Hasta La Ideas

Ornamental doors and windows sit within recesses that appear to have been carved away from the coarse granite walls of this mausoleum in Minneapolis by American architecture firm HGA (+ slideshow).

HGA designed the Garden Mausoleum for Minnesota’s Lakewood Cemetery, a complex first established in 1871, after being asked to create burial space for 10,000 people, a new funeral chapel and a reception area for post-service gatherings.

Much of the structure is set into the side of a hill, allowing the neat surrounding lawns to extend up over the roof. All of the emerging walls are clad with dark blocks of granite that contrast with the bright white mosaic tiles lining their recesses.

Glass doors sheathed in decorative bronze grilles lead inside the building, where architect Joan Soranno and John Cook have used a variety of materials that include rich mahogany, oak, white marble and gleaming onyx to give colour and texture to walls and floors.

“Material selections draw on memorial architectural tradition as well as Lakewood’s own history,” they said. “Conventional funerary materials like granite, marble and bronze are reinterpreted within a twenty-first century architectural expression.”

A square doorway punctures a wall of granite within the building, leading from the main reception to a series of subterranean crypts and columbarium rooms that accommodate both coffins and urns.

Rectangular skylights bring a single shaft of daylight into each of the crypts, while the columbarium rooms each feature one circular roof opening that emerges on the roof at the centre of a grassy mound.

“The Lakewood Garden Mausoleum builds its meaning from the most common and indelible aspects of human experience – the immediacy of light and dark, the immutability of squares and circles, and the echo of stone surfaces,” said the architects.

Small courtyards are slotted between the crypts and are fronted by floor-to-ceiling windows that frame views out across the cemetery gardens.

Photography is by Paul Crosby.

Here’s a project description from HGA Architect and Engineers:

Lakewood Cemetery Garden Mausoleum

Since its founding in 1871, Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis has served as the foremost resting place for Minnesota’s distinguished citizens. Familiar names like Humphrey, Wellstone, Pillsbury, and Walker are found here, among a long list of local pioneers, heroes, civic leaders, industrialists and art patrons. The private, non-sectarian cemetery is laid over 250 acres of rolling landscape adjoining the city’s historic Grand Round’s parkway system. Lakewood Cemetery’s historical importance and impeccably manicured grounds make it a treasured landmark and community asset in the City’s Uptown neighbourhood.

Governed as a non-profit from its beginning, the Lakewood Cemetery Association recognised the need for prudent planning to ensure its vitality for the indefinite future. Despite the broad expanses of Lakewood’s grounds, a mere 25 acres remain available for future development. With an existing 1967 Mausoleum nearing capacity (due largely to the increased acceptance and interest in above ground burial and cremation) the Cemetery’s Board of Trustees commissioned a comprehensive Master Plan in 2003.

The lynchpin of the plan called for a new Mausoleum to expand above ground options for crypt and cremation burials, and to accommodate contemporary memorial rites and practices. The project, a new “Garden Mausoleum” called for burial space for over ten thousand people, a committal chapel, a much needed reception space for post-service gatherings, and new landscaping for the surrounding four acre site.

Challenged with the task of adding a large structure – 24,500 square feet – to a much beloved place, Joan Soranno, FAIA and John Cook, FAIA of HGA Architects and Engineers quickly committed themselves to a strategy that protected and enhanced the cemetery’s historic landscape. A large building, no matter how artful, was bound to detract from Lakewood’s pastoral beauty. Following an extensive site analysis, Joan and John chose to locate the building along the northern edge of a 1960’s era “sunken garden.” By placing the new Garden Mausoleum between the existing, two-storey mausoleum on the west and the cemetery’s 1910 Byzantine styled memorial chapel on the east, development is clustered around one location near the cemetery’s entry. This has the benefit of consolidating much of the high traffic and infrastructure to a discrete precinct within the grounds, leaving the vast majority of the original landscape and critical view sheds undisturbed.

Entering the cemetery from the main entry gates, visitors approach the new Garden Mausoleum along one of the cemetery’s many meandering roadways. Pivoting around a mass of towering pines and ancient gnarled oaks, the roadway gently inflects toward the Mausoleum entry – set back from the road with a small turn-around drive. A simple mass of split-faced grey granite, the entry’s chiseled clerestory windows and canted recesses hint at the building’s interior functions and complexity, while reducing the structure’s visual heft.

