were happening, in particular, areas in the drawings or throughout the process. And so we went through this design model exercise with the goal of really identifying drawing techniques that are difficult for the builders to understand.

It may seem like a very simple design exercise, but this was a really great way to explore the gaps in the communication error. So basically what they did was with the provided materials, they were prototyped a bridge that had to span between two elements. And then from that, they needed to create instructions of the bridge so that another team could then create that bridge. But the instructions were you were not allowed to use any words and avoid using troublesome drawing techniques.

And then from there, they traded with another group, had 30 seconds to very quickly communicate the design intent. But from there, the other group basically had to take the instructions that they received and build the bridge. And the idea, again, is that it can support a small weight and can span.

And then after that, it was really about observing and reflecting on the challenges that each of the different teams had throughout this process. So the designers were asked how did the bridge that was built-- you can see two examples sitting right next to each other-- how did it or did it not meet the design intent? And the builders were then asked what was easy to understand as a part of the instructions? And what was very difficult to understand and sort of caused the design intent to be different than the original drawing or the original bridge? And then how can this lesson be taken to a construction site?

So some kind of lessons learned throughout that process is that you can see those two bridges-- clearly, they're a little bit different, right? But the design intent was not clearly communicated. And so what a lot of the groups found is that simple drawings and visualizations on sequencing and then a very step by step building guide as a part of those instructions was the most helpful part and the best way for them to ensure that the design intent would follow through. And another strong message that came out is that-- I think we struggle with this a lot-- the idea that the role of the architect is not to generate beautiful drawings for the project. It is at some point, right? But when it really needs to be executed and built, it's really to communicate the design intent in a way that's very clear so that everyone understands what needs to happen as a part of that drawing.

And then the final workshop that we did is we actually brought more of the builders and foremen to the Kigali office to workshop the problem again. So the ADC Fellows were tasked with creating a builder's manual and standards for architectural drawings. And so we brought in the builders and foremen to review a draft of those so that they could give their feedback and input on it. So you can see here, this is a picture of the group. Around 10 builders and foreman were a part of this work session. 11 ADC Fellows, 10 of the Autodesk volunteers, and what we say 2 MASSers as a part of the work session.

And this was a really fun and exciting exercise. Basically-- you can see in some of these images-- the builders are being challenged to understand what a simple drawing is. What is an elevation? And what is a floor plan? What is a reflected ceiling plan?

So you can see here they're projecting a water bottle-- very simple exercise-- projecting a water bottle, and having the builder then draw an outline of that water bottle to be an example of what an elevation is meant to communicate. The model that was created on the right hand side was a very typical structural model that could be taken apart. So you could take the roof off of that model and show them that if you take the roof off and you flip it over, that's what a reflected ceiling plan is. If you look at it from above, that's what a floor plan is.

And these are things that are very simple and we may take for granted. But working in these contexts, some of the builders and foremen don't have the background to understand what those drawings really are. And then from there, they were challenged to take what they learned and create a floor plan, create an elevation, and create a section. So these are some of the outcomes of that exercise.

And then the ADC Fellows presented their drafts of the manuals-- a builder's manual and an architecture standard manual for our office-- back to the builders and foreman. And they were able to sort of look at the drawings, point out things that they thought were working well, and things that they still think were confusing and were hard to read. And so you can see here the Fellows working through understanding how to communicate with three dimensional drawings and ways to communicate that to the builders, which was very successful for them.

It was difficult for them to understand what an assembly is, just a typical kind of wall or roof assembly. Hard for them to understand the layering. What is a gap? What does that actually mean? What are the different pieces? And so a key takeaway from that was really creating three dimensional drawings was the clearest way to communicate that.

SARAH MOHLAND: So following the super successful trip, we worked further with the Autodesk pro bono team to really understand how we can meet the needs of MASS's growing team and our growing projects as we move into projects with more traditional implementation methods where we have less ability to kind of interface and leverage the building process. So these last few weeks-- actually last month, we had the second trip of the pro bono volunteers. Autodesk recruits some of the best of their team to come be with us for two weeks. So we had members from their marketing and their communication team as well as software trainers. And I hope to just speak quickly about a few of the workshops we did and kind of give you an example of how you may be able to apply that kind of thinking to your own methods and your own process.

