OFFICE FOR REPAIR

                 [oFR]

systems and spatial 
design studio















Filter OUR PROJECTS BY SCALE, OR BY MAIN OUTPUT SCALE OUTPUTS
ProjectScaleOutputsLocationClimate Frontejas EntretejidasTerritorialResearch; EngagementEl Paso, USA
Ciudad Juarez, MexicoSemi-Arid
2022
 The Ecological ClassroomPlotEngagement; BuildPaxcamán, GuatemalaTropical Lowlands2024 Architecture of DisplacementCross-territorialPublicationUS-Mexico Border, Northern Petén, GuatemalaSemi-Arid, Tropical Lowlands2025 Community-Led Food SystemsRegionalResearch; Publication; EngagementEivissa, SpainSemi-arid2024 The Ecological LaboratoryPlotEngagement; BuildPaxcamán, GuatemalaTropical Lowlands2027 Once, a River RanTerritorialPublicationEl Paso, USA
Ciudad Juarez, MexicoSemi-Arid2026 Permaculture BuildsRegionalEngagement; BuildPetén, GuatemalaTropical Lowlands2026 London ClimathonRegionalEngagementLondon, UKTemperate Oceanic2019 GROWRegionalEngagement; Research; BuildHoima, UgandaTropical Savannah2027 Ecobuilding in ConflictCross-territorialResearch; PublicationLatin America, Central Africa, South-East AsiaTropical Savannah2026



Re-AlliancePermaculture Builds in Contexts of Displacement2026-2027



DATE: 2025–2028
STATUS: IN PROGRESS
LOCATION: Northern Petén, Guatemala
CLIMATE ZONE: Tropical humid
CLIMATE STRESSORS: Soil degradation; drought; deforestation

Commissioned by: Re-Alliance
In collaboration with: Organización Ecológica Sol y Verde; Casa del Migrante BETANIA.

OFR ROLE: Lead designer; Research Lead
OFR WORK STRANDS: Groundwork; Capacity & Co-Design; Strategic Systems Design; RESEARCH & PUBLICATION



OFR is testing and redesigning three of Re-Alliance's open-access permaculture technologies (wicking beds, vermicomposting and ecological sanitation) with women, youth and displaced families in northern Petén, Guatemala. The manuals were written for refugee settlements in Central Africa; OFR is rebuilding them with communities on the Mexico-Belize border, where conditions differ and the existing designs break in specific, instructive ways. The builds are the method, and the knowledge they generate is the output, returned to Re-Alliance's open library so it can travel and be applied to a wide variation of locations.

Sol y Verde works at the edge of the Maya Biosphere Reserve, in a border and migration corridor where communities face insecure land tenure, limestone soils thinned by deforestation, extractive agricultural pressure, and the compounding effects of climate disruption and displacement. Many participants are agro-dependent, work with little formal infrastructure, and have low construction literacy. 




OFR and Sol y Verde are building the three technologies with three different groups: wicking beds with women (ages 16 to 85), vermicompost towers with youth (ages 9 to 12), and ecological sanitation systems with refugee women at the Casa del Migrante Betania. The three are designed to loop: sanitation outputs feed composting, compost feeds the wicking beds, and the beds raise food security at household and community level. Each is built through participatory workshops from upcycled and locally sourced materials, with women and youth as the primary builders and the future stewards of the systems. Construction literacy is treated as an outcome in itself.

Testing exposes exactly where a manual written elsewhere fails here. Working with the children, OFR and Sol y Verde rebuilt it: a step-by-step build timeline, a specific feeding rule, a moisture test they could apply themselves, a troubleshooting table, and a shared-care model for towers co-managed in pairs. The children drew their own illustrated manuals, which now serve as the prototype for a Re-Alliance child-facing resource.

Monitoring is built into the design from the start, with visits at 3, 6 and 12 months after each delivery, tracking uptake, durability, and whether communities keep and adapt the systems on their own. That evidence, and the redesigned manuals and terminology it produces, is the project's real output. It returns to Re-Alliance's open-access library, where its value is knowledge that can travel to other climate-pressured and displacement-affected communities, rather than a set of builds in one place.




Partner credit: Office for Repair, with Organización Ecológica Sol y Verde. Commissioned and funded by Re-Alliance, in partnership with the Casa del Migrante Betania, Santa Elena.

Photography: Office for Repair and Organización Ecológica Sol y Verde; Lou Elena Bouey and Jasmine Ward.

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