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Post by Nka on Apr 24, 2017 13:13:10 GMT -6
5th Earth Architecture Competition
Nka Foundation announces a call for entries for its 5th Earth Architecture Competition: Designing a Rural Arts Center for Senegal, an international architecture competition open to professionals and students of architecture, design, urban planning and others from around the world. Your challenge is to design a unit of a rural arts school for construction in a village in the Casamance region of Senegal.
Total costs of constructing the design entry must not exceed $10,000 (USD) for materials and local labor. The entry fee is $40 for individual entry and $60 for team entry. Jurors will award prizes for 1st: $1,000; 2nd: $700; and 3rd: $400. Honorable Mention certificates will be awarded by the jury to 7 of the Top 40 Entries. In order to enter the competition, you must register at goo.gl/hSuuQO and submit your design entry on this board (http://nkaprojects.boards.net) on October 16, 2017.
IMPORTANT DATES
Registration: July 13, 2017 - October 13, 2017
Submission of Entries: October 16-19, 2017
Selection of Projects by Jury: October 24-November 2, 2017
Press Release on the Winning Projects: November 13, 2017
Building Workshops to Realize the Top 40 Design Entries: February 2018 to July 2020
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Post by Nka on Apr 24, 2017 13:32:00 GMT -6
OBJECTIVE
The objective is to design a modern mud type to be built as a unit of an artisanal village, a residential vocational training center for unemployed rural youths of ages 16 to 25 years to undergo a 2-year skills development training in the vocational arts and design. We want the school plan to emphasize sustainable architecture and cost efficient construction. Thus, we want the buildings to fully integrate earth architecture and passive solar design.
The challenge is to design one of the following types for the school: a classroom type, cafeteria type, office building type, dormitory type, group toilet type, cafeteria type, dormitory type, dwelling type for the local teachers, and guest house type for our international visiting staff. Contestants are to design the school type for construction by maximum use of earth and local labor. Total costs of constructing the design entry is not to exceed $10,000 (USD) for materials and labor. The construction site will be Diakounda village in Sédhiou Region of the Casamance in Senegal.
The jurors will use judging criteria involving form, function and technical issues to select three prize-winning designs. Specifically, the jurors will award prizes for first, second and third place consisting of a commemorative certificate and cash prizes to the winning designs as follows: 1st prize - $1,000 or Construction of design in Senegal plus a trip to Senegal for a workshop to build the winning design (in case the winner does not reside in Senegal and to a maximum of 1 person); 2nd prize- Construction or $700 and 3rd prize- Construction or $400. Honorable mentions will be awarded. Every design team that makes the Top 40 Entries shortlist will be offered the opportunity to build their design in Senegal or Gambia in collaboration with the project organizers.
The registration fee per entry is $40 for individual and $60 for a team. Here is where to register: goo.gl/hSuuQO . For additional information, see the competition discussion board: nkaprojects.boards.net .
Take the design-build challenge! Make your name known! Let’s create change where it is most needed.
CONDITIONS OF PARTICIPATION (1) An individual or a design team can submit an entry to the 5th Earth Architecture Competition. Each team shall identify one team member as its Point of Contact (“Point of Contact”) during the submission process. Each entry shall receive a registration number and, from then on, will only be identified by that number, in order to keep anonymity during the submission and the final election. (2) In order to enter the design contest, you must register here: goo.gl/hSuuQO On your Eventbrite ticket, you will see a 9-digit order #. This is your registration number for one design entry. If you are submitting more than one entry, each design entry requires a separate ticket. With your entry ticket number upload your design entry to the competition board: nkaprojects.boards.net on October 16, 2017. If you want to pay by check, send us an e-mail at info@nkafoundation.org / www.nkafoundation.org and the following information: team name, team leader name, phone number and email address. To submit your design, place your ticket number and the title of the project (no name) on all pages of your design submission to allow the jury to select blindly.
(3) SUBMISSION FORMAT: Submission will be Online, to be uploaded to nkaprojects.boards.net. It should include: (1) The design statement (200 words max) should include the meaning of the work, material description and budget in USD; and (2) One A1 presentation board submitted as a JPG file of high resolution (1 MB). The upper right corner of the board must contain the entry ticket number. There should not be any marks or any other form of identification, less the entry is disqualified. The file must be named after the ticket number. For example, 112334567.jpg (for your presentation board). Submissions must be in English language.
