David Goldsmith12.14.2012

E t h n o b o t a n i c a l G a r d e n I n t e r v e n t i o n

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Ta b l e o f C o n t e n t s

David GoldsmithARC 6793: African Architecture Seminar

Professor Donna Cohen12.14.2012

In Coordination with Matt Flores

Ethnobotanical Garden Intervention.................................................................... Iterations................................................................................................... Construction.............................................................................................. Constructed...............................................................................................

Sustainable Development in the African Urban Context.....................................

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E t h n o b o t a n i c a l G a r d e n I n t e r v e n t i o n

Located on the campus of Santa Fe College in Gainesville, FL, an African Cultural Garden has been proposed as part of the curriculum of an African Humanities course. As part of this class, the cultural garden is intended to promote African cultural education through the emphasis of specific plants in particular cultural contexts while also being integrated with socio-cultural and economic components. In addition to the cultural references with the physical installments within the garden, as well as the choice of plants, there will also be an extra focus on sustainability issues that are relevant to many regions of Africa. The garden will also provide educational opportunities for the Santa Fe students and the surrounding

community. First being Gainesville’s subtropical climate that shares similar temperature fluctuations with various regions of Africa, allowing for specific African plants to grow. Gainesville also has an extensive growing season due to its long warm seasons. The proposed garden will also help with the development of the African Studies Department at Santa Fe College as well as the overall promotion of cultural gardens in the United States, as there are very few in operation today. And the cultural gardens that do exist have little focus on African cultures. In cooperation with the project leaders, a proposed intervention was made for the garden that would help further these ambitions

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Right: An aerial view of the city of Gainesville with a highlighted area showing the location of the proposed structure.

The development of an Intercultural Community Garden at Santa Fe College will address two campus initiatives: sustainability and internationalizing the curriculum. Culture gardens emphasize the ethnobotanical significance of particular plants within a specific cultural context and thereby enhance intercultural communication, promote social inclusion, and build cross-cultural understanding between garden participants and observers.

-Sarah CervoneProfessor at Santa Fe College

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African space. Further programmatic explorations as well as material studies were made, resulting in a design that would provide a support structure for the vined plants of the garden, granting greater shade to those venturing within the structure. Bamboo was chosen as the main building material given its light weight and sturdiness. The thinness and shape of the material granted it similar properties to nomadic building materials commonly seen in African and allowed it to be constructed and joined together in similar fashions.

Given the guidelines and aspirations of the proposed African Cultural Garden by Professor Cervone, Matt Flores and I set out to design a structure that would not only reflect upon certain aspects of Africa, but also serve a functional purpose for the site. This began with an in-depth research into various space-making designs prevalent throughout Africa with the focus eventually narrowing down on African nomadic design. From here, we sought a reinterpretation of an African nomadic hut in ofder to create a shading structure for the garden. The structure would serve as a gathering space for garden visitors as well as an educational purpose for they would be given the experience of a traditional

Right: Traditional tent techtonic diagrams showing the diversity of nomadic tent architecture. Image Courtesy of Labelle Prussin

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Right: The selected spatial form was that of the dome tent seen in many regions of Africa. Image Courtesy of Labelle Prussin

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Nomadic African lifestyles, as can be imagined, vary greatly across the continent as the nomadicism is a mode of inhabitation used by many cultures in many different political climates, environments, and landscapes. As anthropological architect, Labelle Prussin explores in her work, African Nomadic Architecture: Space, Place, and Gender, the methodologies behind shelter construction in nomadic tribes do tend to have some consistencies, however. Great concern is always given in how to transport the building material as well as who builds the structure, with the vast majority of the time, it being the women of the tribes. Of course not all building materials may be transported and availability of the material on site

is also of great importance, with the majority of the materials being made of plant materials and leathers.

