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Second Place: Eban Aya by Atelier Koe “Earth construction is thousands of years old. Concrete has a much shorter story.” Based 15 miles south of Dakar in Senegal, French-born architect Richard Rowland had already been experimenting with earthen construction, even fashioning three-story buildings, before hearing about the NKA Foundation contest. His proposed structure mixes mud with bamboo, in order to achieve sustainability and affordability. In Africa, he says, you often see people buy a plot of land, and then slowly buy material and build up their home over a few year period. With a bamboo-based structure, future homeowners can literally grow walls on their land. The lightweight material provides shade, circulation, and shelter from heavy rains, and the ability to grow your own building material has income-producing and community-building applications.
Second Place: Eban Aya by Atelier Koe “Earth construction is thousands of years old. Concrete has a much shorter story.” Based 15 miles south of Dakar in Senegal, French-born architect Richard Rowland had already been experimenting with earthen construction, even fashioning three-story buildings, before hearing about the NKA Foundation contest. His proposed structure mixes mud with bamboo, in order to achieve sustainability and affordability. In Africa, he says, you often see people buy a plot of land, and then slowly buy material and build up their home over a few year period. With a bamboo-based structure, future homeowners can literally grow walls on their land. The lightweight material provides shade, circulation, and shelter from heavy rains, and the ability to grow your own building material has income-producing and community-building applications.
First Place: Sankofa House by M.A.M.O.T.H. “There is no need to do a revolution in terms of sustainability, you need an evolution,” says Dorian Vauzelle, part of the four-person French team that won the design competition with the Sankofa House concept. “You need to go step-by-step, take elements from this vernacular architecture, simple and practical, think about the climate issues, and [think] in a contemporary way.” The team’s concept was informed by local design history. They adapted a traditional pitched-roof layout, which helps with heavy rains as well as air circulation. A double-skin roof and straw insulation were adapted from other European designs, while the external stripes of colors come from different types of clay. “All the answers are already there,” says Vazuelle of the challenge of designing in a new environment. “You just have to look behind to go further, like the traditional Sankofa symbol says.”
First Place: Sankofa House by M.A.M.O.T.H. “There is no need to do a revolution in terms of sustainability, you need an evolution,” says Dorian Vauzelle, part of the four-person French team that won the design competition with the Sankofa House concept. “You need to go step-by-step, take elements from this vernacular architecture, simple and practical, think about the climate issues, and [think] in a contemporary way.” The team’s concept was informed by local design history. They adapted a traditional pitched-roof layout, which helps with heavy rains as well as air circulation. A double-skin roof and straw insulation were adapted from other European designs, while the external stripes of colors come from different types of clay. “All the answers are already there,” says Vazuelle of the challenge of designing in a new environment. “You just have to look behind to go further, like the traditional Sankofa symbol says.”