{"id":17384,"date":"2018-03-08T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-08T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/architizer.wpengine.com\/sharon-davis-design-womens-opportunity-center\/"},"modified":"2022-05-31T05:53:00","modified_gmt":"2022-05-31T09:53:00","slug":"sharon-davis-design-womens-opportunity-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/architizer.com\/blog\/inspiration\/industry\/sharon-davis-design-womens-opportunity-center\/","title":{"rendered":"How Sharon Davis Rewrote Her Future Through Architecture"},"content":{"rendered":"

What should architecture look like when it is designed specifically for women? That was the challenge that architect Sharon Davis<\/a> took on not in her hometown of New York, but in the village of Kayonza, Rwanda. Here, the architecture had to address more than the lack of a safe gathering place for Rwandan women \u2014 it also had to create economic opportunity and a solid social infrastructure.<\/p>\n

It was no small task for Davis, who was only one year out of graduate school, having turned to the profession of architecture in her 40s. But the result was astounding, a contemporary, intimate mini-village that punctuates the rural landscape of Kayonza. Known as the Women\u2019s Opportunity Center<\/a>, it is made of interconnected, circular structures that women travel freely between to socialize, learn, and set up business.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 Sharon Davis Design<\/p>\n\t<\/div>\n\n

The project would also go on to change the course of Sharon Davis\u2019 architecture career. \u201cWalking around the finished site,\u201d said Davis, \u201cI just couldn\u2019t believe that someone let me do this one year out of graduate school.\u201d She lightly noted, \u201cNo one would have let me do this in the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, Davis\u2019 path to architecture \u2014 which ultimately led her to Rwanda \u2014 is an unlikely one. She began her career in finance and did not consider transitioning to architecture until she was nearing her 40s. \u201cI had a life crisis, but it ended up being a good one,\u201d she said. She started taking undergraduate classes in architecture at Columbia University and eventually completed a M.Arch at Columbia\u2019s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.<\/p>\n

She graduated in 2006, wanting to jumpstart her career and also spend more time with her four children. As a result, she decided to started her own business rather than join a firm; Sharon Davis Design was founded in 2007.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 Sharon Davis Design<\/p>\n\t<\/div>\n\n

Initially, according to Davis, she wanted to focus on sustainability. But an early commission to design the Women\u2019s Opportunity Center \u201cchanged everything,\u201d she said. The nonprofit organization Women for Women International received the land to build the opportunity center in Rwanda and wanted a female architect to design it. A member of the board recommended Davis, and she quickly clicked with the organization. The project, she noted, was \u201cuncharted territory.\u201d But upon her first site visit to Rwanda, the focus of the design became clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cI imagined the women I had met in one-room wood huts coming to a center for 300 women,\u201d said Davis. She knew the design had to be inviting, like a safe haven, rather than intimidating. The concept of the site, then, was to create a type of village. A series of low-rise pavilions were built in a circular pattern, with classrooms at the heart of the site. A farmers market, community space, gardens, and guest lodgings are all located on the outer edges of the circle.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 Sharon Davis Design<\/p>\n\t<\/div>\n\n

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\u00a9 Sharon Davis Design<\/p>\n\t<\/div>\n\n

Davis also wanted the center to reflect Rwandan design as \u201c[she] didn\u2019t want to impose architecture.\u201d Much of the existing Rwandan architecture, however, took the shape of standard, large buildings that tended to have no circulation and little light. Davis found inspiration in the historic King\u2019s Palace in southern Rwanda \u201cwith thatched and woven buildings and small circular spaces within a larger site.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was also important for Davis to use local materials, but use them differently than she typically saw in Rwanda. The circular structures are composed of 450,000 clay bricks made by Rwandan women using a manual press method adapted from local building techniques. Gaps in the brickwork would bring in air and light. The roofs were designed to accommodate a rainwater collection system. The potable water gathered in the collection system could then be sold by women at the center\u2019s market.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 Sharon Davis Design<\/p>\n\t<\/div>\n\n

Construction on the Women\u2019s Opportunity Center lasted two years, ending in 2012. \u201cAfter it opened, I wanted to replicate that experience immediately,\u201d said Davis. \u201cBut I found out that it wasn\u2019t that easy.\u201d She found that many international, humanitarian projects often take a long time to plan, develop, and fundraise. So she decided to found her own NGO, the Big Future Group<\/a>, with Julie Farris, Arun Rimal, and Eric Rothstein, other architects and designers who met while working on the design and construction of the Women\u2019s Opportunity Center.<\/p>\n

The idea, according to Davis, was to continue to create \u201carchitecture that could change the quality of people\u2019s lives.\u201d Creating a nonprofit organization meant that Sharon Davis Design would solely focus on interior design for private clients. Big Future Group continued to work in Rwanda and is currently fundraising to help preserve a genocide memorial in Ntarama.<\/p>\n

The nonprofit also set its sights toward other countries: Big Future Group\u2019s first project was to help an overcrowded school relocate in Nepal, and there are plans to build a hospital complex in the town of Achham. Davis says the organization is working on a prototype for 50 new schools in Nepal that would replace those destroyed in the recent earthquake.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 Sharon Davis Design<\/p>\n\t<\/div>\n\n

Big Future Group is also in the early design stages to build a K\u201312 school in Ethiopia, a place that Davis felt unfamiliar with before taking on the project. \u201cComing from Rwanda, there\u2019s a very different culture here, and we\u2019re meeting it with a new perspective,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s new people, a new culture, and a new challenge.\u201d But Davis is up to meet it. While she has described her late career start as a significant challenge in breaking into the world of architecture, in retrospect, her timing seems perfect. \u201cI took a risk,\u201d she said, \u201cBut it all fell into place.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What should architecture look like when it is designed specifically for women?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"architizer_featured_type":"projects","architizer_featured_image":"1249109","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3],"tags":[34],"architizer_project":[],"architizer_brand":[],"architizer_firm":[],"architizer_product":[],"class_list":["post-17384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-industry","category-inspiration","tag-awards"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow Sharon Davis Rewrote Her Future Through Architecture - Architizer Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What should architecture look like when it is designed specifically for women? 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