(4) Of the nominated projects (40), there will be three winning projects, according to the highest scores. Jurors will award prizes for first, second and third place consisting of a commemorative certificate and cash prizes to the winning designs as follows: 1st prize- $1,000 or Construction of design in Senegal plus a trip to Senegal for a workshop to build the winning design (in case the winner does not reside in Senegal and to a maximum of 1 person); 2nd prize- Construction or $700 and 3rd prize- Construction or $400. Honorable mentions will be awarded by the jury but will receive no cash prize. Every design team that makes the Top 40 Entries shortlist will be offered the opportunity to build their design in Senegal in collaboration with the project organizers. If a design team of the shortlisted entries is not able to lead the workshop, the team may nominate a practitioner or an organization who is able to lead the workshop to build their entry. Otherwise, the organizers of the contest will pass the opportunity to another team whose entry in the competition is a good fit for the project site.
(5) Judging criteria involve: (1) Form: Visual appearance through use of materials, shape, color, texture, etc; (2) Function as a sustainable house design; and (3) Technical issues to the degree the design addresses construction techniques, climatic factors and construction budget. Decisions of the jury will be final and binding.
(6) Q&A: Registered participants may post questions for organizer to respond to and they can share materials on the competition discussion board: nkaprojects.boards.net. The deadline for questions is September 30, 2017.
(7) Any person entering this contest shall certify and guarantee the organizers that he/she is the sole author of the project and by participating, each contestant grants their free and exclusive consent that all designs and ideas will be published and shared to inspire others. By entering the competition, all participants agree to all the conditions of participation in the competition.
(8) After, you have uploaded your entry Online, send us a note via email to info@nkafoundation.org / www.nkafoundation.org that includes the following information: the entrant’s personal information including your name, registration number, profession, address, and email address.
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Post by Nka on Apr 24, 2017 13:42:02 GMT -6
HOW TO DESIGN WHAT IS BUILDABLE?
Our aim is to generate modern mud house types that can be easily built with local materials
The construction of the top design entries in the Earth Architecture Competition is our priority for two reasons: (1) The building workshop will serve as cultural exchange as you build your unit of the school with the local youth trainees and local artisans; and (2) because at Nka Foundation, we have come to know that a means for a young designer to learn to design what is buildable is by providing you with the opportunity to design and build your own design. Thus, from February 2018 to July 2020, we will be collaborating with some of the design teams in the competition to organize construction workshops to build their design entries based on site at Diakounda village in Sédhiou Region of the Casamance, Senegal.
The competition promotes open source design, which implies that the submitted designs will be available for all to appreciate, use, or improve them to generate more practical and contemporary design solutions for the region. In light of this, the competition entry needs to be a type that can be replicated in another village in tropical Africa such as Gambia, Ghana or Tanzania. Our long-term goal is to enable the rural population and lots of other places, to overcome the stigma that mud architecture is architecture for the very poor.
Proposed Site Plan for the Diakounda Arts Village by Podjamas Chaisuraphawat, an Architect & Urban Planner in Thailand
NOTE: The above site plan for the school is not the final version. So, go ahead and design your best architectural piece. We will put all the nominated designs together to create the Masterplan for the campus.
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Post by Nka on Apr 24, 2017 13:55:30 GMT -6
CONSTRUCTION METHOD
What is the preferred construction method for the winning entries? The method to be used to build your design can be poured earth, rammed earth or another earth construction technique such as mud bricks. Mud brick construction is common to the region. Roof design should involve metal roof with such as corrugated zinc or aluminum roofing sheets, which are the conventional roofing materials in the region. Other roofing methods such as vault roof, tiled stone, ferro-cement roof and canvas roof are all possibilities but not duly tested to stand the region’s rain storms. However, keep in mind that we are designing for the tropical climate; devices such as natural ventilation, setting the house foundation at two feet above the ground level, and designing the roof to overhang by at least three feet will therefore be in order.
