Community Central: A community shelter built by the users for a wide variety of tasks is made with the cheapest materials and simplest techniques yet still has dignity and presence.

In 1998, a hurricane destroyed Marcovia, a small town near Choluteca in Honduras. Some 2500 houses were built as part of the relief programme, but there is still no electricity, and there are no communal facilities save for a little shop and small school (which is not attended by all the village children). Access to water is limited. Daytime temperatures are often unbearably hot and humid, so the community had to hold religious services in the open fields in the cool of the evening by the light of gas lanterns.

Jae Cha's new building serves as a place of Protestant Christian worship, as well as a general gathering place for the community and an education centre. Open to all sides, the simple structure is cool, collecting breezes and providing shade, so public activities can be conducted during the day, rather than only in the evenings or at night. It is a play space for small children during the day, and will perhaps be used as a centre for church-organized trade training offered to older children and young adults.

It was built over three months by communal labour, with donations of materials from local and foreign sources. The columns are made of U-shaped concrete blocks reinforced with ordinary steel bars. The roof is of corrugated metal carried on steel channels. Cha originally wanted to use a wooden structure, but she was advised that timber, even if treated with anti-pesticides, would be useless after a few months because of insect attack.

The most magical components are the screens, which are made of polyethylene monofilament fabric that is normally used for agricultural shading. The movable, changeable translucent planes allow spaces to be altered according to need and use. When we opened the envelopes, we were almost all surprised to find that Jae Cha had won a prize this year as well as last. But Craig Dykers said that he had suspected all along that the author of this project was Cha, because the gentle qualities of light and the economy of means reminded him strongly of Cha's chapel in Bolivia (AR December 2000). Since last year, Cha has founded a non-profit, non-governmental organization Light, Inc to continue to create such projects in developing communities. Her commitment and energy are astonishing.