To the east of the entry, a green roof planted over the lower garden level seamlessly extends the cemetery’s manicured lawn to a newly created overlook. Minimally detailed railings, terrace paving, grass, and Juniper shrubs ensure uninterrupted views to such critical features as the nearby Chapel and the iconic Fridley and Pence monuments. Though essentially a flat lawn, neatly angled grass mounds dot the new turf like minimalist landform sculptures. The projections contain the skylights for the building’s subterranean spaces – a first suggestion to the visitor of the fusion between the building and landscape.

The Garden Mausoleum entrance at street level represents only a small fraction of the total building mass, and includes a reception room and lounge, a small business office, and catering facilities. A full two-thirds of the building lies below, tucked quietly into a south-facing hill and overlooking the lower garden.

At the main entry, framing a pair of bronze doors, intricate patterns of white mosaic tiles trace arcs and infinite loops across billowing surfaces neatly inscribed into the dark granite mass. The contrast of textures – light and dark, rough and smooth, rustic and refined – call upon both visual and tactile senses. The large glass doors, sheathed in bronze grilles that repeat the looping, circular motif of the mosaic tile, usher visitors into a serene space of folded mahogany walls, abundant prisms of daylight and distant views across a newly landscaped lower garden.

A generously scaled stair draws visitors from the entry to the lower garden level. To the west, a sweeping Venetian plaster wall directs mourners to a small chapel for committal ceremonies. Mitigating the committal chapel’s exposure to direct southern sun, tall window recesses are cut at deeply raked angles into the thick exterior wall – a strategy that both moderates the light entering the contemplative space and ensures a degree of privacy for grieving family members.

Returning to the lobby, a simple square opening cut into the rough granite wall marks the threshold between the active and communal spaces of the mausoleum, and the places of burial, remembrance, and individual contemplation. Stretching east, a single long hallway strings together alternating bays of columbaria (for cremated remains) and crypt rooms (for caskets). To the north, chambers are built entirely below grade, with each room illuminated by a single skylight; rectangular openings for crypt rooms, and circular occuli for columbaria. Here, beams of daylight trace arcs across the Alabama White marble walls. To the south, the projecting crypt rooms and interstitial columbaria form a series of intimately scaled courtyards, with each space directly tied to the lower garden’s landscape through large windows.

While geometrically similar, each interior chamber and projecting room is distinguished by subtle design variations that give each space a distinct personality and mood. Inset floors of luminous onyx alternate between honey yellow, jade green, and coral pink. Window and skylight orientations rotate and shift between rooms, variously framing a view to near or distant horizons, up to the tree canopy, or clear blue sky. The design recognises that in contemplating death – as in living matters – people have diverse perspectives and desire uniqueness. It respects that in designing a final resting place for ten thousand people, individuality, human scale, and a sensory connection to the natural world are paramount.

Material selections draw on memorial architectural tradition as well as Lakewood’s own history. Conventional funerary materials like granite, marble and bronze are reinterpreted within a 21st century architectural expression. The polychrome Chapel mosaics, for example, serve as a springboard for the white marble and glass tile pattern that owes as much to Byzantium and the organic tracery of the Chicago School as it does to geometric algorithms and funerary symbolism.

Included as a significant feature of the Garden Mausoleum project, the redesign of the four-acre site strengthens the connections between Lakewood’s distinctive architecture, while offering a serene setting for both small family services and larger community events. Formal relationships between the Chapel, the existing Mausoleum and the new Garden Mausoleum are reinforced by double rows of Autumn Blaze maple trees, a simple arrangement of walkways and parterres, and a long rectangular reflecting pool. Additionally, a grove of Hawthorne trees ameliorates the existing outdoor crypt walls on the east, while multiple exterior stairs improve access between the lower garden and the adjoining historic burial plots.

The Lakewood Garden Mausoleum, true to the Cemetery’s non-sectarian mission, builds its meaning from the most common and indelible aspects of human experience – the immediacy of light and dark, the immutability of squares and circles, and the echo of stone surfaces. An unabashed 21st century building, the design of the Garden Mausoleum is not going to confuse anybody about what is old and what is new.

Already a remarkable place before the Mausoleum broke ground, Lakewood’s landscape and its small campus of buildings are enriched because it is there – framing a view, completing an edge, and embracing human scale. At this cherished haven within the city, architectural progress meets history with grace and a newfound vitality.

