RWANDA, Tradition and Innovation in Vegetable Fibres' Design

Tradition and Innovation in Vegetable Fibres’ Design

Commissioner Gaddo Morpurgo

PARTICIPATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF RWANDA TO THE 12. INTERNATONAL ARCHITECTURE EXHIBITION - LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA

Exhibition

Tradition and innovation in vegetable fibres’ design

Tradition and innovation in vegetable fibres’ design Project Kigali Institute of Science and Technology, with Università Iuav di Venezia, Soroptimist International, Fondazione Claudio Buziol Curators Bettina Scholl-Sabbatini, Gaddo Morpurgo Scientific committee Abraham Atta Ogwu KIST Rector, Giancarlo Carnevale Iuav Faculty of Architecture Dean, John Mshana KIST Vice-Rector, Renzo di Renzo Fondazione Claudio Buziol Artistic Director Organizing committee Esther Giani Workshop Coordinator, Josephine Malonz Architecture KIST, Mara Verbena President of Soroptimist San Marino, Marie Grâce Mukabyagaju President of Soroptimist Kigali, Ngirabacu Schola Workshop Coordinator, Simona Casarotto Workshop Coordinator, Wilma Malucelli President of Soroptimist Italia IuavAfrica and Women call for women Curator Esther Giani Exhibition coordinators Alice Cappelli, Federica Pezzato Exhibition design Filippo Mastinu Photo credits Atelier Rwanda Workshop, Francis Kéré, Maurizio Tarlà Video Dagmar Hoetzel, Leandro Lisboa, Marco Camuffo, Rebecca Levin Global Award for Sustainable Architecture Translations Sebastiano Peri Graphic design Giacomo Covacich Published by Iuav University of Venice ISBN 978-88-87697-45-2 Front cover imogongotype.otf by Leandro Lisboa Printed with a contribution af the Iuav Faculty of Architecture and Fondazione Claudio Buziol

MÖBIUS Atelier Rwanda Workshop YEGO! A rwandan story directed by Leandro Lisboa Women call for women by Francis Kéré Fondazione Claudio Buziol

PADIGLIONE RWANDA IuavAfrica Iuav Magazzini Ligabue COQUES - COQUILLES - ESPRITS - GÉNIES by Bettina Scholl-Sabbatini with the support of the Ministry of Culture, Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg LEDI info point

Joseph Habineza Republic of Rwanda Minister of Sport and Culture The Republic of Rwanda has decided to participate to the 12. International Exhibition of Architecture to the Biennale of Venice, Italy. This is because Rwanda is convinced that the serious environmental problems common to most world populations need urgent attention. African Countries should strongly confront environmental problems and lay strategies to ensure that measures taken are sustainable. The Republic of Rwanda has already taken a leading role, and made a grand step towards a sustainable environment by prohibiting the use of plastic bags in the Country. Today, It has a particular attention to promoting research on the use of natural material in the building industry.

The Republic of Rwanda presents to the 12. International Exhibition of Architecture at the Biennale of Venice the Exhibition Tradition and innovation in vegetable fibres’ design in which the first result of Atelier Rwanda‘s activities are showed. The Atelier Rwanda is a Centre of research on various design innovations in Africa. This research was started in 2009 though a collaboration between Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), University Iuav of Venice (Iuav), Soroptimist International and Fondazione Claudio Buziol of Venice. This is a Centre of research, which promotes innovation by using local material and yet advancing the techniques of traditional craftsmanship to come up with longlasting products. This will enhance use of traditional materials and give them more value. San Marco Research Centre is located at Kanombe, Kigali.

The Exhibition will attract attention on the vast domain of architecture and design, with a specific pointer on the use of locally available materials around us. The first outcome of this research is creating a building system with 80% natural materials such as banana leaves, bamboo and coffee wood. Secondly, the research has facilitated the traditional rwandan technic to produce jewels that show the potentiality of our traditional culture when confronted the larger dimension of design and technology. As the commissaire and curator of the exhibition prof. Gaddo Morpurgo writes in this catalogue: “With this first participation to the Biennale of Venice the Republic of Rwanda shows some of the ways we can cover if we intend the design like an instrument for solving the problems that at last are not more mine our yours, but ours.”

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Gaddo Morpurgo Republic of Rwanda Commissioner and Co-curator “One of Rwanda’s strategies to harmonise social development consists in strengthening its cultural resources, building and integrating foreign technologies with the local know-how. The challenge lies in dealing with the radical changes globalisation has imposed on certain crucial and fundamental parts of Rwanda’s culture. Throughout the process to further these unavoidable transformations in various areas, there is the imperative need to implement strategies to safeguard the values of cultural tradition and national identity. Our values can be kept alive as long as they keep on playing a major role in our economy and in our society. The integration of foreign elements into our way of life requires three strategies: - A better understanding of our culture and traditions.