As with any building, even those as “simple” as a tent, Prussin also makes note of how significant structural considerations are. The nomadic tent falling into one of two categories of either tensile or armature, and is much more dependent on the method and mode of creating the structure than the end result itself. Right: Domed African

nomadic huts. Image Courtesy of Labelle Prussin

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The interior is also divided into four specific occupiable spaces, with two separate spaces for male and female visitors, a place for the parents, and a place for the children.

The specific tent chosen for to be reinterpreted and made into a structure for the cultural garden at Santa Fe was that of the Gabra tribe of Northern Kenya and Southern Ethiopia. The Gabra people being a nomadic camel-herding tribe, they build their tents out of readily available materials, which mostly consists of grass and acacia roots with simple knots being used to hold the materials together. The tent was chosen for its size, materials used, and method of construction.

As can be seen in the images on the opposite page, the armature tent is tall enough for an adult to stand in and the materials are of a small, fine scale, being lightweight and flexible.

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Iteration #1 Iteration #2

Iteration #3 Iteration #4

Using this shape of the Gabra domed tent, several iterations were made that explored the interpretation of the tent in a cubic, tectonic form made of bamboo. The iterations evolved as knowledge of material availability was gathered (the size of bamboo being limited to 10 ft. lengths and 1 inch diameters due to cost) and structural understanding of the structure grew. All this time, however, the idea of the spatial void that people could occupy was help constant though the means by which it was achieved was subject to change.

In addition to the changing design, coordinating with Santa Fe College proved challenging as site changes, budget uncertainties, and access to the

eventual structure by the public were all altered from the original proposed plan, with the only certainty being that we would have to build this structure somewhere.

During the end of the design phase Matt and I were informed that our construction woudl not be accessible to the public, only viewable, and would be located in the Santa Fe Zoo, as opposed to the garden, thus taking away much of the intended original function as it was now just a sculptural piece.

I t e r a t i o n s

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Iteration #5

The design that was eventually settled upon was a return to an earlier iteration as later ones proved to be going off course and misjudging the proper functional and structural capabilities of the light and sturdy bamboo material. The final iteration was made entirely out of 1 inch pieces of bamboo (earlier designs incorporated some 2x4 and 2x8 pieces of lumber for structural purposes), rope for binding the material togethers, and 18 pieces of 4-foot rebar used to anchor the structure to the ground. In addition to tying the bamboo together with the rope, 1/4” rope was intended to be hung vertically from the roof of the structure in order to help further define the hut shape.

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Opposite, the site location within the zoo, the bamboo material (cut and divided into X, Y, and Z components), and the knot used to bind the bamboo. Being the first time that we have translated one of our digital designs into a full scale model of this size, we faced many difficulties ranging from weather, structural concerns (eventually solved by lateral bracing), and time constraints. Also a first was coordinating with separate departments and different colleges in order to find a site for the structure. The professors at Santa Fe and employees of the Santa Fe Zoo proved to be very resourceful and cooperative, however, and few hurdles were placed in our way.

C o n s t r u c t i o n

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Ensuring accuracy with the rebar foundation placement, the site was measured out accordingly prior to the placement of any of the bamboo walls.

The walls were constructed just outside the zoo entrance before being carried to the site and securely fastened to the rebar and the other outer walls to form the shell of the structure. This phase of the construction proved to be one of the most tedious parts as precision was much more important since this was to set the foundation and tone for the rest of the construction.

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Securing the outer three walls of the structure foreshadowed the structural problems that would have to be resolved at the end of the project, mainly the lateral bracing to prevent the trellis from twisting on itself. Fortunately, the structure sound enough to last until the end of the contsruction phase, when the bracing was added.

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The first day being devoted to pre-fabricating the exterior walls and then assembling them within the park, following days involved working right under the structure and adding interior vertical and horizontal bamboo linears a few pieces at a time.

Due to the site being within the zoo, powertools were forbidden on site as strict noise restrictions were enforced. All pieces had to either be cut by hand on site, or precut offsite if a tool such as a power saw was required.