As we're kind of getting short on time, I'll kind of just quickly go through this. But one of the exercises that we did was looking at the entire construction process. So finding that some of our communication challenges happen before we even go to site and involve many different stakeholders. And also how do we work through a solution? How do we ideate on different options and kind of evaluate which ones are achievable?

So in first mapping our stakeholders, we found that the-- this is quite a messy map of a lot of different stakeholders. We work with governments, policy NGOs, clients. And within clients, you often have different client reps and different organizations. So it's quite a big map.

But we found that the most sort of pivotal moment was the communication between us and the builders. And in that communication process, we mapped what challenges we have in that communication process and when those challenges arise during the construction process. So in kind of outlining all the challenges and then organizing them based on the process, we're able to then ideate on how we can improve that. So in outlining all the stakeholders in the top bar and the different parts of the process in the row, we're able to ideate on different solutions. And then in taking those solutions, we are able to evaluate them based on their importance or difficulty against the impact that they would have. So in the bottom right corner, we're able to find opportunities to have relatively high impact with low investment.

So in that, we'd like to kind of close this with some solutions that we are really interested to hear if they apply to the work that you're doing, if it's a global-- if we can address the communication issues with architects and building in a global way. So these are some of the solutions that we came up with through these two sessions. A few of the solutions look at improving architectural standards. So how do we convey information differently?

And as we talked about before, being more forefront about what the sequencing and the process of building. I think this puts more onus in the architect to understand how things are built. And also can we learn from Ikea in how they fabricate and leave instructions for the entire world to understand? Less tax, less explanations, and more visual sequence diagrams.

And again, we use color in different ways. So I think in finding that, catches are often difficult to understand, probably misused, and can lose interpretation if you don't have very good printers. Can we use color to be more direct about ideas?

And-- pardon the terrible graphics, also exported strangely. But I think it's very obvious that in the ADC world, we have our own language. And even if in discussing with other English speakers, there's a lot of terminology involved that not everyone knows. So can we provide more guides to this end drawing so that we can interpret and identify what we're talking about?

And then as Emily was explaining, I think we forget sometimes that architects have been trained for many years in reading and understanding and drawing drawings. And it's not an intuitive process. So can we provide models or other diagrams to help interpret and understand drawings?

And a few examples of how we might improve our process is really testing before implementing. So if you've got a key detail that is really integral to the project, can you work through and mock that up before the construction process? Can you incorporate that process into the design? And then if we could really elevate the construction process into as much of an impact as it can be, is there a way to elevate the builders that we're building with? So can we incorporate a learning program through the construction of a project, and have builders leave with certificates of understanding?

And how do we use drawings differently on site? How do we sort of leapfrog that very traditional method of drawings and utilizing information on site? So we've been using BIMField on one of our projects. And Rwanda has been really useful in navigating very complex partnerships on the project and allows our team to have all the information accessible in a iPad.

So we're testing out many of these ideas with the African Design Center. They are about to start construction on the primary school that they've designed. And we've looked at how we can really be innovative about how we put together drawings. What are we drawing? Who are we drawing it for? How are they going to be using it? In separating the drawings per trade and showing information differently, how do you make drawings more easily to navigate?

And the Fellows will test this out in real time and understand what the builders are able to understand, and what didn't work in the end, or what worked well, hopefully. And just last week, we celebrated the breaking ground in which the Fellows started to engage the community in the building process.

So I guess we've got a few minutes left there.

EMILY GOLDENBERG: Yeah, I think we have around 10 more minutes. We wanted to sort of open it up for discussion about maybe some challenges that you've seen in the places you've worked in, or any questions. Yeah. Thank you, everyone.

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SARAH MOHLAND: No challenges? Oh.

EMILY GOLDENBERG: [LAUGHS]

SARAH MOHLAND: There you are.

AUDIENCE: Were there limitations on power and water structure [INAUDIBLE]?

SARAH MOHLAND: Yeah. And see, infrastructure is always a challenge in our projects. There's no centralized water, sewer supply in a lot of the rural areas. So generally whenever you're building a project, you're providing all of that.

But really supportive government initiatives. In fact, after the construction of the hospital, they committed to build a hydroelectric dam that provides power to the hospital. But yeah. So it's always a big hurdle, and also a big budgeting hurdle.

EMILY GOLDENBERG: I think in general too, some of the projects that we do, we build them so that they can function of the grid, and with an understanding that it takes a long time for the government agencies to extend services to some of these areas. So we're always working with them to do that, but at the same time designing so that it can function without direct connections to some of the infrastructure.

