Tiny House Trend Picks up as People Downsize - Erica Fox - Fox 5 News
November 20, 2012
Thinking Different about fire next time. By Rich Louv, bestselling author of "Last Child in the Woods." Union Tribune, November 23, 2003
Alice Birney Elementary Newspaper
Birney students and a South Park resident’s design could give Ghana school a new classroom.
North Park News - August 2009
By Sandy Pasqua
When South Park resident Candace Vanderhoff learned of an Architecture for Humanity-sponsored competition that included an education component, she didn’t know about a classroom dream shared by North Park’s Alice Birney Elementary students and youngsters at a sister school in Mpraeso, Ghana.
Inspired by the competition, Vanderhoff sought information from teachers or other school-involved friends. She was directed to Amanda Hammond-Williams, principal at Birney, one of two North Park elementary schools seeking International Baccalaureate (IB) certification. Through the principal, Vanderhoff learned of the local school’s connection to the Sound Preparatory Academy in Ghana.
Students in the two schools have exchanged letters and photographs for the past year. Birney students have committed to helping the Ghana school build a new classroom in the remote rural African community. So far a stuffed animal adoption has raised more than $135, and a penny drive is under way now.
Birney’s principal “put me in touch with Jodi Reid,” said Vanderhoff. Reid, IB and magnet resource coordinator at Birney, shared the letters and photos from the Ghanaian students and introduced Vanderhoff to the Ghana school’s director, Enoch Osei.
For Vanderhoff, an architect, designer and educator with a zest for an environmentally-sound lifestyle, the design of a Ghanaian classroom became an exciting “labor of love.” With the photographs and student letters, and e-mail exchanges with director Osei, Vanderhoff researched the school’s geographic area, including skill levels of community residents, natural building materials easily available in Ghana, weather conditions and the culture.
“One letter from a student,” she said, “mentioned that their existing classroom had no walls and when it rains they get wet.” An average temperature of 70 degrees, and an annual rainfall of 80 inches created an architectural challenge for her.
Vanderhoff designed a 24-by-46-foot freestanding classroom that would be made with local brick and bamboo. Her model calls for a solid wall on the side with prevailing wind and rain, and woven bamboo on the other three sides. Instead of traditional cement, a new product of local lime and palm kernels, being developed in Ghana, would be used.
The scale model made by Vanderhoff includes decorative symbols on the front doorway standing for “wisdom, strength, courage and hard work.” An inscription on the building front translates to: “Hard work and respect for one another is what we need,” from the Ghanaian unofficial national anthem written by Dr. Ephrain Koku Amu in 1921.
First prize for the winning design is $50,000, which Vanderhoff believes would more than cover the cost of the classroom. A Ghanaian construction worker makes around $1,000 a year, Vanderhoff said, and 70 percent of the cost for a structure is for building materials. But Vanderhoff doesn’t expect to win the money, since the competition drew thousands of designs from 45 different countries. Competition winners will be announced inn the fall.
Vanderhoff hopes instead to generate interest in building the classroom with school fundraisers and community awareness and participation. She recently became director of Las Casitas, a nonprofit organization started five years ago to build sandbag huts for migrant workers living in canyons throughout the county. She said the organization will be redirected to include the Ghanaian classroom.
It is not surprising that the African classroom project would excite Vanderhoff. She has been involved in humanitarian and environmental efforts all her adult life. And all of her projects, she said, are “leaning toward a more sustainable and sane way of life.”
For example, after building a bread and pizza earthen oven in her backyard, she was asked to build an outdoor oven for the Albert Einstein Academy, a South Park charter school. What seemed to be a simple project has become an effort to establish specifications to meet state requirements for official approval of schoolyard ovens. Along with seeking state approval, Vanderhoff is writing a how-to-build manual with related lessons and recipes.
“Schools all over the state have similar ovens,” she said, but they were built without permits. “After it’s approved, Whole Foods will provide a grant to build the oven.”
Another of her motivating interests is working toward permitting of systems for graywater use in San Diego County.
Vanderhoff often can be found in her garage-converted-workshop with Shadow, her 13-year-old lab mix. When she isn’t working on one of her long-range projects, she is involved in her business, Cyberhuts Sustainable, designing, consulting or teaching. Other times she is creating framed seaweed art, purses from recycled felted fabrics or furniture of recycled wood that she markets.