- A structure and a system for the careful selection of foreign contributions in the search for solutions to our problems.

- The creativity of our ancestors, foreign influence and renewal of Rwanda’s current society. An expression of this creativity is potentially given by the introduction of new craftsmanship techniques. Rwanda’s crafts have undergone many changes because of the massive introduction of European and Asian products. Colonial power and missionaries introduced new ideas in the light of which professions that failed to adapt to the new reality simply disappeared. (…) Colonialists, missionaries and Asian merchants introduced new ideas, techniques and professions, and money was introduced as the tool for trading. These new ideas, under the name of modernity, changed the overall asset of Rwanda’s social and economic life and the Country’s relation with its neighbours. As a consequence, professions that failed to adapt to these multicultural changes started a slow and irreversible decline into oblivion.

This is especially the case for those professions where raw materials were replaced by imported materials or by higher quality finished products. The manufacturing of certain traditional items began to disappear as Rwanda’s society began to adapt to the new lifestyle, driven by globalisation”. 1 The Atelier Rwanda project focuses on those resources that are still capable of “representing those professions where raw materials were replaced by imported materials or by higher quality finished products” after being channelled towards new project ideas. We believe, as stated by Kanimba Misago Célestin, one of the greatest experts of Rwanda’s material culture, that “values can be kept alive as long as they keep on playing a major role in our economy and in our society”. The Tradition and innovation in vegetable fibre design exhibition displays the first results of this programme that was set up in 2008 after being prompted by the Soroptimist International organisation, and that in recent years saw the involvement of partners such as the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology, the Iuav University of Venice, and the Fondazione Carlo Buziol which, in addition to allocating finances, also supervised and coordinated work activities. Through its first

1 Cp. Kanimba Misago Célestin, Directeur del’Institut des Musées Nationaux du Rwanda

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participation to the Biennale di Venezia, the Republic of Rwanda is showing some of paths that we can follow if we view design as a means to solve together problems that are no longer mine or yours, but ours. But above all it proves how the project’s culture must redefine its means with respect to the potential of local productive systems. In our case there are various potential relations between craftsmanship and design.

After being set up with the main objective of carrying out a survey to innovate the use of local materials and exploit traditional work methods, over the last two years Atelier Rwanda has started to become more of a research centre for the innovation of design in Africa. In September 2009 the research centre, which has headquarters in the Centre d’accueil et de for mation San Marco of the Kigali Soroptimist in Kanombe, hosted the first workshop on the use of traditional Rwandese work methods to make jewellery and on the use of banana leaves and bark in the production of construction components. Among the results of this initial experience we can point out the innovative MUSA® panel entirely made out of banano wood that allows for the thermal and acoustical damping and isolation of buildings using organic materials, and the first use of coffee wood in the production of light carpentry and other elements. In the wake of the results provided by the first workshop, which saw the involvement of 26 international students and 10 teachers and assistants from the two Universities, in May 2010 we set up the second workshop, a facility interested in testing new construction models based on vegetable fibres that will be active up to September.

38 international students have been selected to join as many Rwandan students in this workshop, and 6 scholarships have been allocated to help them to develop and exploit their technical skills through direct confrontation with Rwanda’s reality. The most important result of this ongoing experience is the creation of the Rwanda Pavilion, a sort of test platform where students and researchers of the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology and of the Iuav University of Venice can build sections of a building on a 1:1 scale and test the behaviour of vegetable fibres in a specific climate. Born out of scientific cooperation between KIST and Iuav, this test lab represents an innovative example of organised research and training activities concerning the application of natural fibres in the construction sector. Atelier Rwanda has planned a third workshop for June/July 2011 that will focus on the innovation and diversification of hand crafted products and will mainly address the craftsmen of cooperatives working in the various regions of Rwanda in order to gain the skills that are needed to make new products that will be introduced to the market. In terms of research, the Rwanda Pavilion will be further developed and implemented, consolidating its role as research and test facility for vegetable materials and local techniques.

All of the above will be put on display on occasion of Rwanda’s first exhibit in the Biennale di Venezia, but there is another way for us to look at, and assess, this experience. In some two years approximately one hundred people, counting both European and Rwandan students and teachers, had the occasion to meet and work together in Rwanda. They started to know each other, test each other, understand each other...

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John Severin Mshana KIST, Academic Vice-Rector Preamble Because of its vision of enhancing science and technology in Rwanda, Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) has made its mark not only locally but also internationally. This is testified through the various partnerships and support it has with universities/organisations in Rwanda, in the region and beyond. Some of these links and partnerships include University of Kaiserslautern in Germany, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), UK, University of Missouri-Columbia, USA, University of Witswatersrand, South Africa, University Iuav of Venice (Iuav) in Italy, just to mention a few.

