AFRICAN ARCHITECTURE INTERNSHIPS: How to Reinvent the African Mud Hut
Nka Foundation —
Oklahoma City, OK
AFRICAN ARCHITECTURE INTERNSHIPS: How to Reinvent the African Mud Hut
(See review of one of our recent Projects: http://www.archdaily.com/289081)
PROJECT SITE: Abetenim Arts Village, which is a developing demonstration site and training center, located 40 km Southeast of Kumasi in the Ashanti Region.
WHAT: Design-build camp for learning-by-doing on African architecture
WHO CAN PARTICIPATE: Open to all students and graduates of architecture, landscape architecture, design, engineering, and school teams
DATES: Year-round and lengths-of-stay from 1-6 months
PROJECT CONTEXT
The recurrent problem with local buildings made of earth is sustainability. Mud houses in the area are poorly constructed. Wall cracks and water damage are commonplace. Hence, there is local stigma associated with mud architecture: it is only used by the very poor. We reason that a design-build intervention can help generate alternatives. Along these lines, one question keeps coming to our minds: How can we blend the vernacular and contemporary traditions to reinvent the African mud hut to help generate choices for the rural population? As an intern, you will be assigned a task on an ongoing project or you can propose your own project as a solution to the problem.
The design-build project takes in the theoretical frame of the book, Architecture for the Poor: An Experiment in Rural Egypt by a known Egyptian architect, Hassan Fathy. In it, Fathy puts forward that an informed person can, in fact, self-build durable, aesthetic and highly functional buildings without using expensive materials. The project is organized by Nka Foundation, a development NGO run by arts practitioners and volunteers. Project site is a living learning arts village in the Ashanti Region that invites creative persons from around the world to come to interact with the local community via projects such as social architecture, community arts and social services to improve local livelihoods to alleviate poverty. Everybody is welcome to our arts village: Interns and professionals in all of the arts, architecture, design, social work, and innovators seeking new challenges, or spaces to share ideas.
PROJECT ORGANIZER
Nka Foundation is a nonprofit organization run by arts practitioners and volunteers in Ghana and Burkina Faso. In rural Ghana, we are building a community for the arts, a living learning arts village designed to bring together creative persons from around the world to interact with the local community via projects such as rural architecture, community arts and social services to improve local livelihood skills to alleviate poverty. Everybody is welcome to our arts village: Interns and professionals in all of the arts, architecture, design, social work, engineering, and sustainable development are all welcome to share expertise.