Founded in the late seventeenth century at the mouth of the river from which it takes its name, Black River grew into the capital of St Elizabeth Parish and, between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, became one of the principal ports of southern Jamaica. The town prospered through sugar, rum and logwood while also serving as a major landing and auction point for enslaved Africans. This early wealth fuelled a rapid process of modernisation, earning it the reputation of a “town of firsts”: among the earliest places in Jamaica to introduce electric street lighting and telephone service and, for a period, second only to Kingston in commercial importance.

Today Black River—a small coastal town anchoring Jamaica’s so-called “breadbasket parish” and sustained by a fragile balance of farming, fishing and eco-tourism—stands on the front line of the climate crisis; in October 2025, Hurricane Melissa, the most powerful storm ever recorded over the island, made landfall on the south-west coast with winds reaching 185 miles per hour and a storm surge of approximately five metres, leaving the town, in the words of the prime minister, “literally totally destroyed”.

WISH will seek to explore the question of collective housing within this historically layered and deeply wounded coastal landscape, operating at the intersection of colonial memory, climate justice and post-disaster reconstruction. Ten students from the Academy of Architecture of the Università della Svizzera italiana and five students from the Caribbean School of Architecture at the University of Technology, Jamaica, will engage with the theme of collective housing in Black River; the programme includes an approximately ten-day study trip to Jamaica, based in Black River and the surrounding region, followed by a three-week design workshop in Mendrisio at the Academy of Architecture.