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With the shape of the void not being as pronounced as we had hoped due to problems encountered with the 1/4” vertical rope segments, on-site decisions were made to help pronounce the shape of the tent more. This resulted in a series of knots connecting specific vertical pieces of bamboo in a connect-the-dots type fashion that helped trace the shape of the hut out.

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Once the trellis was completed, structural issues arose as it began to rotate around itself, showing the need for bracing. Using two bamboo poles at each corner and screwing them into vertical elements, a successful bracing system was made that prevented the structural problem.

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The completed intervention will remain in the zoo and become incorporated into future African Humanities courses at Santa Fe college. Students will have a chance to work on projects involving the structure ranging from thatch roof experimentation to the construction of household items that can be placed on display within the space. Overall, as the first project involving a full scale construction, many issues from structural problems to acquiring the right materials that could make a sound structure had to be addressed. This proved a very successful experience as it resulted in great outreach with the Santa Fe students, experimentation with building methods and materials, and understanding the translation from

3D modeling programs such as Rhino into a real life structure.

C o n s t r u c t e d

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S e m i n a r P r e s e n t a t i o n

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Sustainable Development in the African Urban ContextDavid Goldsmith

10.30.2012

Exploring sustainable development in the African urban context proved an eye-opening endeavor. Forefront at the majority of the literature reviews and journal articles was the persistent emphasis on poverty and political instability. Though poverty is an issue in nearly all ocrners of the globe, the difference in magnitude and how widespread the issue is in the African continent makes it a much greater threat than it is in the United States. Where we largely focus on carbon footprints and solar PV cells as the keys to our sustainabie future, mainly so we can maintain our lifestyles, many in the large African metropolises face those same issues and more as large percentages struggle to find basic living

requirements such as fresh, clean water and healthy living conditions.

Many successful methods of intervening in the urban context appears to involve focusing in the small and public developmeents. These tend to succeed since they provide services to the public that they may be lacking where private developments and housing units tend to force people off their property and create living spaces that are unaffordable to the common citizen.

S e m i n a r P r e s e n t a t i o n

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A first step should be an acknowledgement thatmany African cities are no longer geographicalareas of wealth containing islands of poverty. Thepattern currently unfolding is widespread: highly-disjointed, dysfunctional and unsustainable urbangeographies of inequality and human suffering,with urban areas increasingly composed of smallislands of well-being that are spatially and sociallysegregated from rapidly growing and increasinglyimpoverished masses.

- United Nations Human Settlement Program (UN-Habitat)

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The situation in Africa was particularlyparadoxical: How could cities in Cote d’Ivoire,Tanzania, Congo-Kinshasa, Gabon, Angola, andelsewhere – where economies were contractingby 2 to 5 percent per year – still support annualpopulation growth of 4 to 8 percent?

- Mike Davis, Planet of Slums

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Thus, the cities of the future, rather than beingmade out of glass and steel as envisioned byearlier generations of urbanists, are insteadlargely constructed out of crude brick, straw,recycled plastic, cement blocks, and scrap wood.Instead of cities of light soaring toward heaven,much of the twenty-first-century urban worldsquats in squalor, surrounded by pollution,excrement, and decay.

- Mike Davis, Planet of Slums

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuVTqlSelDI

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David Satterthwaite

-Need better understanding of poverty

-Need better understanding of relationship between urban poor and the environment

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David Satterthwaite

-Absolute Poverty:-Inadequate Income-Inadequate Asset Base-Inadequate Shelter-Inadequate Public Infrastructure-Inadequate Provision of Basic Services-Limited or No Safety Net-Inadequate Protection of Rights-Voiceless and Powerless in Political Systems

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David Satterthwaite

-Environmental Hazards vs. Environmental Degradation

-Environmental Degradation and Urban Development-High use or waste of nonrenewable resources (e.g. Fossil Fuels)-High use of renewable resources that have finite limits (e.g. Water, Soil, Forest)-High levels of biodegradable waste-High generation of non-biodegradable waste/emissions

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Environmental problems that low-income groupsface are often more related to inadequateprovision of infrastructure and services, lack ofany rule of law, discrimination, and lack ofpolitical influence than to a lack of income.