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Our second project this week from South Korean studio Mass Studies is a series of cafe and exhibition pavilions scattered across the rocky grounds of a museum at the Seogwang Dawon tea plantation on Jeju Island (+ slideshow).

Mass Studies designed the trio of new buildings for the O’Sulloc Tea Museum, an exhibition centre dedicated to the history of Korea’s traditional tea culture, and dotted them along a pathway winding between the main building and the surrounding green tea fields.

Unlike the circular form of the museum, the three pavilions were all designed as rectilinear volumes with similar sizes and proportions. Two are positioned on either side of a gotjawal – the Korean term for woodland on rocky ground – so that they face one another through the trees.

The first pavilion, named Tea Stone, is a two-storey concrete building that accommodates new exhibition spaces and a classroom where visitors can watch and participate in tea ceremonies.

Positioned close to the existing museum, the building has a polished dark concrete exterior that the architects compare to “a black ink-stone”.

“The glossy black surface of the building reflects the surrounding environment, that is, the gotjawal forest and the sky, making it possible to exist and give a sense of heaviness and lightness simultaneously,” they said.

Large expanses of glazing create floor-to-ceiling windows at both ends of the building, meaning anyone within the tea classroom can look out onto a still pool of water.

A shop and cafe building is the next structure revealed to visitors as they make their way across the grounds. Named Innisfree, the structure is glazed on all four sides to create views through to the tea fields beyond.

“Initially planned as a ‘forest gallery,’ the space was opened to the forest as much as possible, and designing all four walls with glass allows one to enjoy the scenic surroundings from any given spot,” said the architects.

Timber panels clad the upper sections of the walls, but were left unmilled on one side to give a rough texture to the pavilion’s facade.

Wooden ceiling rafters are exposed inside both Innisfree and Tea Stone, and help to support the saw-toothed roofs of the two buildings.

The last of the three pavilions is an annex containing staff areas, storage facilities and toilets. The walls of this building are made from stone, allowing it to camouflage against its surroundings.

Photography is by Yong-Kwan Kim.

Here’s a project description from Mass Studies:

Osulloc

Context

The scenic landscape of Seogwang Dawon, its main attraction being the tea farm, is located in Jeju Island, at a mid-mountain level, in a gotjawal (traditionally, Jeju locals call any forest on rocky ground “gotjawal”, but according to the Jeju Dialect Dictionary, “gotjawal” refers to an unmanned and unapproachable forest mixed with trees and bushes). The Osulloc Tea Museum, Tea Stone, Innisfree, and the Innisfree Annex are located at the northwestern side of the Seogwang Dawon tea fields, with the gotjawal to the north, and facing the green tea fields to the south.

The area is currently in the middle of a large scale development, where to the southeast the Shinhwa Historic Park is being developed, and to the southwest, the English Education City. The Aerospace Museum is immediately adjacent to the site to the northwest, and because of such surrounding developments, the road at the front of the site has been expanded into the 30m wide, Shinhwa Historic Road.

As for the walking tour course, the Jeju Olle-gil 14-1 course and the Jeoji-Mureung Olle approach the site from the green tea field on the other side of the road and leads to the northwestern side of the Osulloc Tea Museum, after passing through the front of Innisfree, across Tea Stone, and arrives at the 8km long ‘Path of Karma (Inyeoneui-gil)’, which starts from the Chusa-gwan (Hall) of Daejeong-Eub among ‘Chusa Exile Path (Yubae-Gil)’, and arrives at the Osulloc Tea Museum.

Tea Stone

Tea Stone, planned to accommodate additional functions, is immediately adjacent to the Osulloc Tea Museum, and is a simple box, extending 20.3 x 11m on the slope of a hill.

The main structure of this building, which connects to the Chusa Exile Path, a Jeju Olle trail, resembling a black ink-stone, is a polished black concrete mass. The glossy black surface of the building reflects the surrounding environment, that is, the gotjawal forest and the sky, making it possible to exist and give a sense of heaviness and lightness simultaneously.

From the rear exit of the Tea Museum, a 1m wide basalt path crosses a dry creek and connects to the basement level of the Tea Stone, into a dark space, where one can experience and learn about fermented teas. A narrow staircase leads up into a triangular space, the Chusa Exhibition Gallery, on the first floor. The Chusa Exhibition space acts as the front room of the tea classroom. It faces the Tea Museum to the west, and has a dark glass exterior façade, making visible the landscape outside, yet able to contain the soft interior lighting.

