MARIE AQUILINO | DATE 9/16/2013

Abiding Architecture: Marie Aquilino Reports from Titanyen, Haiti

This week, Beyond Shelter author Marie Aquilino initiates a regular column for Metropolis Books, reporting on her work with the Montesinos Foundation in Titanyen, Haiti. Created by Father Charles Moise, the Montesinos Foundation is a residential school for abandoned children, Haiti’s most marginalized group. The educational program integrates a deep respect for the environment and a commitment to revive the local ecology.

"Abiding is much more than listening; it’s listening times ten, from both sides, in conversation, with deference and humility. Abiding occurs in encounter and relationship, in being available, in following and connecting. Abiding also troubles our grasp of what we are responsible for and to whom we owe this responsibility. In abiding, we stay on; abiding complicates our sense of time. In our efforts to grapple with abiding, we are learning to read the process differently. Abiding has recast our approach to scale and encouraged us to try out new ways of working with modules that emerge from pertinent, manual gestures to become adaptive strategies for building within existing systems."

Read the complete blog, Abiding Architecture: What I’m learning from working in Titanyen, Haiti.