Her commitment to the earth is visible in yet another way. She drives a car that runs on waste vegetable oil that she gets from a restaurant that would otherwise have to pay for the oil disposal.
When South Park resident Candace Vanderhoff learned of an Architecture for Humanity-sponsored competition that included an education component, she didn’t know about a classroom dream shared by North Park’s Alice Birney Elementary students and youngsters at a sister school in Mpraeso, Ghana.
Inspired by the competition, Vanderhoff sought information from teachers or other school-involved friends. She was directed to Amanda Hammond-Williams, principal at Birney, one of two North Park elementary schools seeking International Baccalaureate (IB) certification. Through the principal, Vanderhoff learned of the local school’s connection to the Sound Preparatory Academy in Ghana.
Students in the two schools have exchanged letters and photographs for the past year. Birney students have committed to helping the Ghana school build a new classroom in the remote rural African community. So far a stuffed animal adoption has raised more than $135, and a penny drive is under way now.
Birney’s principal “put me in touch with Jodi Reid,” said Vanderhoff. Reid, IB and magnet resource coordinator at Birney, shared the letters and photos from the Ghanaian students and introduced Vanderhoff to the Ghana school’s director, Enoch Osei.
For Vanderhoff, an architect, designer and educator with a zest for an environmentally-sound lifestyle, the design of a Ghanaian classroom became an exciting “labor of love.” With the photographs and student letters, and e-mail exchanges with director Osei, Vanderhoff researched the school’s geographic area, including skill levels of community residents, natural building materials easily available in Ghana, weather conditions and the culture.
“One letter from a student,” she said, “mentioned that their existing classroom had no walls and when it rains they get wet.” An average temperature of 70 degrees, and an annual rainfall of 80 inches created an architectural challenge for her.
Vanderhoff designed a 24-by-46-foot freestanding classroom that would be made with local brick and bamboo. Her model calls for a solid wall on the side with prevailing wind and rain, and woven bamboo on the other three sides. Instead of traditional cement, a new product of local lime and palm kernels, being developed in Ghana, would be used.
The scale model made by Vanderhoff includes decorative symbols on the front doorway standing for “wisdom, strength, courage and hard work.” An inscription on the building front translates to: “Hard work and respect for one another is what we need,” from the Ghanaian unofficial national anthem written by Dr. Ephrain Koku Amu in 1921.
First prize for the winning design is $50,000, which Vanderhoff believes would more than cover the cost of the classroom. A Ghanaian construction worker makes around $1,000 a year, Vanderhoff said, and 70 percent of the cost for a structure is for building materials. But Vanderhoff doesn’t expect to win the money, since the competition drew thousands of designs from 45 different countries. Competition winners will be announced inn the fall.
Vanderhoff hopes instead to generate interest in building the classroom with school fundraisers and community awareness and participation. She recently became director of Las Casitas, a nonprofit organization started five years ago to build sandbag huts for migrant workers living in canyons throughout the county. She said the organization will be redirected to include the Ghanaian classroom.
It is not surprising that the African classroom project would excite Vanderhoff. She has been involved in humanitarian and environmental efforts all her adult life. And all of her projects, she said, are “leaning toward a more sustainable and sane way of life.”
For example, after building a bread and pizza earthen oven in her backyard, she was asked to build an outdoor oven for the Albert Einstein Academy, a South Park charter school. What seemed to be a simple project has become an effort to establish specifications to meet state requirements for official approval of schoolyard ovens. Along with seeking state approval, Vanderhoff is writing a how-to-build manual with related lessons and recipes.
“Schools all over the state have similar ovens,” she said, but they were built without permits. “After it’s approved, Whole Foods will provide a grant to build the oven.”
Another of her motivating interests is working toward permitting of systems for graywater use in San Diego County.
Vanderhoff often can be found in her garage-converted-workshop with Shadow, her 13-year-old lab mix. When she isn’t working on one of her long-range projects, she is involved in her business, Cyberhuts Sustainable, designing, consulting or teaching. Other times she is creating framed seaweed art, purses from recycled felted fabrics or furniture of recycled wood that she markets.
Her commitment to the earth is visible in yet another way. She drives a car that runs on waste vegetable oil that she gets from a restaurant that would otherwise have to pay for the oil disposal.