This article highlights achievements of one of the activities of the partnership between KIST and Iuav. I hasten to add that the main objective of the partnership is to give impetus to the training of Architects at KIST in Rwanda.

Given that the training of Architects is at its infancy, KIST intends to harness Iuav’s extensive professional and academic experience in the field.

Historical Background The Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) is the first public technological institute of higher learning in Rwanda. It came into existence as a UNDP project on November 1st, 1997 with a clear mandate to produce technical, scientific, of high calibers. KIST opened with major degree program being offered in engineering. Compulsory courses included English or French language and remedial basic sciences.

The establishment of KIST was part of Rwanda Government’s mission to build a strong post–genocide human resource base that was so desperately needed then, and is still needed now. It was made possible by the combined efforts of the Government of Rwanda as the main stakeholder, UNDP (Rwanda) as the executor of the project, and the German Agency for Technical Co-Operation (GTZ) as the implementing agency. The initial funding for starting the Institute came from a UNDP core funding and a UNDP Trust Fund obtained from the generous contributions by the Governments of Japan and the Netherlands. Despite many challenges, KIST boasts of a highly motivated student population which has grown from 209 in 1997 to 2915 in 2010, enrolled in both regular and part – time undergraduate programmes. Currently, KIST has three faculties; namely, Faculty of Engineering (FOE), Faculty of Science (FOS) and Faculty of Architecture and Environmental Design (FAED It has introduced courses in computer and information technology; automotive, mechanical, and electronics technology; and electrical, civil, and environmental engineering. Additional courses have been established in applied chemistry, biology, mathematics, Food Science and Technology; and physics. Additionally, KIST is now running postgraduate programmes of Master in Communications Management (MCM) and hosting The Royal Institute of Sweden (KTH) Masters in Sustainable Energy Engineering. There is also a highly qualified and diversified staff, more classroom space and growing laboratory infrastructure.

KIST continues to strengthen its programs and enjoys a growing number of international partners. In just thirteen years of its existence KIST has proPresentation

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duced 4043 graduates some of whom are now holding significant positions for contribution to the development of Rwanda. At the outset, we are humbled by the fact the First Lady Mrs Jeannette Kagame is an alumnus of KIST, having graduated in 2004 in Finance. Other examples DG RURA, Deputy Director Land Centre, DG National Materials Laboratory, Director eRwanda, Director of Datacom Africa, and many others. Furthermore, most KIST graduates who went for further studies have performed extremely well.

Faculty Of Architecture and Environmental Design Towards the end of 2008, KIST established the Faculty of Architecture and Environmental Design (FAED), with the aim of training relevant experts and technocrats needed in the country and the region as a whole. These shall include Architects, Urban & Regional Planners, Urban Designers, Quantity Surveyors, Land Values, Estate Managers and Construction Managers. It is envisaged that, when fully established, the faculty will have the following departments: - Department of Architecture; - Department of Construction Management; - Department of Estate Management and Valuation; - Department of Creative Design; and - Department of Urban and Regional Planning.

In January 2009, the department admitted the first intake of 25 students for the Degree of Bachelor of Architecture. In January 2010, other departments which will offer respective degree programmes were in place. FAED has students registered in various programmes as follows: - Bachelor Degree in Architecture (25 students each, in first and second year); - Bachelor Degree in Quantity Surveying (45 students); - Bachelor Degree in Estate Management & Valuation (45 students); - Bachelor Degree in Creative Design. (25 students);

Biennale of Venice The Republic of Rwanda is making her first participation to the 12. International Exhibition of Architecture at the Biennale of Venice, Italy, in a major way. We at KIST and Rwanda in general are happy to be represented in this grand exhibition. At the exhibition, Rwanda will present a project titled Tradition and innovation in design, using vegetable fibers, being the product of a collective research by The Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) and Iuav University of Venice.

This research began in 2009 with view to providing alternative construction materials from locally available vegetable fiber, which are resource and energy efficient. The materials utilized are banano fiber, coffee wood and bamboo. The materials are joined together using coffee wood bolts or natural glue produced by KIST. The research has produced a sustainable building/pavilion comprised of 80% natural materials and is located in both Venice and Kigali for exposure to different weather elements in different areas, to enhance the research further.

The research has also produced masterpieces in jewelry from locally available materials Considering the high cost of industrial construction materials, this research is geared to producing not only an environmentally friendly building but also an economically friendly option to the population thus providing an easier option to us all. Rwanda is specifically keen on environment protection and we hope this exhibition by Iuav and KIST will provide an eye opener to the fields of architecture, design and construction, which form a significant part of the GDP.

