ARC W561R / ARC W696
Whole Summer Term, includes two week trip to the Galapagos
Instructors: David Heymann and Aleksandra Jaeschke
The general topic of this Advanced Architectural Design Studio is sustainable architectural construction in the Galapagos. The design to be undertaken – a real project now being conceptualized – is for a Reforestation and Sustainable Agriculture Research Station in the humid (once cloud forest) region of San Cristobal Island in the Galapagos, an area in which the endemic forest was cut down for agriculture purposes. That land, in turn, has now been left fallow – most food is imported to the islands – and this area of the islands poses a tremendous dilemma: how should it be inhabited, reclaimed, or used? The site, owned by the University of San Francisco Quito, is covered with invasive species and has a small stand of native Scalesia trees. The new building is to be a research facility for USFQ and other visiting scientists and students working on the biological problems of sustainable agriculture and native re-forestation, and, in fact, the plot of land will be used as a test farm for regrowing and studying various kinds of native species.
Part of this research is into the structural and constructional capacities of both the native species and the established invasives, like Cedrela and Guava, that must be removed. Central to the work of the facility is the possibility that, because of the scale of the endeavor, which is beyond the Park to afford, reforestation may only be initially possible if the cost of the removal of the invasives can be partially covered with profits from their use in construction and will eventually have to be managed with some percentage of the native growth being culled for timber that in turn will, along with the invasives culled, be directed to the circular economic development of a local timber construction industry. This issue is actually highly contentious, and conceptualizing its consequence in the design of your structural section is one of the value issues you have to take a reasoned stance on.