Learning in Lamu
This blog was written for us by Simon Benson who is a volunteer and friend with Flipflopi. He brings a wealth of experience, enthusiasm and inspiration to us through his work as a senior lecturer in Naval Architecture with Newcastle University. We are exceptionally grateful for all his help so far and helping to facilitate this Summer School experience.
During the first two weeks of July our inaugural Flipflopi Summer School, kindly supported by the John Prime Foundation, and organised by Newcastle University, was attended by naval architecture, industrial design and marine engineering students from Newcastle University Northumbria University, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) and Lamu Polytechnic.
Settling in
Our team of students travelled to Lamu over the last weekend in June from Newcastle, London, Nairobi, Mombasa and Lamu County.
Landing at Manda airport across the water from Lamu town, a typical first experience on arrival is a short walk along the jetty to catch a taxi boat across the strait. But we weren't going in an ordinary boat - I could spot captain Ali Skanda and first mate Katherina Elleke - the Flipflopi crew - who'd sailed over with Flipflopi's newly launched recycled plastic water taxi for us. A stylish small sailing dhow, the water taxi is now also equipped with a 6kw solar-electric outboard, charged up and ready to speed us silently, cost free and with zero carbon emissions across the channel.
With the arrival of the last group of students, we experienced the start of friendships and collaboration as the group interacted over eating, shopping and sharing different cultural experiences began for the group of maritime and design students from very different places.
Introductions
The nerve centre of Flipflopi, Ali Skanda's boatyard is nestled against the Mangrove forests at the very end of the inhabited stretch of shoreline running from Lamu town. I was last there in February, and at that point all the Flipflopi boats were out of the water in various stages of construction and refurbishment. But things happen quickly at Flipflopi; Ndogo, the flagship 7 ton expedition dhow, was now at anchor and a new sheltered cafe area has been made on the waterfront, accessed via a walkway decorated with information displays and decked with old plastic planks from the first prototypes - nothing goes to waste.
The visiting students met their compatriots from Lamu over the first of many pilau lunches. This group were part way through Flipflopi's third full 6-month training course in collaboration with Lamu Polytechnic. We had planned the summer school to integrate with this, bringing students from different cultures and educational backgrounds together to share their knowledge and learn from each other in a truly inspiring environment.
The afternoon was spent touring the boatyard, watching the carpentry in action, and seeing the plastic recycling and recovery centre at work - sorting, shredding, cleaning and extruding plastic lumber ready for Flipflopi's many projects and products.
All too soon it was time for home, and one last special treat. With such a large group, the water taxi transport was upgraded to dhow Ndogo. I've been involved in FlipFlopi for about 4 years now, but I've never been on board Ndogo afloat. I was as excited as everyone else. Even more so when we realised the wind was favourable: off went the outboard, out came the sail and away we went, sailing up the channel in the late afternoon sun. Wow!!
Setting the scene
Lamu has a wealth of history - much of it tied to the ocean that connects the boats, trade and people there for over 700 years. This is captured in Lamu's museum on the waterfront. Added to this, we were lucky to have expert teachers of traditional boatbuilding on hand:
- Ali Skanda, a master carpenter and boatbuilder is from a family line of craftspeople from Lamu. Ali is a co-founder and typifies the beating heart of Flipflopi.
- Richard Birmingham, professor of small craft design from Newcastle, is an expert on traditional boatbuilding (and ex-president of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects) so had come to support the summer school!
Richard and Ali took the students on a tour of the museum. Ali's pride and joy in there is a model galleon, the Sultana, which he built specially for the museum from a few drawings. The team then walked down the seafront all the way to Flipflopi, touring several boatyards where dhows are being built and maintained. There is less heritage boat building now, with Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP) taking over as the desired material, bringing new environmental consequences for Lamu.
Later on the Lamu students became the teachers, showing the newbies how to sort, shred, clean and extrude recycled plastic lumber.
The students also spent time within a crucial part of the FlipFlopi recycling and recovery system - the sorters who pick out all the different types of plastic (by type and colour) which ensures the eventual products are high quality. Sorting is difficult manual work, but by getting stuck in and learning about plastic identification the students commented about how much more engaging the job is than you might first think.
We had started to see the importance of Flipflopi in the local community. Before, there was no recycling anywhere in the archipelago. Most plastic was either piled up, buried or more likely burnt. Flipflopi is not only providing a crucial waste management service but also demonstrating that plastic waste has value and can become beautiful and functional products.
Lectures and learning
Then it was Newcastle’s turn to share and what better place to teach than Lamu Fort, an atmospheric fortress of towers and courtyards in the centre of town. The curator kindly allowed us to use the upper gallery, where we created a classroom backdropped by maps of the archipelago.