Partnership between KIST and Iuav In 2009, KIST and the Faculty of Architecture of Venice (Iuav) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU). The major objective of the MOU was to facilitate staff and student exchange within the disciplines under FAED. Furthermore, KIST and Iuav agreed to develop a programme of research known as Atelier Rwanda Workshop, which would act as a vehicle for both staff and student exchange. The objectives of the research programme were: - Promote efficiency and sustainability of activities related to natural fibers developing innovation of products made in local materials; - Improve the productive capacity of local handicraft; - Strengthening the role of craftswomen; - Enhance the development and market of local resources and products; - Improve the use of water supply; - Strengthen, within the architectural planning and design, cultural exchanges between Europe and Africa in order to enhance resources and working abilities in Africa.

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Amerigo Restucci Iuav University of Venice, Rector This publication gathers together the output of scientific and training activities that were recently carried out with extraordinarily productive results. One of our purposes, aside from the substantial widening of international relations, was to offer some training activities to our students that included a form of what we could call ‘ethical’ experimentation: to come into contact with cultures that followed very distinct paths in history and technical evolution.

The results of these pilot experiences show a surprising sensitivity in the approach to somewhat alien design and construction methods which however can be so easily and effectively transposed into the work we have carried out to date. In our opinion the approach with materials and languages based on incredibly distant anthropological paradigms can nonetheless find a range of convincing applications, as though the brief cultural (and human) immersion that our students experienced in such remote geographical and ethnical contexts fostered a surprisingly effective coming of age, which came with a new awareness of their tools of expression.

Consequently it is with pleasure that we introduce, through this exhibition, the very first products of an activity that seems to have found a meaningful cultural classification among the range of subjects covered by our University, encouraging scientific and didactic integration between the Faculty of Architecture, the Faculty of Arts and Design and Faculty of Regional Planning.

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Giancarlo Carnevale Iuav University of Venice, Faculty of Architecture Dean

Medardo Chiapponi Iuav University of Venice, Arts and Design Dean

Going back upstream to find the best breeding grounds: an exhausting biological destiny that is reminiscent of a deep sense of ethics, one not in harmony with the pace of flows, isomorphic networks, and equipotential globalism. The Faculty of Architecture of the University of Venice, in cooperation with the Arts and Design Faculty, is developing a singular training experience that is involving its teachers and researchers in a project that is proving the potential of a whole series of cultural opportunities.

In short, and having stated we believe it ethically correct to steer clear of any reference to “evangelisation”, the proposed objective is the search of comparisons in the history of settlements and architectures that are often neglected by architects but are instead studied by ethnologists, geographers and anthropologists.

In our opinion, and based on our past experience, to date there are at least three areas that hold the promise of exciting scientific developments: the first, and perhaps the most expected one that has been taken almost for granted, concerns the observation and the study of devices to harness energy and spare resources which, due to the severity of environmental, economical and historical conditions present in the land, followed a totally different and original path of evolution in Africa; the second is linked to the increasing amount of attention that is focusing on the use of low-tech means, the rediscovery of ‘ancient’ and alternative techniques by environmentalists and ecologists is now also gaining considerable economic and commercial potential; and the third (in my opinion, the most promising in terms of theory and debate), which concerns the extraordinary skills of expression that the various African cultures have always applied to their creations, no matter the scale: from urban planning to the design of cutlery. Even though it may seem obvious, it is worth pointing out that contemporary art owes a lot to the analysis and rediscovery of African art (oblivion itself is but a form of knowledge).

I would like to end with a wish and one hope. The wish is that these experiences may have an immediate and constructive impact on science and education (but this will have to be the job of the person who will accept the task of keeping this commitment alive, and be recognised for it). The hope is that, in spite of the pervasive power of digitalisation and the current uprooting of references to ancient teachings, and with the help of a more dedicated study of the history of humankind, the ethical and aesthetical value of an architecture based on raw materials, simple and effective techniques, and direct contact, can be re-established with the wise and ancient traits found in architectural bodies. It would be great if our students could pick up, along with the magnificent and alluring new opportunities offered by the never ending flow of technological progress, the forgotten pleasure given by the reappropriation of timeless knowledge that has stood up against the test of time, that has remained indifferent to the twists and turns of impatient progress in expectation of an inexorable and unavoidable future.

Research into the South of the world has been part of the special degree in product design from the very moment it was first set up by the Faculty of Arts and Design. This area we named Nord-sud processi di decrescita (North-south inverse growth processes) inherits and develops work started in 1997 in the context of the European LEDI (European industrial design laboratories) programme that was set up in Amsterdam by the Iuav University of Venice and the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, and first applied in practice during the 2003 Iuavietnam project.