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Post by Nka on Apr 24, 2017 13:58:28 GMT -6
CONSTRUCTION SITE
 
Keep in mind that the construction site for your design is Diakounda village at Bounkiling in Sédhiou Region of the Casamance, Senegal. The site is off the highway from Ziguinchor to Dakar via the Gambia. The official language is French, but the major language group is the Mandingo. Other language groups are the Diola and Wolof. Diakounda is a rural community dotted with mud houses of the mud brick type, roofed with corrugated zinc sheets. The main religion is Islam and the primary occupation of the people is farming. The closest airport to Diakounda is the Ziguinchor Airport.
The Sédhiou Region is located in the South-West of the country in the natural region called Casamance. Sédhiou is at the center of Casamance between the Kolda Region in the East and the Ziguinchor Region in the West. It also shares borders with the Gambia in the North and Guinea Bissau in the South. The Casamance River runs through the region. Sédhiou is one of the wettest regions of Senegal. The climate is tropical, hot and humid with a rainy season from May to November and a dry season from December to April. The environment is conducive to rice production. The poverty threshold is high. Sédhiou also suffers from a serious lack of basic infrastructure.
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Post by Nka on Apr 24, 2017 14:34:00 GMT -6
ORGANIZER
Nka Foundation is a nonprofit organization in the United States that exists to serve underserved communities in Africa through use of the arts and design education. The works of Nka Foundation began in 2005. From 2008 through 2010, Nka organized workshops and symposia in partnerships with some universities in Ghana and Mali to stimulate conversations and artistic interventions for solutions to the problem of tapping of the abundant local resources for sustainable development in sub-Sahara Africa. By 2009, we felt a deep need to create a model arts village at Abetenim that can be replicated in other parts of Africa, to continue to address the problem through design-build workshops, arts workshops, design competitions and outreach to the local community by means of school building projects and education enrichment.
From October 2012 to October 2013, we organized 10x10 Shelter Challenge, which was a design-build challenge based on site at Abetenim in Ghana, and two architectural projects were successfully built from that initiative. In 2014, Nka organized, Mud House Design 2014: Reinventing the African Mud Hut Together and seven projects have been built from the design-build competition. In 2015, we organized 3rd Earth Architecture Competition: Designing for the Arts in Ghana. So far, one project has been realized at Abetenim from the competition, and another is underway. The next one was the 4th Earth Architecture Competition: Designing a School for Ghana. Along the design-build competitions, Nka Foundation has hosted some invited projects from design firms and individual practitioners to realized school structures involving libraries, cafeteria and classrooms. Today, Nka Foundation project sites include:
1. Singida Arts Village, Singida Municipal, Singida Region, Tanzania
2. Sang Arts Village, Mion District, Northern Region, Ghana
3. Abetenim Arts Village, Ejisu-Juaben District, Ashanti Region, Ghana
4. Diakounda Arts Village, Bounkiling, Sédhiou Region, Casamance, Senegal
5. Kantora Arts Village, Kassi Kunda, Upper River Region, Gambia
The arts village is designed as a learning center with focus on skills development training in the vocational arts and design to provide relational spaces for creative people from the region and other countries to live, work, learn and create. Nka’s rural projects draw on asset-based approach to community development by immersion in the community and by the mobilization of the existing, but often unrecognized abundant local resources to enable the underserved community drive its own development process.
Specifically, throughout the year and at different sites, Nka runs earth architecture workshops and arts projects that invite university students, graduates and others from around the world to immerse in the local culture and learn-by-interaction with the people through the onsite projects. Students can use the opportunity for internship, thesis or personal research.
Take the design challenge! We are inviting projects from individuals, school teams and organizations who find substance in what we are doing. Since 2010, we have collaborated with architecture and design practitioners from around the world to enable their projects, from idea to reality, based on site in rural Ghana and Tanzania. To Nka, designing is not the whole thing. The design education question rather is: How do you learn to design what is buildable? It is by designing and building a project! Nka Foundation has come to know that by immersing the young designers in the full circle of designing and building their design, at the completion of the design-build process, the emerging professionals will learn to design what is buildable to make a well-rounded graduate. For the young professional, you will find the hands-on construction experience a pause from your office work to rediscover the rudiments of design and nuances that can refresh your practice.
