Our friend Xavier Vilalta from Barcelona-based xvstudio sent us his new project: the Melaku Center. The Melaku Center will be new center of learning, working and projection for the inhabitants of Mek’ele, capital of the Tigray, a region of the north of Ethiopia.
The Melaku Center will be a reference model of sustainable development in Africa, from the design of the buildings to the program itself. The whole project will be a ecosystem of knowlegde, development and natural resources.
A common parameter in the traditional African architecture is the use of the fractal scale: small parts of the structure tend to be similar to the bigger ones, for example, the circular villages are made of circular houses. More description and images after the break.