Specific Housing Needs

Farmworker housing seems like it will need to be different from other types of housing in a few ways.  First, design will change depending on if the housing is seasonal or more permanent.   Flexibility is important in both designs.  In seasonal housing there is the question of how to make the housing seem personalized while maintaining a high turnover rate.  Flexibility is important in family housing in order to accommodate different sized families.  Since farmworkers have a very specific type of work, their housing needs to provide spaces that make their work easier, such as a mud room or wash area to keep pesticides on clothing out of the house.  Tool storage and secure personal storage is also important.  Some other things to include in farmworker housing design would be a front porch or outdoor gathering space and garden area.  Some things to avoid are large rooms shared by a large amount of people and dormitory style housing that forces a lot of people share certain spaces.  The main problem with dormitory style housing that has shared bathrooms and kitchens is there isn’t any ownership of those shared spaces.  This usually creates problems with who cleans what and keeping things is good condition since there is little feeling of ownership.

Quantity vs. Quality

It’s not easy to figure out how much space an individual will need to feel comfortable because this changes with each person.  I am generally against people sharing bedrooms unless they are family, but as long as individual privacy can still be achieved while sharing a room I think it could be comfortable.  I believe not more than two people should share a room if they are unrelated and not more than three if they are family.  Bunkbeds should only be used if they can be converted to single beds as well and the size of the room can accommodate this change.  I see it more of the individual’s choice to stack the beds to gain more space but it not being forced on them.

Design Considerations

An important design consideration is figuring out what spaces can be shared between people and then how many people can share that space without it feeling like a dormitory. I think no more than four people should have to share a bathroom.  A communal kitchen would be all right as long as there were some things within individual units, like sinks and a refrigerator to store their own food. Maybe ovens are not needed in individual units as much as a stovetop or heating surface.  Another design question is what are appropriate materials to use?  In one reading a farmworker didn’t like the corrugated metal roof because it reminded him of an animal barn.  Taking into consideration that farmworkers’ perception and association with certain aesthetics and materials may be different than our own will be important.  A few other design considerations will be how to integrate new farmworker housing within the existing community fabric, how units should be arranged on the site, and what type of other amenities should be onsite.

In order to keep toxic chemicals out of the house there will need to be a room located outside of the house or separated from main area that workers can clean off their clothes.  The idea of a separate clean entrance and dirty entrance is interesting.  This room could either be communal or more private.  How the individual gets from the washroom to the house is something to consider.  Will they need a spot to keep clean clothes in the room after they get out of the dirty ones?  If so, some type of lockers would need to present if it is a shared space.

Surprises

One interesting thing I read in the readings was that a lot of the national farmworker analysis that’s been conducted is based on two surveys from the late 1990s.  It seems that this information might be a little outdated by now and there should be new studies to draw from in the near future.  The other thing I found surprising was actually from the video we watched in class, Troubled Harvest.  It explained how very few families have access to child daycare, resulting in most kids either staying home by themselves or accompanying their parents out in the fields.  This is extremely sad considering the dangerous chemicals these children could be exposed to while in the fields.