As one passes through this space and enters the tea classroom, where workshops and lectures take place, the preserved gotjawal forest is revealed through the glass facade. From the tea class space, the concrete walls of the Chusa Exhibition space act as pillars that support 10m long cantilevered concrete beams that form and shape the perimeter of the roof structure. Wooden rafters sit in a single direction within the structure of the concrete roof support, and makes up a saw-tooth type ceiling on the entire roof. This wooden ceiling provides a warm environment, and at the same time, allows for a soft reflection of natural light. The structure, without other support, allows for the tea classroom to have three glass sides, and it maximises the feeling of openness as continued out to the gotjawal forest. The fireplace to the north also adds warmness to the space.

Two sides of the tea classroom, the north and south, used a dark glass, and a clear transparent glass for the east window toward the Innisfree building located across the gotjawal. With a 42m wide gotjawal in between, the two buildings face each other, creating a silent tension and as well as directionality to ones gaze.

A shallow, polished black concrete pool sits adjacent to the glass window, reflecting the building and the forest, heightening an aura of tranquil stillness for the tea classroom.

Innisfree

Innisfree is located on the highest point of the hill, and is a rectangular building, with the same width as that of the Tea Stone. The two building face each other in axis with the gotjawal in-between.

Initially planned as a ‘forest gallery,’ the space was opened to the forest as much as possible, and in designing all four walls with glass allows one to enjoy the scenic surroundings from any given spot. The materials used for the interior finishes come from the surround natural environment, such as wood and basalt, so that the 34.8 x 11m store and café space functions as one with nature.

A wall made out of cut stone, flush flat on one side, sits at the entrance. Through the glass doors, one enters the Innisfree shop, and to the right is the café, and through the transparent, frameless glass window, one can take in a panorama of the landscape of the surrounding tea fields to the east.

A 3.5m wide deck along the front of the café, as well as the folding doors between the café and deck makes it possible to have all sides ‘open’, making it possible to eat, drink, and relax in nature.

A 6.3 x 5.3m basalt stone volume attached to the north side of the building includes a preparation room on the first floor, and stairs that lead down to the underground kitchen and mechanical rooms, etc., all to supplement the main café space.

Similar to the Tea Stone, the wooden rafters, in a saw-tooth type ceiling throughout the entire roof of Innisfree provides a warm atmosphere and soft natural light.

Along the upper portion of the southern façade is an awning made out of roughly cut shingles, blocking direct sunlight. The north, east, and west sides are finished with milled shingles. All four shingled surfaces will weather together, naturally, as time passes.

Innisfree Annex

The Annex Building holds facilities such as a warehouse and a bakery, etc. and was designed to be seen not as a building, but rather the backdrop to Innisfree. The exterior wall facing the green tea fields utilises a stone fence, a material that that comes from the existing land, and is to be seen as a continuation of an element of the surrounding landscape (Jeju Island is known for the scenic stone fences that mark property, paths, and undulate with its natural terrain).

The land is raised about 1.5m to reduce the 3.5m high stone fence (exterior wall) to mimic the natural topography. Three courtyard gardens are placed inside and outside of the Annex Building, and by planting tall trees, it minimises the presence of the building when viewed from outside. The end of the building closest to Innisfree is the public bathroom, and from there, in sequence are the bakery, the employees’ dining hall, and the warehouse. To the rear of the stone fence, which sits symmetrically to the external wall of the bathroom, is the access and loading space for service vehicles.

Osulloc Extension

Providing more seating in the café, the extension was designed to minimise changes to the existing form and space, with a 3m-wide addition, following the curvature of the café space toward the north.

The interior extension utilises the existing curved windows, with the new exterior curve offset at a 3m distance, and was designed so that the extension is in harmony with the language of the existing building. Following this café extension, the length of the kitchen was expanded in the same direction, while the added cafe space is separate from the main circulation to allow for a space more quiet and calm. The new extension is faced with folding doors, and the entire space achieves a continuous flow to the landscape to the north, in fact becoming part of the outdoor space.