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Post by Nka on Apr 24, 2017 14:48:18 GMT -6
ARTS VILLAGE CONCEPT
(A Vocational Skills Center)
The arts village is conceived as an informal school, an artisanal vocational development center that brings together international workshop participants, local artisans and less privileged youths from the region for skills transfer. The training will be provided by resident teachers and by hosting guest projects by both international and local practitioners in a self-growing school complex. That means, in the beginning there are just a few buildings. After the students learned some construction techniques, they will test their acquired knowledge and skills by building the next part of the school or some functional buildings for the community. Thus, the students are challenged to solve real problems, work together, to learn and build and create. Upon graduation, the cohort of trainees can move on to work on commissions as a building cooperative or work individually to source and building houses. Some of the graduates will be offered employment as teachers of the next generation who join the Workshop School.
Specifically, the arts village will be a residential skills learning center of a self-sustaining type for replication in other parts of Africa. The construction of the arts village will be carried out in phases to include accommodation for students, staff and international visitors; a multipurpose hall that serves as a kitchen and presentation hall; a commercial center; classrooms such as metalshop, woodshop, fabricshop and earth construction studio; and a demonstration farm. For example, the demonstration farm would be of the subsistent type to grow fruit trees, crops and animals such as bees, chicken and goats for use by the school. We want to plant fruit trees such as orange, mango, palm, cashew, coconut, cashew, and flowering plants around each building for shade as a part of the landscaping.
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Post by Nka on Apr 24, 2017 14:52:15 GMT -6
THE TRAINING FRAMEWORK
This is a two-year vocational training program that draws on apprenticeship with local artisans, and learning-by-doing with professional architects and designers, engineers, university students and volunteers who come from around the world to participate in Nka Foundation projects. The program is designed as an informal educational programme which combines literacy training with livelihood skills development to empower educationally disadvantaged people with livelihood and enterprise skills training so that trainees can engage in income generating vocation. The arts village brings together a cohort of students who come from villages, rural townships and underserved parts of the city in the region to live together and learn-by-doing on construction projects involving building with earth, concrete and wood construction. The course include basic design, entrepreneurial skills, rural house building materials production, various house wall construction methods, roof design and landscaping. The house wall construction methods involves cast earth, rammed earth, mud brick, stone masonry and cob construction. The students will also gain introductory knowledge in other areas such as use of English language, engineering and agroforestry as the school hosts guest projects by both international and local practitioners. You have a solution? Join us to design, build and run the school!
PROGRAMMATIC AREAS – Fashion Design and Production: Weaving, batiking and sewing for local and international fashion markets.
- Theatre Performance, Video Arts and Filmmaking
- Art Studio (sculpture, painting, etc)
- Building Arts (mud house design, construction and landscaping).
OUR WISHLIST OF PROGRAMMATIC UNITS:
- 4 Dormitory Buildings for 25 students per dorm
- Chapel Building for worship
- The Dome (performing arts space that sits 500 people- for performances, conferences and art exhibitions) See: yadi.sk/d/mbiKhWGB3EFKJS as a source of inspiration
- Dwelling Type for international visiting staff
- Cafeteria with eating area for 100 people
- Commercial Center (gift shop, offices, and market stalls)
- 4 Classrooms which are woodshop, metalshop, fabricshop, earth construction studio
- Community Library (with media arts room/digital lab)
- Demonstration Farm (to grow fruit trees, crops and animals such as bees, chicken and goats for use by the school).
- Fruticetum
FRUTICETUM WALK / SCULPTURE PARK- a journey rather than a destination, the fruticetum will be integrated with arts village and will showcase different planting character throughout, dotted with sculptures in manner of open-air sculpture park. Our concept of fruticetum walk involves a landscape beautification project to make the arts village more aesthetically pleasing by landscaping with local rare species and foreign tropical plants in line with our idea of a fruticetum. The arts village site planning will include a fruticetum that will be spread over the entire school. The fruticetum is an outdoor biology classroom that portrays the trees and shrubs of native and foreign, hardy and half-hardy, pictorially and botanically delineated, and scientifically and popularly described; with their propagation, culture, management, and uses in the arts, in useful and ornamental plantations, and in landscape-gardening; preceded by a historical and geographical outline of the trees and shrubs of tropical climates throughout the world.