The potential of work carried out by our students and crafts cooperatives that craft bamboo in Vietnam first emerged during the 2004 Furniture Trade Fair in Milan. That particular experience proved how research into vegetable fibres could lead to a major result: diversification of productive and commodity capacities in disadvantaged areas of the world achieved by establishing a relation between the culture of design and the cultural wealth enclosed in local work traditions.

With the opening of the Laboratoire de recherche et de projets d’innovation de design en Af r ique (Atelier Rwanda) all of these work experiences were further studied and tested, allowing Iuav and KIST to inaugurate two operational centres in Kigali and Venice in 2010. These centres represent one of the most advanced stages of International cooperation in this field of research. Work presented on the occasion of the Biennale di Venezia illustrates the most recent results of an international research programme which this year was also extended to Iuav’s Faculty of Architecture, effectively anticipating the different kind of relations with other Faculties that we want to promote on occasion of the reorganisation process of the University we are building. But the relation that was set up with KIST and the Ente Biennale di Venezia also allows us to emphasise two aspects of a potential international cooperation programme capable of appreciating the specificities of Venice: - Strengthening of material research laboratories; - Definition of new teaching courses capable of training designers for work in the international cooperation sector.

To tackle these topics the Arts and Design Faculty not only became a sponsor of the initiative, but also sought to involve students by setting up the VI Venice Summer School from August 17th to September 17th. During the month 30 students coming from Rwanda, Israel, Turkey and various European countries will work with our teachers to develop research into the potential of vegetable materials and help to redefine the role played by European Industrial Design Laboratories in future international cooperation programmes.

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Renzo di Renzo Fondazione Claudio Buziol Artistic Director The first issue of Colors, the magazine that talks about the rest of the world that I signed as managing editor in the year 2000, following Oliviero Toscani’s departure from the editorial staff, was a monographic issue that had been benefited from the cooperation of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The entire editorial staff of Colors spent three weeks in a refugee camp in Lukole (Tanzania), next to Rwanda, where some 120,000 Rwandan refugees had been living for the past seven years.

In April of 1994 Radio Kigali sparked off the massacre simply by broadcasting a message that said cut down the tall trees, which of course really meant exter minate the Tutsi and also hinted at one of the underlying reasons of the conflict (the Hutu people were mostly farmers who allocated new land to crops, taking it away from the forest, while the Tutsi people, those tall trees were none other than the famous Watussi — people, the altissimi negr i sung by Edoardo Vianello, who looked giraffes in the eye and exchanged the tallest kisses in the world — were shepherds that had settled there with their herd).

All that I, or for that matter most anyone else at the time, knew about Rwanda was this: there was a genocide, primitive and unthinkable violence distributed by men wielding machetes, and it was caught in the splendid and well known picture taken by James Nachtwey (every war has its own icon).

Among the images that Colors chose to represent the human and personal tales of the people that were still living those dramatic events, there was a not very striking one that however caught my attention because it illustrated that even in desperation there is a natural bent towards beauty and dignity. It was the picture of a child with his back turned to an endless plain who stood as proud as a knight in shining armour, riding a makeshift tricycle made out of pieces of wood that in itself bore the marks of craftsmanship and perhaps some unintentional design. It looked like one of those toys dear to us Western fathers, the ones that don’t care about winx and playstation consoles, who go hunting for such items in small niche stores which of course our children couldn’t care less about, being too busy to exercise their right to be like everyone else.

Setting aside real problems (those people had to fight for their lives on a daily basis), I remember thinking about the amount of talent and creativity that could be found in such a place, and more in general in such a country and continent. How many people, once free from the need to deal with pressing necessities like finding some food to put on the table, would be able to help to really make the world a better place. That is why when the Atelier Rwanda project was brought to my attention not only did my mind go back to those events, but I also remember thinking that it struck me as a project that perfectly fitted the activities of the Fondazione Claudio Buziol. Originally set up to commemorate the founder of Replay and to give continuity to his ideas and work in the areas of health, welfare, teaching and education, the purposes of the Foundation go beyond assisting the younger generations in general to achieve their dreams in the context of creative studies, since they also include art, design, and generally speaking beauty and culture as Presentation

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fundamental tools for social and economic development. In this sense, the creation of a Research Centre for the innovation of design in Africa where students from various countries work side by side with African students and craftsmen in an effort to create new products based on traditional Rwandan techniques or to exploit the potential of vegetable fibres in the construction sector, effectively represents in a nutshell the very same attitude shown

by Claudio Buziol who, aside from being a successful businessman, always managed to keep up with his commitment towards social solidarity, proving how economic development can be achieved in harmony with ethical values and with an increasingly balanced distribution of its benefits. This is an attitude that today, thanks to the sensitivity of President Silvia Buziol and the rest of the family that lent its support to this project, relives in the Fondazione Claudio Buziol.