Osulloc: Tea Stone, Innisfree, Innisfree Annex
Design Period: 2011.06 – 2012.04
Construction Period: 2012.04-2012.12
Type: Commercial, Cultural
Location: Jeju, Korea

Architects: Mass Studies
Structural Engineer: TEO Structure
MEP Engineer: HANA Consulting & Engineers
Facade Consultant: FRONT Inc.
Lighting Engineer: Newlite
Landscape design: Seo Ahn Landscaping
Construction: Daerim Construction
Client: Amore Pacific

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Lisbon office Gonçalo Byrne Arquitectos has designed a Jewish cultural centre in the historic heart of Trancoso, Portugal, with a sharp corner that bisects two narrow cobbled streets (+ slideshow).

Gonçalo Byrne Arquitectos teamed up with Oficina Ideias em linha to develop the Center for Interpretation of Jewish Culture Isaac Cardoso on a derelict corner plot in the heart of the city’s densely packed medieval streets, which were once known as Trancoso’s Jewish quarter.

“Starting from a ruined allotment, the aim was to re-erect a building that reinforces the corner geometry, still displaying an acute angle on the intersection of two narrow streets, and establishing a symbolic gesture in the context of Jewish urban culture,” said the architects.

The building’s outer surfaces are covered in a seemingly haphazard arrangement of granite slabs, with narrow windows allowing restricted views of the interior and adding to a feeling of solidity that echoes the construction of its traditional neighbours.

An entrance on the building’s west facade leads to a lobby and a narrow corridor that encircles a central room called the Master Pit.

“The massive character of the building is also reflected on the interior design and ‘excavated’ spaces, like a sequence of voids sculpted from within a large stone monolith,” the architects explained.

The double-height room at the building’s core acts as the main religious space and is influenced by historic Jewish synagogues. It contains a raised platform with a lectern for readings and a nave with wooden shutters.

A long aperture high up on one wall allows people on the upper storey to look down into the worship space.

A geometric pattern of boxy skylights channel daylight into the central room, which is completely clad in panels of wooden strips that give the space a warm tone.

The wooden cladding features relief decoration that accentuates the height of the space and is also used on the nave to create the appearance of columns and an arch.

The pointed corner of the centre contains an exhibition room with a large, low window facing the street.

A projection room is tucked away at the rear of the building, while the upper storey is used as a women’s room and additional exhibition space. Bathrooms and technical facilities are contained in the basement.

Photography is by Fernando Guerra.

The architects sent us this project description:

Center for Interpretation of Jewish Culture Isaac Cardoso

Object

The Interpretation Center was plotted in the dense urban fabric of a medieval fortified village, in an area once referred as the Jewish quarter of Trancoso. Starting from a ruined allotment, the aim was to re-erect a building that reinforces the corner geometry, still displaying an acute angle on the intersection of two narrow streets, and establishing a symbolic gesture in the context of Jewish urban culture.

Materials

Altogether, the irregular granite slab stereotomy and tiny fenestrations define the elevation towards the two confining streets. The massive character of the building is also reflected on the interior design and “excavated” spaces, like a sequence of voids sculpted from within a large stone monolith. For the exception on this sense of mass, the building is provided with the existence of a large glazing which allows visibility over the Master Pit, a core that enhances all the Jewish culture symbolism with the presence of water.

The excavated granite mass, where the openings are also crafted with a special plastic approach, prevents overall perception of interior space from the outside, also controlling lighting, recreating and reinterpreting some of the most expressive features of Jewish Architecture in Beira Interior region.

The main room, which refers to the sacred space of the Sephardic Synagogue and the Synagogue of Tomar (also in Portugal) has the most obvious inspiration, rising in the stony mass of the building on all its height, filtering the sunlight to the inside through a ceiling where the complex geometry veils and shapes the perception of all sacred space. This area differs from the others not only for its size, but also for the lining of the vertical strained panelling in glazed wood, providing an inner atmosphere bathed in golden light. The religious space is dominated by the texture and the sense of rising by the wood cladding of the walls, giving it a temperature and a particular colour and smell.

Structure

Given the small size of the building, unique geometry and privileged location within the urban medieval tissue of Trancoso, the option pointed towards one outer shell is insulated and coated with granite slabs providing a ventilated façade solution. The structure of reinforced concrete column / slab, with walls filled with brick masonry is fully lined, on the inside, with walls and ceilings of acoustic control plasterboard.

