Casa de Cultura Chamanga
Phase II designbuild by Munich University of Applied Sciences (MUAS), realized in February-March 2018.
Phase I research +designbuild: Center for Public Interest Design, Portland State University and Tokyo University, realized in September 2017)
Collaborators research +designbuild: Atarraya (Lorena Burbano and Sebastia Oviedo, Quito: investigation, participatory design guidance, implementation-support); Opcíon Más: co-design
The village of Chamanga at the coast of Ecuador was destroyed to 80% by an earthquake in Spring 2016. The reconstruction process is slow. It unveiled social, cultural and economic weaknesses that existed before and are now very present. Specially the children and youth suffer under the bad economic, hygienic and social conditions. The effort of this studio is, to support the citizen of Chamanga in some small but useful interventions.
The Cultural Center for Children and Youth
Amongst many other problems, there is an urgent need for opportunities and space for children and youth to spend their time meaningful. Drugs are infiltrating and damage the social tissue. The task of this DesignBuild Studio was to develop a cultural centre in collaboration with the NGO “Opción Más”, working for several years in Chamanga, teaching and recordig music, practicing and performing art. Due to the devasting earthquake, they lost their rented rooms. A building plot was bought by the organisation. An international team of Universities supporting the village of Chamanga in this crisis started to redesign the centre in 2017.
The Project
The first phase was designed by the Centre for Public Interest Design from the Portland State University in cooperation with collegues from the Tokyo University. It was realized in September 2017. (the brick-concrete volume on the right, ca. 50 m2).
The db project of MUAS joined in in October and designed and realized the second phase: A mirrored brick building and a second story of bamboo, ca.180 m2. The center offers multi-usable and modifiable spaces for theater, music, dance, sports and arts.
A stage at the end of the entrence hall allowes performances and cinema presentations. The other spaces offer differnt characteristics and can be conected or separated from the main hall. A compost toilet and a rain water colection is completing the compound.
Images and Plans
Technical Description
The project was designed and realized in two phases by three universities (MUAS. Portland State University, Tokyo University) and other colaborators:
This project presentation concentrates on the second planning and building phase.
In a two step-jury process, the best design was selected out of 5 alternatives. The architects and engineers had to struggle with the small dimensioned ground, a short budget and a tight timeframe (4,5 weeks for buidling).
The design decision was, to mirror the existing first building to the other side and create an entrene hall in the middle. A second story of bamboo was added to the single story concrete frame building with brick mansonry infill. The most important issue was the earchquake appropriateness of the building. The engineers rimplemented a bamboo lab-testing series to develop a good behaviour of joints. Infills of concrete reinforce the most stressed bamboo- segments.
The concrete structure of the first floor building is bearing heavy reinforcements to realize a strenght against earthquake- impacts. The brick- infill was realized in a second step and is not atached to the concret piles but is counting as well with a rebar-reinforcment in every 5th brick layer.