The focus is on creating a fruticetum in line with the arts village’s natural and the cultural landscape. Elaboration projects may therefore involve components such as aquascape (rain gardens, fish pond, fountain), entrance gate, pathways, playground, renewable energy production, erosion control system, yards (front, back or side yard of a building) or an organic farm. By fruticetum walk, we imply that the vistor would walk through the entrance gate to experience the aesthetics of
(1) Walkways and foot paths;
(2) Alternatives for thermal comfort of buildings such as trellises, pergolas and placement of fruit trees to provide shed;
(3) Sculpture Trail: Outdoor sculptures in earth, wood and metal (an open air art gallery);
(4) A Demonstration Farm for example (chicken for eggs, vegetable garden and edible fruit trees);
(5) etc.
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Post by Nka on Apr 25, 2017 23:22:31 GMT -6
 A VOCATIONAL TRAINING PROGRAMME FOR THE ARTS VILLAGE
We have recruited a team of volunteers from www.onlinevolunteering.org to help design a vocational training program which combines literacy training with livelihood skills development to empower educationally disadvantaged people with livelihood and enterprise skills so that trainees can engage in income generating vocation. This program is aimed at unemployed rural youths of ages 16 to 25 years to undergo a 2-year skills development training at Abetenim Arts Village in Ghana. We call this project the INNOVATOR, because it is about creating the process and structure by drawing from existing practices across times to create a new program that is bound to promote social change. The objectives of the INNOVATOR are to reduce language and literacy problems along with skills learning of a self-sustaining type for replication in other parts of Africa, such as Casamance in Senegal.
The project deliverables shall include curriculum and instructional materials and global marketing strategies to reactivate the school.
The participants in the project: are Preksha Dugar (project coordinator in India), Tom Bourne in Australia, Natalie Pedraza in Ireland, Kwaku Obeng Nyarko-Dokyi in Ghana, Olivia Owusu-Ansah in Ghana, Gerone Navarro in USA, Mthokozisi Msipa in Zimbabwe, Jessica Joy Delfin in Kenya, Daria Menshikh in Russia, Raviyanki Sesodia in India, Soha Salah in Egypt, Gireesh Singh Thakurathi in India, Saju Sebastian
in India, Birenkumar Soni in Canada, Cecilly Francisco in USA, Beth Thompson in the UK, and Mohit Kochhar in USA.
REFERENCE
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Post by Nka on Jul 26, 2017 22:33:11 GMT -6
JURORS FOR THE 5TH EARTH ARCHITECTURE COMPETITION
Adrià Clapés i NICOLAU, Director of IsArch in Spain
Adrià Clapés i Nicolau is the co-founder and director of IsArch, an international platform of young architects based in Barcelona which aims to provide a debate surrounding new perspectives of architecture. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture and Master in Theory and Practice of Architectural Design at the Technical School of Architecture in Barcelona (UPC). In his thesis, he analysed the density as a form of urban growth. He has worked at Toyo Ito architects, Miralles Tagliabue – EMBT and Abalos Sentkiewitz Architects on projects in Europe, Mexico and China. From 2014 he is member of the Gisme group, a multidisciplinary team of skilled professionals, who develops blueprints to provide innovative solutions and new knowledge to the complex challenges that affect the modern world through the collaboration between academia, public institutions and private firms. Currently, he is engaged with a PhD research on interactive architectures as a result of the application of communication technologies and involved as a project director in the construction of a public school for the Catalan Government.
Adrian WELCH, Architect & Founder of e-architect in the UK
Adrian Welch is an architect from the UK, currently practicing in The Gulf. He founded international architecture resource e-architect.co.uk which has carried daily news and events for over a decade. The aim of the website is to promote good quality architecture, with around 21000 pages of information. The platform operates architecture tours in 80 cities across the globe, having been established in Edinburgh in 2000. Adrian gained his Diploma from the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London in 1995 and went on to work for Eva Jiricna Architects in London. He was a Project Architect on the Stirling Prize-winning Scottish Parliament Building. Adrian has served on architecture juries around the world since 2002 and his columns and articles have been published widely. He has given numerous lectures and assisted various schools of architecture with student crits. Adrian works for Pace in Kuwait as a Senior Architect.