Environment

Outside paving and coatings have the same nature, made with regional granite slabs, keeping the colours and textures of the urban environment inside the fortified village and castle guard.

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A rectilinear belfry towers above the geometric white volume of this church congregation hall in Hungary by local firm SAGRA Architects (+ slideshow).

The Szolnok Reformed Church Congregation House is the first of two buildings by SAGRA Architects to be completed on the site in Szolnok, central Hungary, following a competition to design a new church complex.

The single-storey building contains a hall capable of accommodating around 30-40 people, an office and kitchen facilities, providing spaces that can be used for either worship or other community activities.

A wall extends out from the eastern side of the building, connecting the structure with the bell tower and creating a secluded terrace in front of the glazed southern facade.

This facade is also slightly recessed to allow part of the gabled roof to function as a canopy across the entrance.

“The basis of our concept was to create an open, clear and transparent space that still represents protection,” explained architect Gábor Sajtos.

Exterior walls are rendered white, while the roof is clad with black slate tiles and windows are framed by stained wood.

“The materials used reflect the spirituality of the building,” said Sajitos. “The white plastered walls and black slate roof suit its austerity and noble simplicity.”

Construction on the neighbouring church has not yet begun, due to problems securing funding. Once complete, it will be positioned on the northern boundary of the site, while remaining spaces between the two buildings will feature flower gardens.

Read on for more information from Sagra Architects:

Congregation House – SAGRA Architects

“… but love builds people up” – 1 Corinthians 8

The design process was preceded by an architectural competition. The SAGRA Architects’ design was rewarded as the winning proposal.

The congregation house is multifunctional: besides operating as congregation hall it houses catechism classes and programmes, fulfils social duties and charity tasks. As the building is also an eco-point, its programmes play part in spreading ecological thinking and teaching sustainable behaviour.

The basis of our concept during the design of Szolnok Reformed Church Congregation House was to create an open, clear and transparent space that still represents protection. Due to its architecture the building serves as a suitable place for worship and community occasions.

The building complex has two parts: the single-storey, cantilevered volume of the congregation house with gabled roof and the Bell tower. The bell tower is an organic part of the complex. The wooden terrace, inserted between the congregation house and the tower extends and opens up the internal community space through a fully openable glass wall. The cantilevered roof creates a transition zone between inside and outside. The south facade is shaded by the strongly cantilevered roof in summer, while it lets in the sharp angled sunbeams in winter.

The composition of the buildings is completed by the lavender garden, the floral garden and the lawn garden with seating and water surface.

The main access to the building is from south, from the street. Here the visitor is led through a pulled back, transition entrance area. The bell tower’s volume leads into the site. The walls, built on the southern and western site boundaries are the integral parts of the complex, symbols of protection, but open up and lead in at the same time. Placing the buildings on the site boundaries is also part of the local building regulations. Through these walls open up, the site becomes private but still open for passing through from all directions.

The congregation hall is extendable towards the wooden terrace. The terrace becomes the full, open-air part of the hall in summer.

The materials used reflect the spirituality of the building. The white plastered walls and black slate roof suit to its austerity and noble simplicity. The doors, windows and the south facade of the building are covered with stained wood, as well as the underside of the cantilevered roof.

As the building is also an eco-point, its programmes play part in spreading ecological thinking and teaching sustainable behaviour, so we considered this aspect during the design process.

The heating and hot water supply of this low energy, economical building is solved by an air to water heat pump. The heating is radiating surface heating (heated floor and ceiling), the cooling is provided by radiating surface cooling from the ceiling. The temperature of the spaces is controlled by thermostatic valves.

The south facade is shaded by the strongly cantilevered roof in summer, while it lets in the sharp angled sunbeams in winter.

Future

The church complex contains three main masses: the church, the congregation house with pastor’s office and the bell tower. The three volumes form an inseparable unity.

Until now the congregation house and the bell tower were built. The congregation is aiming to construct the church too in the future, but the financial background for it is still missing.

Architects: Sagra Architects
Architect in Charge: Sajtos Gábor
Design team: Sajtos Gábor, Grand Gabriella, Páll András, Virág Péter, Németh Regina
Year: 2012
Location: Szolnok, Hungary
Photographs: Szentirmai Tamás

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This children’s library with rammed earth walls in Burundi, Africa, was built by Belgian studio BC Architects and members of the local community, according to an open-source design template (+ slideshow).