- David Satterthwaite, “The Links between Poverty and the Environment in Urban Areas of Africa, Asia, and Latin America”

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Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

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Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

-Grown from 200,000 (1950) to 10 million (2007)

-Great political instability and military conflicts in eastern part of country and increased urban migration

-City is spreading outwards with no plan to follow

-Outdated infrastructure

-Public transportation and neglect for traffic laws

-Rainy season flood Kinshasa with little effort

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Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

-Proposal by Eric, Shouyu, and Qin

-New Master Plan (design physical, social, economic, and political framework)

-Apply information technology (Remote Sensing and GIS) to urban planning

-Commitment and active participation in planning of stakeholders to improve quality of life

-New approach for teaching Urban Planning

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Urbanization will be sustainable as long as thereare sufficient economic resources to finance thetechnological research and developmentstrategies needed to transform the naturalenvironment so that it will meet human needs.

-Misilu Mia Nsokimieno Eric, “Sustainable Urbanization’s Challenge in Democratic Republic of Congo

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Lagos, Nigeria

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Lagos, Nigeria

-Gained independence in 1960

-By 2015, expected to be third largest megacity after Tokyo and Mumbai

Several housing policies since 1960 from State housing programs, slum clearance and resettlement, and public-international donor-assisted upgrades. All have had little success

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Lagos, Nigeria

-“Culture is a contributing factor to economic development and it plays a major role in all forms of development and the subject of sustainability.”

-How to blend indigenous and modern practices

-Except in most remote rural cases, modern architectural practices have taken over in Africa

-Odebiyi puts case of sustainable indigenous African architecture. Need to incorporate it with modern technology

-Does not appear to mention or be concerned with larger social and economic issues that influence sustainability

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Kounkuey Design Initiative

http://www.urbaninform.net/home/minidoc/480/productive-public-space-in-kibera-nairobi.html

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Kounkuey Design Initiative

-Founded in 2006 by Cheline Odbert and 5 other classmates from Harvard Graduate School of Design

-Aims to help impoverished communities through design and collaboration with residents

-Everything but housing

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Kounkuey Design Initiative: Kibera Public Space Project

-Kibera is largest informal slum settlement in Africa (over 1 million people in space 2/3 the size of Central Park)

-Poor infrastructure development (no trash collection, water scarcity, 1 toilet per 250 people, etc.)

-High residential density, little public space

-2011, KDI worked with community residents to create list of needs resulting in series of public spaces: poultry farm, improved drainage and flood control, community center with school and health clinic, kiosks, and playground

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Kounkuey Design Initiative: Kibera Public Space Project

-Three Points to Measure Success:

-Environmental

-Social

-Economy

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Kounkuey Design Initiative: Kibera Public Space Project

-Three Points to Measure Success:

-Environmental – Replaced 5 public toilets that drained directly into river. Created composting system to repurpose and reduce organic waste on site (compost also acts as income generator). New means of disposing inorganic waste. Improved sanitation. Envrionmentally-preferred building materials.

-Social – Sites created legally-registered community-based organizations that communicate with government. Safer places for children. Proper education facilities and improved circulation routes.

-Economy – Provided employment for residents, new skills training. Micro-enterprises.

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B i b l i o g r a p h y

Misilu Mia Nsokimieno Eric and Chen Shouyu, “Sustainable Urbanization’s Challenge in Democratic Republic of Congo,” Journal of Sustainable Development, Vol.3, No. 2, June 2010. www.ccsenet.org/jsd

David Satterthwaite, “The Links Between Poverty and the Environment in Urban Areas of Africa, Asia, and Latin America,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 590 (Nov. 2003), 73-92.

Odebiyi Sunday O., “Sustainable Housing Development in Africa: Nigerian Perspective,” International Business and Management, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2010) 22-30.

UN-Habtiat, The State of African Cities 2010: Governance, Inequality and Urban Land Markets, November 2010.