ready, set...wow it's over?!?

That's how I've been feeling these last few days -the semester is over just like that! well, one more week to go but classes are done!?! Looking back at my research I am shocked at how much I have learned about home...na bado! there is so much more i don't know about my little big town...but such is the quest for knowledge the more you know the more you know you don't know, cliche but true! ( could that be the addiction knowing you'll never have enough?

I have spent the last two weeks concluding my research mainly to find a departure point- as far as design, there is so much i could choose to focus on but design is so much better when you lay out your interests hierarchically and then make a smaller list of the top things that interested you from the previous extensive list and use that to generate space.

I presented my summation to a jury this past Wednesday it went well got a positive response, many questions as usual but they did not chew me out as they often do students. My proposal is to design Toilets, Markets and Gardens, my site is a portion of Kwa Ndegwa slum near Mukuru. I have not yet selected a specific area as I hope to do that after visiting the slum, what I may perceive as a segment of the slum from Google might be various communities in one; I'd like the freedom to negotiate this kind of dynamic after i obtain enough info. about the area.

Needless to say i got a few chuckles from the students and the group, I am sure no one has opted for toilet design as their fifth year project?!?! but, some excitos accompanied the amusement so that made me feel, better, somewhat.

I look at toilets as a variety of sanitation issues including water provision for hygiene ( showers included) as well as food preparation and consumption. I am fascinated with the idea of water tanks that are habitable, a new form of bath houses more to do with communal space in the developing world than a connection to Nordic countries or those bloody Romans. The idea of Markets is to incorporate places to sell goods esp. vegetables while gardens is about the celebration of urban farming which already happens sporadically in many areas in the city.
Narrowing my focus allows me to narrow my site specific research so when i do visit my (broad) site I'll know the kind of spaces I'd like to envision in them and what cultural, psychosocial, or socio-economic aspects i will need to document while there.
Below are some of the boards i pinned up. My next step is turning my interpretation of my research into a design proposal- excited I am...you should be too, really you should!