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Hanne Jensbo Soroptimist International President In May, during one of my stops in Africa, I had the chance to visit Rwanda.

The main purpose of my trip was to join the 6th Soroptimist Peace Marathon on May 23rd. This great event was set up by the local and European Soroptimist organisations with the help of Rwanda’s Ministry of Sport. The marathon is a major happening of the Soroptimist Working for peace activity which involves a great number of people: amateur and professional marathon runners join children and adults from all over the world and compete together in this peaceful competition.

I stayed in the San Marco, a training centre in the suburbs of Kigali. In the course of the past seven years the Kigali Soroptimist organisation has set up school halls, offices, hospitality rooms, and workshops for the training of craftswomen, placing them in a lush campus that is carefully looked after: a truly beautiful flower garden. The substantial funds for this large centre derive from the donations of many European clubs, especially those based in Luxembourg, Italy and San Marino. The main objective that characterises this centre, similarly to many other Soroptimist activities, is training.

What I found out came as a pleasant surprise to me because it was the first time that I witnessed the achievement of our objectives at a higher training level, one linked to the training in handicrafts that also sees the involvement of University institutions. In effects, at present the workshop is taken up by students and professors from Iuav University of Venice and from the Kigali polytechnic who carry out joint research activities on the use in the construction sector of organic materials such as bamboo, banano leaves, and the wood from coffee plants.

However I did only see training activities, I witnessed the creation of a training and integration project that involved European, extra-European and African students working in close contact with craftsmen, united in the common effort of setting up an important instance of cultural exchange.

What is currently on display here, in such a prestigious facility, is not simply the result of two years of work, but rather the embodiment of the spirit of knowledge, which is capable of crossing any border. Consequently, I want to offer my heartfelt congratulations to the San Marco Centre for this excellent achievement!

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Bettina Scholl-Sabbatini Republic of Rwanda, Co-curator During a trip to Rwanda organised by the Soroptimists of Europe in 2002, the Kigali club presented us a project for a shelter and vocational training centre and asked us for our support. At that time, only a few years after the horrible massacres of 1994, the Rwandan people were still very much affected and weakened, and they began to realise the importance of rebuilding their country. To this end, education, youth training, and the rehabilitation of widows and orphans were paramount.

The club of Kigali enjoyed a substantial donation and decided to invest it in a plot of 3.5 ha in Kanombe, in the outskirts of Kigali, where the centre was going to be built. Supported by several European countries, especially Luxembourg and San Marino through their partner clubs, the centre, called San Marco was inaugurated in 2008. After six years of hard work and commitment from Scholastica, a member of the Kigali club, and her European friends, the San Marco centre was born. We believed, and we won! The centre is located on top of the Kanombe hill, dominating a valley that stretches to the horizon. Every first time visitor is stunned by this sight. Its infrastructure consists of: - a beautiful and large multipurpose room that can be rented for ceremonies and conferences, and whose entrance fees help cover the operating costs of the centre; - 20 dormitories that can accommodate 40 people attending training courses; - a large kitchen with storing room; - a large canteen; - 4 round shaped houses accommodating teachers or people who come to relax.

Given the lack of primary schools in the area as well as the number of children that need to be educated, it has been important from the outset to incorporate a nursery and primary school into San Marco. 167 children are currently enrolled. Additional buildings are under construction and will allow children to complete primary school while at San Marco. Since its opening in 2008, the centre has been providing sewing courses to young women from the rural area, who stay at the centre during their training.

Thanks to a computer donation from the Soroptimists of Triveneto, Italy, and the support of the Soroptimists in Luxembourg, the centre was able to launch computing courses. The first certificates were issued to young participants in June 2010. Through Atelier Rwanda, a partnership between the Iuav University of Venice (Iuav) and the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology of Kigali (KIST), San Marco has gained an increasing international reputation. This project was made possible thanks to the support of the Fondazione Claudio Buziol, SI-Italy and SI-San Marino. Since 2009, it has been a centre of research, innovation and creative design at high level, whose workshops gather students and professors from Europe and Africa. The best Rwandan artisans are trained by teachers and assistants from overseas, helping them develop new products using traditional techniques and local materials. A large container equipped with solar panels has left the Grand-Duchy Presentation

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of Luxembourg and is off to the San Marco centre. In the coming weeks, it will be implemented on the site to provide all buildings with electricity and hot water. San Marco is a wonderful place that deserves to be supported as a state of the art craftsmanship and design training centre, and whose purpose is to promote and market a know-how made in Rwanda.