Podjamas CHAISURAPHAWAT, Urban Planner at Progress Consultant Co., Ltd., and self-employed architect in Thailand
Podjamas Chaisuraphawat is an architect and urban planner, specializing in design of sustainable architecture and planning. Podjamas graduated with a first class special honours in architecture. She has done researching and designing art school for her bachelor’s thesis. After graduation, she worked as an architect on resort projects for several years, before deciding to enlighten her experiences, by being a volunteer in Tourism Council of Bhutan for 2 years. As a volunteer, she participated in sustainable tourism projects, designing base on vernacular architecture. To gain more knowledge, she enrolled in Master of Urban and Regional Planning, and finished her degree with the creative city topic.
Guido CIMADOMO, Professor of Architecture at the University of Malaga in Spain
Guido Cimadomo attained his first degree in architecture from the Polytechnic University of Milan in Italy in 1998 and he received his PhD in Architectural History and Theory from the University of Seville in 2014. At the present, he teaches in the department of Art and Architecture at the University of Malaga; the course he teaches include Architecture and Technology issues at the fifth year and History and Theory modules. Cimadomo is the Academic Coordinator for International Mobility and coordinator of the online course, “Writing Architecture: path-lines and criteria”. Cimadomo is an expert member of the ICOMOS scientific committee CIPA for the documentation of Cultural Heritage and an active member of the Forum UNESCO University & Heritage. His essays on cultural heritage, urban transformations, architecture, and related fields have been published in journals and in edited volumes in diverse countries. As a registered architect, Cimadomo engages in the design of sport and cultural facilities, and the documentation and rehabilitation of heritage buildings such as Nicaragua colonial heritage and Morocco rammed-earth buildings.
Stephan Jörchel, a civil engineer with Dachverband Lehm e.V., the German Association on Building with Earth at Weimar in Germany.
Sarah LAISNEY, Architecture and Planning Adviser at Cuso International in Honduras
Sarah Laisney is an architect and planner specialized in sustainable urban management for developing countries. After receiving her Masters degree from Université de Montréal in Canada, she has worked several years in the field of international development, including for UN-Habitat at their headquarters in Kenya. She currently serves as an Environmental Planning Adviser with Cuso International in Honduras.
Juliet SAKYI-ANSAH, Architect at a UK firm and Director at The Architects' Project
Juliet Sakyi-Ansah is an Architect with project experience in Ghana and the UK. Having studied for her BA and MArch in Architecture at the University of Sheffield, Juliet completed her professional practice studies at the Architects Registration Council of Ghana and the Ghana Institute of Architects. She went on to study for her UK professional practice exams at the Architectural Association School of Architecture. Juliet has worked for both profit and non-profit organisations, and on both commercial and community projects. Her interest in the field remains rooted in community empowerment through architecture and sustainable strategies for development. Juliet was invited onto the Advisory Board for Nka Foundations' School Design and Build Project in 2017, highlighting her sustained support for the organisation as an Architect. She currently practices at a UK firm and continuous to run The Architects' Project, an initiative she founded in Ghana in 2013.
Jurriaan van STIGT, LEVS Architecten, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
For Jurriaan van Stigt, an architect is a specialist displaying a wide range of skills and interests; one who possesses deep integral knowledge regarding the total reach of the profession. Architecture not only offers opportunities and creates space, but also closely determines these. His inspiration is drawn from the context in which architecture arises and the role it plays in realizing ideals. For Jurriaan, the connection between creating, materializing and construction, with and for people, is absolutely vital. He has a wide interest in the many aspects of social debate. This is manifest for example when working and building in Mali, when editing the FORUM magazine and in his involvement in incorporating fine art. Jurriaan van Stigt graduated with honours in Architecture at Delft University of Technology in 1988. That same year, together with Marianne Loof, he established 'Loof & van Stigt Architecten' in Amsterdam. When Adriaan Mout joined as a partner in 2005, the bureau was renamed LEVS architecten.
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