The Library of Muyinga is the first building of a project to build a new school for deaf children, using local materials and construction techniques, and referencing indigenous building typologies.

BC Architects developed the design from a five-year-old template listed on the OpenStructures network. They adapted it to suit the needs of the programme, adding a large sheltered corridor that is typical of traditional Burundian housing.

“Life happens mostly in this hallway porch: encounters, resting, conversation, waiting,” explained the architects. “It is a truly social space, constitutive for community relations.”

Rammed earth blocks form the richly coloured walls and were produced using a pair of vintage compressor machines. They create rows of closely spaced piers around the exterior, supporting a heavy roof clad with locally made baked-clay tiles.

“The challenge of limited resources for this project became an opportunity,” said the architects. “We managed to respect a short supply-chain of building materials and labour force, supporting the local economy and installing pride in the construction of a library with the poor people’s material – earth.”

The wide corridor runs along one side of the building, negotiating a change in level between the front and back of the site. Glass panels are slotted between columns along one of its sides and hinge open to lead through to the library reading room.

Here, bookshelves are slotted within recesses between the piers, while a large wooden table provides a study area and a huge hammock is suspended from the ceiling to create a more informal space for reading.

Wooden shutters reveal when the library is open. They also open the building out to the area where the rest of the school will be built, which is bounded by a new drystone wall.

“A very important element in Burundian (and, generally, African) architecture is the very present demarcation of property lines. It is a tradition that goes back to tribal practices of compounding family settlements,” said the architects.

High ceilings allow cross ventilation, via a pattern of square perforations between the rammed earth blocks.

Here’s a more detailed project description from BC architects:

The Library of Muyinga

Architecture

The first library of Muyinga, part of a future inclusive school for deaf children, in locally sourced compressed earth blocks, built with a participatory approach.

Our work in Africa started within the framework of OpenStructures.net. BC was asked to scale the “Open structures” model to an architectural level. A construction process involving end-users and second-hand economies was conceived. Product life cycles, water resource cycles en energy cycles were connected to this construction process. This OpenStructures architectural model was called Case Study (CS) 1: Katanga, Congo. It was theoretical, and fully research-based. 5 years later, the library of Muyinga in Burundi nears completion.

Vernacular inspirations

A thorough study of vernacular architectural practices in Burundi was the basis of the design of the building. Two months of fieldwork in the region and surrounding provinces gave us insight in the local materials, techniques and building typologies. These findings were applied, updated, reinterpreted and framed within the local know-how and traditions of Muyinga.

The library is organised along a longitudinal covered circulation space. This “hallway porch” is a space often encountered within the Burundian traditional housing as it provides a shelter from heavy rains and harsh sun. Life happens mostly in this hallway porch; encounters, resting, conversation, waiting – it is a truly social space, constitutive for community relations.

This hallway porch is deliberately oversized to become the extent of the library. Transparent doors between the columns create the interaction between inside space and porch. Fully opened, these doors make the library open up towards the adjacent square with breathtaking views over Burundi’s “milles collines” (1000 hills).

On the longitudinal end, the hallway porch flows onto the street, where blinders control access. These blinders are an important architectural element of the street facade, showing clearly when the library is open or closed. On the other end, the hallway porch will continue as the main circulation and access space for the future school.

A very important element in Burundian (and, generally, African) architecture is the very present demarcation of property lines. It is a tradition that goes back to tribal practices of compounding family settlements. For the library of Muyinga, the compound wall was considered in a co-design process with the community and the local NGO. The wall facilitates the terracing of the slope as a retaining wall in dry stone technique, low on the squares and playground of the school side, high on the street side. Thus, the view towards the valley is uncompromised, while safety from the street side is guaranteed.

The general form of the library is the result of a structural logic, derived on one hand from the material choice (compressed earth blocks masonry and baked clay roof tiles). The locally produced roof tiles were considerably more heavy than imported corrugated iron sheets. This inspired the structural system of closely spaced columns at 1m30 intervals, which also act as buttresses for the high walls of the library. This rhythmic repetition of columns is a recognisable feature of the building, on the outside as well as on the inside.

The roof has a slope of 35% with an overhang to protect the unbaked CEB blocks, and contributes to the architecture of the library.

