Nubes de Madera Studio ORO Editions

Country: Colombia

University: School of Architecture and Design, Pontifical Bolivarian University, Medellín.

Professors: Miguel Mesa, Felipe Mesa.

Duration: 2013–17

Studio timeline: Planning, one month; Design, one month; Development, one month; Construction one month.

Students: 300 students over ten academic semesters.

Location of the projects: Municipality of San Vicente Ferrer and municipality of Támesis, Antioquia, Colombia.

Clients or organizations: Municipality of San Vicente Ferrer, municipality of Támesis, Antioquia—Gloria Giraldo.

Nubes de Madera (Clouds of Wood) was the name that a group of professors and students gave to the set of projects they carried out in the Design-Build Studio of the Pontifical Bolivarian University in Medellín, in the years 2013 through 2017. This vertical studio for third- and fourth-year students saw the construction of ten small-format buildings in rural areas of the department of Antioquia, one each semester. In association with the rural municipalities of San Vicente Ferrer and Támesis, and with technical support from the local treated-wood construction company Serye, the course built cultural and educational buildings for vulnerable communities.

Each semester, a team of thirty students led by two professors—Miguel Mesa and Felipe Mesa—raised financial resources through raffles and donations. They built relationships with municipal leaders by identifying the needs of rural communities. The students designed various architecture options and developed the most interesting ones collaboratively, assigning specific tasks. They prepared work budgets and constructed small wooden buildings with the support of engineers, builders, and social leaders. They delivered buildings to the communities, exchanging time and knowledge. They brought to life a series of lightweight, permeable, and bioclimatic buildings that are also durable, low-cost, and low-maintenance. Treated wood was the main construction material: plantation-sourced, certified, and sustainable patula pine wood. They explored a structural system of columns, beams, and diagonal braces, connected with galvanized steel bolts.

This course sought to understand the notion of complexity in architecture as the process necessary to construct a building collaboratively, with all the phases and actors involved. For the professors, the completed buildings have both possible and necessary forms, and are also an expression of the constraints involved. The course placed more emphasis on collaborative work among students than on individual work, and gave greater importance to construction than to representation through drawings and models. In the words of Miguel Mesa and Felipe Mesa: “If a medical student must learn to treat a patient in a hospital, then an architecture student must learn to design, build, and interact with communities and clients in specific sites.” In their view, it is important that students find a balance between architectural representation, design, and construction over the course of their careers.

Donors and financial support: Students, professors, municipalities, Inmunizadora Serye.

Publications:

Felipe Mesa and Miguel Mesa, Nubes de Madera (Medellín: Mesaestándar, 2017).