A lesson learnt

What is charity? “Give” is probably what many will think when they come across the idea of helping. However, while greater power comes with greater responsibility, to “give” has its own responsibility to be observed as well.

For nine days, I was tasked to help out a group of volunteers whose goal was to improve a room space at a near by elementary school. To be specific, it’s a renovation. The group consists of a group leader and a main designer, both are young architects. The rest of the group consists of students from architecture and non-architecture majors.

A few years ago I read about this group of volunteer professional construction and wood working specialists who will gather as a group and help people in need. They use weekends to help build or repair houses, such as wall reenforcement, roof repair or build a bathroom for the poor. They bring their own tools and materials and serves the needs of people they help directly.

This was not like that at all. At the first moment of arrival, the group had already been working on the project for a while and immediately, I can tell that they don’t really have much experience in construction and wood working. The scene is a bit chaotic. There were too many people doing the same job, and the use and choice of materials was questionable. Right away, I noticed that they were painting PVC pipes with wall paint, and told them that it’s a matter of time before the paint starts flaking.

I have no part in the design, so I don’t really know what the final goal was. I was merely doing what I was told. I was tasked to do some simple wood working. What’s simple to me was new to most. I had to teach them how to use the electric jig saws, how to make slit-cuts, things to watch out to prevent injury and so on. I had to stress the importance of using something firm to clamp down the wood, like a C-clamp, the use of safety glasses and so on.

The pieces that we were cutting had curved edge. However, the only tool we had to do that are the jig saws. We didn’t have a table saw for the straight sides, and we did not have a belt sander to help smooth out the curved edges. The cuts looked horrible, but the architect didn’t seem to care.

It seemed that we were making some kind of book shelf with slits in the pieces so they intersect each other when assembled. From experience and physics, given the limitation of the kind of tools and experience we had, I thought it was a bad choice of design. It’s not my call, I was just there as a coolie. Then I noticed that the ply wood we were using were pretty bad in quality. Splinters everywhere as we made the cuts. Well, that’s not the worst. What’s worse was they had no idea how to treat wood. We did not have enough wood tints to do more than one layer and the right environment to have it cleanly done. The tools weren’t right, and the job was rushed. The wood looked like absolute crap.

There were a lot of assembling to be done at the final site, which means there is a high level of precision required especially given the intersecting locking mechanism. The architect said they have very detailed design and plans, but I call bull shit on that because no matter how good it looks on paper, it’s shit in its execution.

So it started to take shape, bad shape. It was supposed to be two big wall-mounted book shelves measuring about 10X8ft. They used lazer guides to mount vertically 1x1” stock wood on the cement walls using nail gun. Then they mount the vertical shelve pieces onto the sides of the stock wood, using nail guns as well. I didn’t really understand why they did that, but assumed that they knew what they were doing.

Then they started to put the horizontal pieces on to try out the positions. Obviously, the curves did not match, they were off by quite a bit and required more adjustments. All this while, my mind kept thinking about those stock wood and nail guns. I thought they were just place holders. After all, they were just nail guns.

Then as time went on, I didn’t see any further reenforcement being put in. You know, like a proper rubber stud and screw to for the concrete walls and steel angled brackets to hold the shelf pieces. Nope, none at all, just those puny tiny skinny nails. That was it, that’s how they are going to mount a 10X8ft book shelf onto the wall, in a tropical climate right beside the ocean. What about the salt in the air? What about the high temperature and humidity? What about being right on the Pacific Rim of Fire? Did they not care about the accelerated rusting? Did they not care about the accelerated rotting of the low quality stock wood? Did they not care about frequent earthquakes? Did they just not care at all?

Later in the project, I realized why.

I was deeply concerned with the safety aspect of the mounting method, without going into the ridiculousness of the design, I voiced my concern four times and made specific suggestions on how to reenforce the mounting without affecting the design, schedule and can be done with little cost. It was simply by adding angled brackets at hidden spots to the shelf that will act as the real support points for the weight of the book shelf. They seemed confident about the choices they’ve made and did nothing.

The schedule of the final hand over had already been delayed by a weekend. It was still about half a week left, but the real nightmare just started. The reason why they were pressing for time was for another reason. “They” were going to create an installation in the room.

The installation design was based on what they called “Parametric Design”. It’s basically a digitalized process to create a “design” that is independent of the user needs and cultural reference. It was done because technology made it possible, and they were going to put it on the ceiling of the room.

The design itself were made of plastic parts to be put together using nuts and bolts to create a module. The modules are then put together using more nuts and bolts. 3 pieces makes one leg. Each half module has a main piece and four legs. Each module has two half modules. They needed 1500 modules. That a shit load of bolts and nuts to screw!

The modules can then be adjusted to fit different curves and positions. They say it’s supposed to create organic surfacing. Woooo Organic surfacing! This sounds exciting for an ex-CAD junky! I call it bullshit, again. So the bunch of us worked like those workers in Foxcomm, screwing bolts and nuts day and night for whatever noble reason we think it was for.

On the last day before completion, they said they needed to turn the back of a old shelf into a black board. All they gave me was a bucket of black board paint.

Wait, what about the surface of the wood?
What about primer?
What about the brushes?
What about….. fuck, there was nothing, and I had to poop them out.

So I basically just sanded the really bad ply wood as much as I can and painted the black board paint right on it, knowing that it was going to be terrible. There surface will be really bumpy, making writing on it with chalk difficult. Essentially, they promised a black board, so they tasked me to do it. They didn’t care about how bad and pointless it will be due to the lack of decent quality. They didn’t care that they left it until the last day to get it started.

The architect didn’t care about the quality of the shelves. She didn’t care about the quality of the black board. She didn’t care about the safety of the users. All she really cared was to complete her installation in time.

So I am pissed, absolutely upset about this whole thing. I felt so much arrogance in this whole project. It was a selfish act by a few individuals in the name of “charity”, but in reality, was just wanting a space to prove themselves as designers and architects. It was nothing more than stealing an opportunity to build their own portfolio without respecting the real needs of the users. It was a robbery.

The “interior space improvement” was an excuse.
The book shelves were decoys.
The “free of charge” part was a cover up, because it was sponsored to begin with.
The real purpose was to get free gallery space and media time and a portfolio piece. How smart!

So let’s think about what it really means by charity. Charity is on the basis of giving, but in this case, giving did not turn out to be what it sounded like. What these people gave was not convenience. Their work did not improve the quality of life of its users. Yet it took so much money, time and the efforts of so many volunteers to accomplish a selfish goal. At the end of the day, the users will find that it’s more inconvenient to use the space because half of it is now occupied by this ugly piece of installation that they didn’t ask for. Not only that, because this is a public space, what gets put up won’t be taken down for at least more than a decade unless there’s a strong need budget to do so. The school will be left with a constant problem of having to work around the mess that was being created. It was a crime.

The lesson learnt here is as mentioned above. “Giving” in itself holds great responsibilities. As designers, we really have to leave our egos at home and question what is the real value of what we give to the society. Are we giving, or are we destroying? Are we improving the quality of life, or are we making people’s lives more difficult? Are we maximizing the use of social resources, or are we wasting precisous generosity? Are we building credibility of the design industry, or simply reenforcing the arrogant impression of designers?