Architecture

Our Beginnings

The seven-block plus, public housing scheme built in the 1940’s in West Kingston, Jamaica, known as the Government Yards of Trench Town, was designed with gabled roofs, verandahs, and multiple dwellings formed around communal yards, as a modest and affordable place for a transplanted rural population. It became home to an unassuming family of musicians, poised to change the face of world music. Through its idealistic beginning, periods of extreme political tension and violence, to contemporary life in Trench Town- this case study traces the life of this storied neighborhood.