First up was Richard, talking about the approaches to small craft design (design spirals!) and how we define design requirements - explicit, implicit and unknowns.
Then we had several talks from our students sharing elements of their ongoing research. All the way through I was impressed with how much all of the students were engaging with the whole thing – taking notes, asking questions and reflecting on their experiences.
Design challenge
Katharina, Ali, Richard and I had been designing the outline of this summer school in the weeks before we arrived. Although we all have different background experiences, I think we share a common set of purposes and values. I've been inspired by the way we came together and made a whole bigger than our individual parts. Sharing our own approaches to design through education is a powerful way for us teachers to learn too.
Towards the end of the week we had watched and listened to the students - seeing their skills, knowledge, interests and teamwork. It was time to set them into four teams (splitting across the institutions) and start the main purpose of the course - a design challenge.
We teachers set ourselves as the client - Flipflopi - who want a new boat design with some important requirements:
- a production boat
- for the local community but also to export elsewhere
- sized to fit in a 20' container
- efficient for fabrication out of recycled plastic
- recognisable and reflective of the spirit of Flipflopi
A key component of the design challenge was to make a prototype model. So back we went to the workshop to practice extruding, joining (with a high technology plastic welder that has been pioneered by Flipflopi), and injection moulding - finally getting the timing right to produce well formed and gorgeous patterned cups and door handles.
Let loose
Over four days the student teams had been inducted, trained, lectured, challenged and briefed. Now to let things go and the day was left free for the teams to use as they wished, with a request that they were “productive” in their planning for the next week. At this point, we didn’t want to get in the way of their creativity.
Design, make, display
Our challenge in week 2 was a real one - to design a "production" Flipflopi boat for local use and export, sized for a shipping container and able to be built efficiently out of recycled plastic.
The teams now had four days to turn their ideas into a design pitch. The teams were free to create a display that represented their concept - with the opportunity to create a model scale boat design using their fabrication skills with recycled plastic, along with accompanying sketches and descriptions.
We spent the start of the week circulating between teams discussing their ideas, providing advice and encouraging iteration of the designs. The four teams had very different and distinctive design ideas.
But soon everyone had started making - collecting, extruding, sizing, sketching, shaping, carving, welding and creating models of the designs. We kept up regular check-ins and advice sessions, but we also gave the students space to explore their creativity and take responsibility for their designs.
The workshop soon became a hub of activity, noise, sweat and concentration.
Final design presentations
The Flipflopi Summer School aimed to bring together teams of students from different backgrounds, learn from each other, and produce some innovative concept designs of future recycled plastic boats.
We had spent the first week learning a lot from Flipflopi and each other, the second week designing and model making, and the middle weekend bonding over a sailing adventure.
Now it was time to see the results of all these endeavours.
We rendezvoused back at Lamu Fort and the teams were armed with models and posters of their designs. The supervisors were armed with questions (and Swahili snacks for everyone's breakfast!).
Out of this came four very different concepts
- A luxury sailing boat to taxi tourists from the airport to their hotels and learn to sail
- A small and stylish tender for short transfers of people or cargo
- A traditional Lamu taxi boat using repeatable frames and plank sizes to maximise production efficiency
- A multi-purpose modular dhow with removable features including solar canopy, keel and decorative bow
Each design was presented to the group with a poster and a concept model.
We were inspired by elements from all four concepts that we think will be taken forward in future designs. A lot of thought had gone into sizing the boats for their function but also enabling them to fit and stack within a container. The use of standard plank sizes, frame shapes and repeatability in the structures showed innovative detail that helps to keep production costs, timescales and waste down. The decorative innovations developed for the boats, including the use of deep carving to bring out the layered colours in the plastic, brought style and a Flipflopi trademark to the concepts.
And that was almost that! But we couldn't leave without a last evening visit to the FlipFlopi boatyard for Ali's speciality beach BBQ. We busied ourselves making fish, prawn curry, chips and salad. It was our pleasure to cook for our students who had worked so hard all week, and sit out under the stars enjoying each other's company before sleep and a long journey home.
Asante sana to The Flipflopi Project for hosting, teaching and inspiring us with innovative ideas, education and dedication to help solve this plastic waste crisis that is blighting our environment, our climate and our health.
Thanks so much to our students for making this such an amazing experience; Georgia, George, Annabel, Nathan, Tom, Lily, Muhsin, Zainab, Benny, Tina, Abdul, Jaffar, Ghost, Emmanuel, Isaac, Khyroon, Zainab, Julius, David, Umu, Samuel and Rosetta.
And to our inspiring teachers; Katherina, Nuru, Ali and Richard.
