Mazin Bahho is currently restoring the old log cabin on the hill above the EIT Hawke’s Bay campus, which was once part of the Ōtātara Art Centre, the historic home of EIT’s ideaschool. He has a specific goal for this project, however, which is greater than merely saving the building from disintegration for its historical merits. Mazin is using the restoration process to demonstrate simple environmental sustainability practices in architecture. His aim is for the log cabin to become a showcase of these practices and to be a place where schools, community groups and interested individuals can learn and be inspired by practical and easily maintained solutions to sustainable building. Mazin’s interest is not so much in ‘intelligent design’, instead he is focusing on solid passive design fundamentals such as weather tightness, insulation, sustainable solar energy and water conservation. A planned green house addition will play a part in effluent management and recycling.
This renovation project is pivotal to research for Mazin’s PhD, in which he is enrolled at Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Architecture. Alongside the laborious building and repair process, Mazin is investigating the relationship between practical engagement and behaviour change. While research focusing on behaviour change may be common place in other disciplines it is rarely done in architecture, particularly concerning environmentally sustainable building and lifestyle behaviours. There is no other architectural demonstration project of this kind in New Zealand and Mazin is interested in the question, do demonstration projects work to empower behaviour change toward more sustainable practices?
Mazin has engaged EIT students in the project and has conducted focus group discussion and surveys with them, including pre-engagement and post-engagement interviews. From these he has been able to track the development and increased complexity of students’ understanding of environmental sustainability issues and observe possible change in their attitudes towards sustainability.
In addition to having ideaschool students work on the concept and branding design, Mazin has been assisted in the restoration project by many others, including staff and students from the School of Trades and Technology and from the companies TUMU Group and Gemco Group Holdings Ltd. Mazin’s neighbour, a retired builder, has given him a hand and one of EIT’s research professors has also been seen wielding a hammer on the site. EIT chief executive Chris Collins has been particularly supportive.
In September 2015, Mazin presented a paper on particular aspects of his project to the 31st International Conference of Passive and Low Energy Architecture (PLEA) which was held in Bologna, Italy.
Mazin Bahho
Lecturer
ideaschool
mbahho@eit.ac.nz