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Architects: IR arquitectura
- Year: 2013
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Photographs:Marcos Altgelt
Text description provided by the architects. The enclave is in a valley formed by the hills that give the island of Morro de San Pablo its name. In the center of the valley, where the rapid pace of tourism does not reach, the jungle emerges and invites it to be inhabited differently. This context establishes premises and registers, in relation to the intended program, a series of opportunities.
Can a hostel function as such and propose a pedagogical framework? What would be the forms of symbiosis between the program, site, tourism, and social and economic situation?
The project aims to explore this framework, achieving a low-impact landing in environmental terms. In this direction, the first review has to do with determining the palette of minimum and indispensable elements to inhabit the site, from which it follows, due to climatic conditions and the pretensions of the project itself, the possibility of dispensing with watertight enclosures, access doors and even programmatic hierarchies.
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As a strategy for territorial takeover, two types of spatial modules of different dimensions but with the same construction criteria were developed. The arrangement of the parts responds to the detection of the gaps that the jungle itself presents. The module of minimum dimensions, three meters twenty by three meters twenty of footprint, responds to the programs of less surface requirement, such as private rooms, bathrooms and general services. The larger ones, six meters forty by six meters forty, will house common uses: dining room, multipurpose room and hostel. The relationship between parts will be determined by the user's experience of the natural environment, avoiding in any way conditioning the connection lines between nodes.
If we were to measure the carbon footprint of a building, a determining factor in the final amount is the origin of the materials and the construction processes thereof. To reduce this impact to almost zero, the modules were designed to be built mainly from guadua bamboo. One of the largest plantations of this species in Latin America is located just a few kilometers from the island. This decision provided an additional opportunity. Construction with materials of this type, surprisingly, is not commonly used on the island. Simply because the workforce is not accustomed to doing so. Similarly, the use of living roofs and simple, low-cost energy management systems are not common knowledge techniques. This knowledge could represent a highly economical and effective option for building housing for permanent residents.
The framework described led us to develop a “project execution plan”. A staged planning in which we involved specialists leading teams of residents and the realization of training workshops for the construction of biodigesters, phytoremediation systems, and solar thermal preheating. Added to a plan for the collection of cooking oils for subsequent treatment on-site, production of glycerin and biofuel; and a solid circuit of food production and consumption will represent for the island a test case in terms of reformulation of the forms of economic, environmental and educational exchange.
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