AUDIENCE: Are you able to take anything that you learn with regard to how you're representing these [INAUDIBLE] builders back to Autodesk and give them feedback [INAUDIBLE]?

SARAH MOHLAND: Yeah. I mean, they are constantly asking for our feedback I think. And we worked really closely with the volunteers to utilize their programs in the best way and most applicable ways. I think we were able to set up the way that we're using BIMField in a way that's kind of atypical, and kind of talk through what we would need, and how would it work in an area that has limited access to internet? And they've been very open to adapting that.

And I think really trying to understand as Autodesk moves to expanding their market to Africa, what are the needs there? And how might the process be different? So certainly very open ears towards that. And we'll do our best to try to help.

EMILY GOLDENBERG: Yeah. And I think what we didn't really touch on in this presentation was the software training that happened as a part of the pro bono trip. So while all these work sessions were going on, we were also training all of our staff and working with the volunteers using Revit, using Fusion 360, trying to understand which platform is the best to use for these situations. And like she said, we have a great relationship in that we can-- the volunteers are also very eager to learn from us throughout the process. And so during the trainings, they've taken some of that feedback already to improve. Yeah.

AUDIENCE: Is there opportunities to introduce solar, wind, choices like that for powering the situation?

SARAH MOHLAND: I didn't catch all that. Is there options going solar?

AUDIENCE: Are there opportunities here to present alternative sources like wind or solar power and things like that to help out this environment?

SARAH MOHLAND: Yeah, I think certainly. I think there's evaluation that needs to happen in terms of what's an appropriate solution for each context. Does the team have the ability to maintain? Is the upfront costs achievable? The financing's very difficult in a lot of these places. But we do have partners that are committed to their social sustainability. And I think we find-- actually, our buildings have very low operation costs in the end. A lot of natural ventilation, natural lighting. So yes, I think that's certainly an opportunity. But it needs to be evaluated if it's an appropriate solution. Yes.

AUDIENCE: I understand ADC's more like post grad program.

SARAH MOHLAND: Yes.

AUDIENCE: So what are the local universities-- what is the architectural program [INAUDIBLE]? What kind of documentation are they teaching students? Is it more of a Western convention, or is it more a local approach?

SARAH MOHLAND: Yeah. I'd say most of the standards and codes that exist in East Africa are kind of bastardizations of UK, or US, or kind of different adaptations of that code. They will generally teach to-- generally, the challenge is that they're under resourced universities. So they're programs that were started in 1950, 1960, and haven't really been developed since. And then often have limited resources where they're meant to have 10 students, they end up having 100 students. And a lot of bureaucracy to kind of change that. So we've worked closely with universities in Rwanda and have taught there and have helped to develop the program, but found that we were really challenged to get students and Fellows to a level of knowledge that was impactful. So I've kind of seen this as a bridge from under resourced undergraduate programs to graduate programs or to the workforce. If that answers your question. [LAUGHS]

EMILY GOLDENBERG: Yeah?

AUDIENCE: Yeah. So do you see yourself a master of communication [INAUDIBLE]? Do you see it as using these [INAUDIBLE] methods and other locations kind of changing? Because like here in the US, the contractors [INAUDIBLE] these plans [INAUDIBLE]. I'm only two years out of school. [INAUDIBLE]. I went to school learning how to do Ikea drawings and 3D axons, and then I come through the architecture [INAUDIBLE]. And they're like draw this partition like this. I had no idea what I was doing.

SARAH MOHLAND: Yeah.

AUDIENCE: And when I do the 3D versions, they're like [INAUDIBLE] the US still relate to those better already. So do you guys see yourself using these methods back here back [INAUDIBLE], kind of as a moral standard [INAUDIBLE].

EMILY GOLDENBERG: Yeah, I would say absolutely. I think we're working to define-- like maybe it's not necessary to show terminology or to show color coding in the context of the US. But I think in the project that we're working on that's under construction now in Alabama, we've used some three dimensional drawings that I think we found the contractors have reacted, like you're saying, in a positive way too, and helps eliminate questions of the complexity of some details that we've been doing. So I think we're trying to find the appropriate balance, and it's a work in progress. So we're hoping to get to a point where we can find that middle ground and actually have it potentially be applied to all of the work that we do. But it always has to shift a little bit depending on the context. Yeah?