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New jewellery based on Rwanda’s traditional techniques

The Luxury of the Fibers Alice Cappelli »In a different net work of social relations you can create a different mater ial culture« Gui Bonsiepe Craftsmanship is still an alluring profession for man. The work of craftsmen presents itself as a form of communication between man and nature. Every corner of the world holds its own craftsmanship, which is based on the surrounding environment and on locally available raw materials. Through his technique, man dialogues with nature and breathes life into products that have a story to tell. They are the embodiment of creativity, traditions, rites, cultures, and needs, and in their diversity a single material can be variously interpreted and give life to a different shape for each country. The material culture therefore remains a real vehicle of many aspects of the immaterial culture of any population.

Crafts in Rwanda are heavily characterised by the use of natural fibres and to date basket weaving remains their most characteristic material expression with both aesthetical and functional purposes. Their originality can be traced back in time, from practical and artistic products up to the peak expression of local architecture that is given by the Royal Hut that encompasses all the art of Rwanda’s basketry. Rich with essentially geometric patterns, rich with a wide variety of natural fibres that are worked into various shapes using a range of techniques, it is still made for various purposes and plays a major socioeconomic role. In effects the influence of modernisation, dictated above all by the importation of western civilisation, had a major impact on traditional crafts, which are now confined to the spaces of the rural reality of the Country and taught in training centres, in cooperatives, or in women’s associations. These represent the independent and collective local response to further one’s own social situation, turning many sectors, including the crafts, into one of the main forms of living and sources of revenue. From this we can understand the importance of cooperatives as the real starting point for the potential creation of updated professional figures based on their traditional manual skills, and holding a constant relation between the place, its history and its identity.

One of Atelier Rwanda’s main objectives is to promote what we call a rural economy, starting from locally available human and material resources and with the purpose of innovating and diversifying the crafts. We aim to rediscover its potential not only in social and economic terms, representing its players as the keepers of the Country’s distinctive culture and positioning Design as the strategic mediator between material culture and innovation. This project mixes University, Design and the Crafts, testing their potential in a creative process that represents the meeting point between cultures that communicate, create and evolve, strengthening the know-how of the people as well as national identity.

The need for an efficient training system was first identified by focusing attention on the production of basketry, since basket weaving is one of the few traditional activities that is still alive today, along with all its relatiNew jewellery based on Rwanda’s traditional techniques

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ve tools and techniques. The Agaseke is perhaps the greatest symbol of one of the most characteristic and representative examples of Rwanda’s crafts, culture and society, to the point that it is depicted in the very symbol of the Republic of Rwanda. The idea for jewellery is the result of identifying the need to upgrade and innovate Ububoshyi bu’ur uhindu, one of the traditional manufacturing methods of the Agaseke, in order to protect the product itself and to safeguard the skills, the energy and the patience that basket weaving and basket makers are capable of expressing in objects that are uniquely refined and detailed. The passage is almost part of the technique itself, where it becomes the crown jewel of an art that is truly representative of its kind, and where the real value lies not in the material itself but rather in the story behind its creation. Craftsmen who over the generations have been handing down traditions, knowledge and material cultures in face of a shortage of market and visibility opportunities for their work, with the ensuing loss of some, push the limits of design and experiment with their techniques in order to assess and update their potential.

After the first field survey in 2008, Atelier Rwanda is carrying out the project in Italy and setting up prototypes for a range of jewellery. The first workshop set up in San Marino sees a team of students and professors that are working together to study techniques and to discover how long threads of defibred Itaratara that is collected into little bundles and sown together can be given new shapes to benefit the body. “The theme proposed to the students was Nature and Artifice. Rule and Shape. […] After identifying a governing rule the students were asked to make jewellery assume the quality, aside from its normal ornamental nature, of configuring and extending space around the body, creating an architecture where the body contributes to give life and meaning”.1 The proposal gave life to many results, all of which were different from the others in terms of experimentation with various techniques and/ or shapes but were united by a single objective: enhance such a poor material and draw it into the range of products that carry a high symbolic and commercial value. At first the designs were transformed into prototypes using glue and thread instead of Uruhindu and Intaratara, the respective means and natural fibre used in the Ububoshyi bu’uruhindu technique. Atelier Rwanda moved to Rwanda for the September 2009 workshop, the first to be carried out on location which allowed us to discover the project’s true strength: the direct and reciprocal exchange of skills and knowledge between the craftswomen and the students. Training was offered and based on the skill of the local players, the starting point for the trade of knowledge, that led to specialisation for the craftsmen and a form of cultural enrichment for the students that is unique in its kind. Any issues that we encountered because of cultural differences vanished the moment we understood how skills are finalised in the act of creation and planning. Reciprocal training was achieved with complementary and secondary communication where the rational vision of Designers met the symbolic charge of the craftsmen, bestowing an unparalleled soul to these objects. The prototypes created in San

