Public Distribution

An Infrastructural Backbone for Port au Prince, Haiti

With a population of over 1 million people in an area less than 14 square miles, Port-au-Prince is the densest populated city of Haiti. In order to alleviate some of the traffic generated by so many people, a localized rail system is proposed.  With the introduction of a rail system to Port-au-Prince, it is able to numerous responsibilities in order to better benefit the community it interacts with.  Beyond being utilized solely as a people mover system the rail system follows along an existing rail line, allowing the new rail system to cut through the heart of the city making to the primary port of Haiti.  This will allow the new system to better move the imported products to “goods nodes” located near the ends of the route.  This in turn provides a faster, cheaper, and easier way of moving goods and people to and from the interior of the country to the coastal ports.  As well this would possibly generate migration of people away from the heart of the city into neighborhoods with better access to factory jobs and fertile growing fields.

Haiti

Port au Prince

Generating the Line

The proposed rail line itself is generated based upon being able to get to its desired location, and incorporating the preexisting freight line.  In order to accommodate additional programs, other infrastructure is leeched onto the rail line.  This allows the stations to provide public utilities from this infrastructural system, and provide additional range in access to said infrastructure systems by expanding them.

Urban Integration

These locations exemplify key reasons for a transportation system.  The reasoning for the public transportation systems are explained in the needs of the people; to get home, to get necessities, to get to a job, tourism/entertainment, and movement of goods.  Floating above the urban landscape, the rail system impacts the ground space in five key locations; The Airport, The Fuel Depot, The Freight Port, The National Sports Complex, and The Red Cross Camp.  Being elevated above the urban landscape the rail system alleviates much of the daily traffic flow by allowing users to bypass the busy and degraded highway system. This ease of congestion will allow for a quicker recovery for the city. 

Confronting the Needs of the People

In comparing the needs of Haiti with the benefits of a localized rail system, the viability of the rail system becomes apparent.  But within the development of the rail system, a secondary programmatic scheme is developed.  The way this new transportation system impacts the ground allows for opportunities to utilize and re-purpose programmatic space generated for secondary uses.  These uses will allow the local community to become self-reliant and give them access to utilities and infrastructure.

Inserting a Secondary Programmatic Structure

It is these secondary programs that illustrate how the rail system impacts the ground plane.  These locations generate public space such as pavilions with access to public infrastructure, and local markets.

The stations themselves are broken down into several different zones. Primarily there are three separate and linked programs; The Platforms, where riders can board and exit the trains, The Infrastructural Zone, where water and electricity is run and distributed throughout the city, The Secondary Programmatic Zone, where the space generated under the stations themselves can be used for other things, such as a place for clean water distribution or outdoor markets.

Public Access to Resources

With the cholera crisis that has hit Haiti recently; the need for clean safe drinking water is fast becoming a must.  Access to this precious resource for communities across Haiti is often a struggle of both distance and hardship.  Having clean water distribution stations in the communities allows the people quick and easy access to clean, safe, drinking water.

Secondary Programmatic Space

With open programmatic space easily generated by the stations in the communities, an easy jump can be made to the development of open air markets.  Traditionally Haiti utilizes open air markets as their normal food distribution method, allowing for the exchange of produce and goods directly to the consumer.

These sites can also serve a dual purpose, after the recent earth quake that rocked Haiti, and become aid distribution sites.  Located in the heart of the communities affected the worst these distribution sites would allow aid to flow easier.

As the system itself grows so would the infrastructure, allowing more and more people access to vital resources.  These station sites would grow and become communal beacons that the communities could grow around. 

The sites would also act as transportation hubs provided easy access to other local communities and transportation forms.

Economical Construction Through a Kit of Parts

Secondary Programmatic Strength

The structural strength of the stations is exemplified by the ability to carry large amounts of both live and dead loads.

Construction Utilizing a “Family” of Parts

Construction of the stations consists of pieces of pre-cast and pre-tensioned structural units “click” together quickly and easily, generating fast, economical, and seismically stable architecture.

Utilizing the structural units they can easily be mixed and matched to create new and varied programmatic layouts. The ability to utilize a “family” of units to generate multiple layouts allows for the structures to respond directly to the landscape in which it is placed, as well as to the needs and uses of the community.

This new building technique applied to Haiti will help to spur other development across the nation that utilizes this technique, allowing for cheaper more sustainable construction.