A London-based design and construction social enterprise responsible for innovative community-based buildings in Fiji and Vanuatu, is looking to expand its regional footprint.
In Fiji, Caukin Studio has partnered with the Savusavu-based Naqaqa Giving Foundation to build community halls and kindergartens in villages affected by Cyclone Winston. Other buildings in Fiji include the Urata Lookout Café and a coconut oil processing facility on Batiki island. In Vanuatu, it has constructed a school on Pentecost Island.
Caukin Co-founder, Joshua Peasley says much of their work has been post-disaster, mid-to-long-term recovery projects: “[We’re] trying to use the designs and local materials to create buildings that are more resilient to future natural disasters. We’re working with networks of structural engineers, globally, environmental design specialists, as well as local engineers and local architects to come up with solutions that can use materials like timber, that a typical house or community hall might be built from, but try to further strengthen the designs, and hopefully make them lighter, just nicer spaces to be in.”
Caukin relies on local and international expertise to ensure their designs are appropriate to the communities in which they are building. For example, for the Ranwas School project in Vanuatu, they worked with experts at Cardiff University, who as Peasley says, “specialise in low energy solutions for things like reducing humidity within buildings and increasing internal comfort. So, some of those design solutions were from conversations we have with them, but also through understanding what materials are available locally within the community, and trying to merge those two things together to come up with solutions that actually work and don’t require air conditioning units.”
The designs are also based on respect for indigenous and traditional buildings and skills.
“I do think that there’s a bit of a perception that materials like steel and concrete are stronger and therefore better because they are used in skyscrapers in London,” notes Peasley. “Often, part of our conversation or argument, I guess, is that the local vernacular designs and materials are the best and that we should go back to those roots because, you know, traditional Fijian bures actually are some of the best structures for standing up to cyclones in the way that they’re built and perform and there’s lots of things about them that are actually far better than any concrete or steel building could be.”
Caukin’s Pacific projects are funded by international donors and grants, local charities and the communities they are serving, through labour and some construction materials.
On the building sites, Caukin runs construction workshops, offering locals and international volunteers (often architecture students), the opportunity to learn new skills, and pathways to employment, as well as “a nice social and cultural exchange”.
Peasley says they hope to eventually design themselves out of the process.
“It’s hoping that in a way we’re not needed anymore and that people can use the buildings that we’ve designed and the projects that they’ve worked on in constructing their own houses or community facilities using some of those details, using those local natural materials, so that buildings are being built in a more resilient way and that breaks the cycle of cyclones destroying people’s houses, rebuilding from the ruins and then the same thing happening all over again in the next cyclone.”
Peasely reflects: “We’ve seen details— foundations, connections and materials have been used and replicated across some of the villages we worked in, on houses and community kitchens and other things that communities then go on to build themselves. I think that’s what we hope to achieve.”
Caukin has more community halls, and a prototype of an affordable home in the works. The social enterprise is also looking at potential projects in Tonga and Solomon Islands.
