Patricia Green | Sustainable luxury residences for Caribbean climate

People in the Caribbean know that from June 1 to November 30 is the Atlantic Hurricane Season. However, no one expected that within the first month of the 2024 season, Hurricane Beryl would turn into a Category 5 storm, barrelling on a westward journey from the Atlantic Ocean across the islands into Central America and upward into North America. It left a trail of destruction. I send condolences to all who suffered loss through Beryl.

We as Jamaicans rejoiced over the miraculous hand of God turning Beryl away from a direct hit after making landfall on some Caribbean Windward Islands. The movement of this hurricane, more than others, emphasised that in the Caribbean – all a we is one – as declared by Trinidadian Paul Keens-Douglas in his ‘Tell Me Again’ poem:

Tell me again

bout de big island

an de small island,

an de rich island

an de poor island,

how all a we is one,

an how Cari - com

an Cari - gone,

tell me again.

Tell me again

how I love you

an you love me,

an how blood ticker dan water,

an how we is brudder

an we is sister,

an yu won’t cut me t’roat

cause we come on de same boat,

tell me again ...

I have been intrigued by the trans-Atlantic pathway of these seasonal hurricanes throughout the centuries. Columbus used this pathway and made landfall in the Caribbean in 1492. Then the slave route shipping Africans to the Caribbean followed. Hence the reflection by Paul Keens-Douglas - ‘cause we come on de same boat – brings to mind that Jamaica was the first to import Africans for slave labour when in 1524 the Spanish colonists petitioned King Charles V of Spain for this.

FOREFRONT

Jamaica remained at the forefront of this enterprise after the English captured the island from Spain in 1655 to become the major slave trader shipping Africans on this pathway to Jamaica then trans-shipping them along the hurricane routes to the rest of the Caribbean as well as the Central and North Americas. Interestingly, Hurricane Beryl travelled from the Caribbean across Mexico finally offloading in Texas!

These historic trading routes from Africa into the Caribbean islands initially inhabited by the Indigenous peoples such as the Tainos on Jamaica, brought together peoples, which resulted in a significant cultural legacy, a syncretism that Jamaican Louise Bennett emphasised through her characterisation of Miss Mattie, in her “Back to Africa” poem:

Back to Africa, Miss Mattie?

You no know wha you dah seh?

You haf fe come from somewhe fus

Before you go back deh!

Me know say dat you great great great Granma was African,

But Mattie, doan you great great great Granpa was Englishman?

Den you great granmader fader

By you fader side was Jew?

An you granpa by you mader side

Was Frenchie parlez-vous?

But de balance a you family,

You whole generation,

Oonoo all barn dung a Bun Grung-

Oonoo all is Jamaican!

Den is weh you gwine, Miss Mattie?

Oh, you view de countenance,

An between you an de Africans

Is great resemblance! ...

I find this portrayal of Miss Mattie by Miss Lou fascinating because when I examine Caribbean architecture, it, likewise, evolved over the years, amalgamating influences from all elements of African, English, Jewish, French, and others including the Indigenous peoples. Significantly, this architecture also evolved in response to climatic considerations of the Caribbean, especially to the annual occurrence of hurricanes.

BUILD BACK BETTER

With the passing of Beryl, Prime Minister Andrew Holness has announced that we should ‘build back better’, raising much discussion over what this really means. My historic research shows that this has been the same call across the centuries. In fact, there is much evidence of the Caribbean architecture evolving into better building solutions to mitigate climatic effects and resist disasters from hurricanes and earthquakes.

I recommend that we should be revisiting and reappropriating some of these time-tested and time-honoured Caribbean architecture and cultural landscape solutions that have evolved in both traditional and modern designs, using appropriate construction technologies. After the 1951 Hurricane Charlie, residences evolved with a concrete slab roof.

Therefore, to ‘build back better’, especially as we operate under current conditions of climate change, what are generational lessons of hurricane-mitigation strategies in land-use and construction practices that have been transmitted from our Indigenous, African, European, and Asian peoples?

My article in The Journal of Architecture, ‘Creole and Vernacular Architecture: Embryonic Syncretism in Caribbean Cultural Landscape,’ emphasised that the inherent knowledge, experience, and practices of the Indigenous and African peoples affected European settlements to provide comfort and safety in the Caribbean tropical environment. These evolved during colonial enslavement when over 90 per cent of the Caribbean population were Africans, describing them as designers and constructors.

I defined a “Caribbean Creole Architecture” highlighting hurricane-relief techniques of a continuous hip roof with miniscule roof overhang. The roof had vents. There was also a piazza or an enclosed verandah lined with jalousie/louvre windows. This construction type was prevalent in the Caribbean on both large and small buildings to mitigate hurricane devastation.

I also defined a “Caribbean Vernacular Architecture” evolving after the 1834 British Emancipation from slavery. With ‘fretwork’ depicting African symbolism that became an integral decorative yet functional element if offered climate control that enhanced natural ventilation for thermal comfort and hurricane resilience.

INTEGRATED IN ENVIRONMENT PRINCIPLES

Instead of being dismissed as ‘old-fashioned’, such resilient Caribbean architecture should be integrated in environmental principles to transform creatively, contemporary Caribbean architectural practice and its construction industry. To ‘build back better’ in such manner would fulfil sustainable development goals and climate-change adaptation strategies.

Have you noticed that the most expensive luxury residences in the Caribbean erected at hotels over the water on Caribbean beaches are based on a replica of traditional hurricane-resistant thatched ‘huts’ fashioned after the architecture of African houses on plantations during the period of colonial enslavement?

It is predicted that other hurricanes soon will come calling on Caribbean doorsteps. Will professional and technical Caribbean experts be included in the decision-making process to resolve disaster mitigation? Why is the Caribbean continually engaging in what may be construed as a mendicant spirit for ‘band-aid’ solutions instead of applying resilient urban and rural planning environmental solutions and hillside management based on meaningful adaptation principles?

Nation-building development practice in the Caribbean should include scientific and technically informed analyses by Caribbean experts at all levels inputting decision-making processes for long-term hurricane mitigation plans and strategies that anticipate resilience. Will the region continue to marginalise its Caribbean experts while the economy and infrastructure of the nations are continuously taking a battering?

Patricia Green, PhD, a registered architect and conservationist, is an independent scholar and advocate for the built and natural environment. Send feedback to patgreen2008@gmail.com and columns@gleanerjm.com.