Architecture is not just about the structures we build, it is also about the relationships and empowerment built in communities through our projects. Working with the Chez Moi Orphanage in the Bon Repos neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti created an opportunity to build part of the environment 27 girls call home, and also to help build their futures.

Knowing current conditions of the house did not provide these girls much privacy or freedom to be kids, our team built a play pavilion on site to allow for decompression within the house. Dignifying the idea and ability to play through this structure empowers these girls and young women for who they are now, not who they will become. But in serving functions of learning, play, reflection, and imagining, the goal of this structure was to create a space that would provide advancing opportunities for the futures of the girls who live at Chez Moi. In a city where walls surround every property, providing this space to dream gives these young girls the chance to see the mountains and sea of their beautiful country, and to see their future that will exist beyond the barriers of their age, gender, status, or country’s struggles.