Relevance

While the contributions of day laborers typically go unseen, most cities’ inability to accommodate them within the urban infrastructure is highly visible. Day laborers’ role in the informal economy has forced them to occupy spaces meant for other uses, such as street corners, gas stations, and home improvement store parking lots. A relatively small number of officially sanctioned day labor centers have appeared in recent years, but the informal gathering sites remain the norm. These sites are far from being ideal; their presence in spaces designated for other uses means that they often lack even the most basic of amenities (shelter, water, toilet facilities, etc). The Day Labor Station is a design campaign that we are developing to address the needs of a community that traditionally has not had access to quality design environments.

Prototype

The Station itself is a simple, flexible structure that can be deployed at these informal day labor locations. It is a self-sustaining project that will utilize green materials and strategies and will exist primarily--if not completely--off the grid. Our design is based on the realities of the ways in which the day labor system operates, and responds to the needs and desires of the day laborers themselves, as our clients. As such, the structure will be flexible enough to serve various uses, including as an employment center, meeting space, and classroom.

Proving that "just" design and "quality" design need not be mutually exclusive, the Day Labor Station has received recognition from the design community for its innovative design including a Spark! Award and a Citation in the Unbuilt Category from the AIASF (American Institute of Architects, San Francisco chapter). In 2009, the project won the Global Innovation Prize from the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction. It was the only building (other awardees were large master plans) and the only North American project to be recognized in that global awards cycle.

Efforts are currently focused deploying the very first Day Labor Station at a chosen site in Los Angeles.  Public Architecture has formed a partnership with the National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON) to make this a reality. Additionally, Public Architecture is working with NDLON to link existing worker centers with architects through The 1% Program in an effort to provide a more comprehensive improvement of the physical spaces of day labors and the presence of these spaces in the broader community..

Public Architecture is also in conversation with several other municipalities and community groups in California, identifying sites where additional Day Labor Stations will be implemented in the very near future. Ultimately, Stations will be deployed across the country.

Advocacy

The Day Labor Station design initiative has always been more than just a design project. Public Architecture also leads a robust advocacy and public relations effort, including a dedicated website. All these initiatives represent part of our effort to humanize the laborers and elevate the debate about them, the spaces they inhabit, and the ways in which they exist in the fabric of the community.

A full scale section of the first prototype of the Day Labor Station was on display at the “Design for the Other 90%” exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York in 2007. Accompanying the exhibition was a book displaying--among other things--compelling portraits of day laborers. The book is still available from the museum, and the exhibition is currently traveling around the country. Visit the exhibit page on the Cooper-Hewitt Museum website for more info.

Most recently, Public Architecture produced a slide show about day laborers and the Day Labor Station project which was shown at the 2009 Rotterdam Biennale, themed, “Open City: Designing Coexistence.”

Along with the website and exhibitions, we continue to use presentations as well as written and broadcast media as platforms to advance the critically important dialogue around the project and the issues it highlights.

Visit www.daylaborstation.org for more information about the Day Labor Station.