Climatic considerations inspired the volume and facade: a high interior with continuous cross-ventilation helps to guide the humid and hot air away. Hence, the facade is perforated according to the rhythm of the compressed earth blocks (CEB) masonry, giving the library its luminous sight in the evening.

The double room height at the street side gave the possibility to create a special space for the smallest of the library readers. This children’s space consist of a wooden sitting corner on the ground floor, which might facilitate cosy class readings. It is topped by an enormous hammock of sisal rope as a mezzanine, in which the children can dream away with the books that they are reading.

The future school will continue to swing intelligently through the landscape of the site, creating playgrounds and courtyards to accomodate existing slopes and trees. In the meanwhile, the library will work as an autonomous building with a finished design.

Local materials research

The challenge of limited resources for this project became an opportunity. We managed to respect a short supply-chain of building materials and labour force, supporting local economy, and installing pride in the construction of a library with the poor people’s material: earth.

Earth analysis: “field tests and laboratory tests” – Raw earth as building material is more fragile than other conventional building materials. Some analyse is thus important to do. Some easy tests can be made on field to have a first idea of its quality. Some other tests have to be made in the laboratory to have a beter understanding of the material and improve its performance.

CEB: “from mother nature” – After an extensive material research in relation with the context, it was decided to use compressed earth bricks (CEB) as the main material for the construction of the building. We were lucky enough to find 2 CEB machines intactly under 15 years of dust. The Terstaram machines produce earth blocks of 29x14x9cm that are very similar to the bricks we know in the North, apart from the fact that they are not baked. Four people are constantly producing stones, up to 1100 stones/day.

Eucalyptus “wood; the strongest, the reddest” – The load bearing beams that are supporting the roof are made of eucalyptus wood, which is sustainably harvested in Muramba. Eucalyptus wood renders soil acid and therefor blocks other vegetation to grow. Thus, a clear forest management vision is needed to control the use of it in the Burundian hills. When rightly managed, Eucalyptus is the best solution to span spaces and use as construction wood, due to its high strengths and fast growing.

Tiles: “local quality product” – The roof and floor tiles are made in a local atelier in the surroundings of Muyinga. The tiles are made of baked Nyamaso valley clay. After baking, their color renders beautifully vague pink, in the same range of colors as the bricks. Each roof surface in the library design consists of around 1400 tiles. This roof replaces imported currogated iron sheets, and revalues local materials as a key design element for public roof infrastructure.

Internal Earth plaster: “simple but sensitive” – Clay from the valley of Nyamaso, 3 km from the construction site, was used for its pure and non-expansive qualities. After some minimal testing with bricks, a mix was chosen and applied on the interior of the library. The earth plaster is resistent to indoor normal use for a public function, and has turned out nicely.

Bamboo: “Weaving lamp fixtures” – Local bamboo is not of construction quality, but can nicely be used for special interior design functions, or light filters. In a joint workshop with Burundians and Belgians, some weaving techniques were explored, and in the end, used for the lamp fixtures inside the library.

Sisal rope: “from plant to hammock” – Net-making from Sisal plant fibres is one of the small micro-economies that bloomed in this project. It took a lot of effort to find the only elder around Muyinga that masters the Sisal rope weaving technique. He harvested the local sisal plant on site, and started weaving. In the pilote project, he educated 4 other workers, who now also master this technique, and use it as a skill to gain their livelihood. The resulting hammock serves as a children’s space to play, relax and read, on a mezzanine level above the library space.

Concrete “when it’s the only way out” – For this pilot project, we didn’t want to take any risks for structural issues. A lightweight concrete skeleton structure is inside the CEB columns, in a way that both materials (CEB and concrete) are mechanichally seperated. The CEB hollow columns were used as a “lost” formwork for the concrete works. It is our aim, given our experience with Phase 1, to eliminiate the structural use of concrete for future buildings.

Project Description: Library for the community of Muyinga
Location: Muyinga (BU)
Client: ODEDIM
Architect: BC architects
Local material consultancy: BC studies
Community participation and organisation: BC studies and ODEDIM Muyinga
Cooperation: ODEDIM Muyinga NGO, Satimo vzw, Sint-Lucas Architecture University, Sarolta Hüttl, Sebastiaan De Beir, Hanne Eckelmans
Financial support: Satimo vzw, Rotary Aalst, Zonta Brugge, Province of West-Flanders
Budget: €40 000
Surface: 140m2
Concept: 2012
Status: completed

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