Marino turned out to be an extremely useful meeting point to debate and illustrate our proposals to the craftswomen. The stage of experimentation that involved everyone and that was carried out to comprehend, detect and solve problems relative to the making of jewellery, gave life to new shapes linked to the technique. Triangles are a glaring example, as are the details of clasps and the relations achieved between the shapes that compose the necklaces. But perhaps the most emotional memories lie in small gestures of the craftswomen, such as the picture made by Annuarite who depicted herself wearing earrings and necklaces reflecting the triangle she was making, or the small prototype made out of threads by Elisabeth in her attempt to understand and make the designs her own through her own handiwork. A new form, which demanded that the craftsman further his knowledge of technique, was instead the result of a joint project that was carried out directly on location by Italian and Rwandese students for the creation of a bracelet named Möbius.

The form became emblematic of the project because instead of presenting two separate sides it flowed into a single continuous surface, a symbol of reciprocal contamination made possible by cooperation projects such as Atelier Rwanda. Consequently the search for a conclusion in this project is apparently difficult and mistaken. The type of experimentation that denotes it leaves the door open to a variety of paths, not all of which are one-way. However the recovery and protection of the local identity remains the main challenge to deal with real development in harmony with society and its material culture. Healthy competition grants vitality and competitiveness to local systems with Design as the underlying theme between tradition and modernity, both locally and globally.

One thing is certain: the work of Atelier Rwanda unites the potential of Universities, Design and Crafts and thereby uncovers their importance because of their capability of simultaneously interacting with the material culture and the society, with training and research, as the cultural vehicles to update knowledge and learn to know the other.

1 Cp. Massimo Brignoni, Applicazione delle lavorazione tradizionali, tipo Akaseks K’ur uhindu, per prodotti ad alto valore commerciale, SMUD 5, San Marino Aprile 2009

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New jewellery based on Rwanda’s traditional techniques

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San Marino, 2008 Iuav Professors Gabriele Gmeiner, Massimo Brignoni Iuav Tutors Bruno Carl Winter, Mauro Paialunga Students Marco Armentano, Chiara Bertolin, Daniela Betti, Marco Camuffo, Alice Cappelli, Irene Casadei, Arienna Cremona, Francesco Codicè, Elena Fedrigo, Claudio Gatto, Francesca Manfredini, Giulia Mior, Valerio Mistura, Giulia Orlando, Lisa Venerucci,

Rwanda, 2009 Rwandan Handcraft Women Médiatrice Mukansanga, Annuarite Niragire, Elisabeth Yankulije, Immaculeé Mukamushengaboho Iuav Professors Gabriele Gmeiner, Massimo Brignoni Iuav Tutor Alice Cappelli Students Chiara Bertolin, Alfons Braise Bataringaya, Isabella Buranga, Irene Casadei, Veronica Maccari, Richard Mpfizi, Marie Solange Muhirwa, Emmanuel Nahayo Nkusi, Giulia Orlando, Irina Righes, Denis Valentini, J.Poul Sebuhayi Uwase

Jewellery on Intaratara fibres »It is really hard to design items of jeweller y, such small, ter r ible objects!

Jeweller y is part of the body that wears it, becomes part of it, accenting it, isolating it, penetrating it, binding it…« Alessandro Mendini Jewellery as part of the body and as the bearer of a story: the meeting of cultures whose dialogue gave life to it. Vegetable fibres as material expression of an almost forgotten luxury: the traditional values of the land. It is for this that jewellery was chosen for the Atelier Rwanda, research laborator y and innovative design projects in Af r ica workshop, where Italian and Rwandan students joined forces with four craftswomen to set up a dialogue and create 7 necklaces and 1 bracelet.

It is part of the activities developed by the scientific cooperation programme set up between the Iuav University of Venice and Kigali’s KIST. A training course for young craftswomen on the innovation and diversification of Rwanda’s handcrafted products that aims to exploit work based on vegetable fibres to improve local manufacturing skills, strengthening the role and professionalism of the craftswomen themselves. The programme was split up into workshops, with a first stage focused on research, recovery and ideation, and a second stage dedicated to contamination, experimentation and on-site production.

The first workshop was carried out in September of 2008 as part of the Industrial Design degree course held by the University of San Marino. Gabriele Gmeiner and Massimo Brignoni joined Design students to interpret this technique and create a range of jewellery.

Gmeiner’s group adopted an approach that focused on traditional shapes and their replication in three-dimensional geometrical effects, and Brignoni’s group adopted an approach that focused on experimental techniques and their potential. The result of these activities can be seen in the selection of prototypes chosen from an excellent range of designs that emerged dur-

ing the initial freestyle stage, followed by their on-site production. The second workshop that was carried out in September of 2009 brought students and professors to Rwanda where the first training course for craftswomen was being carried out with direct and mutual exchanges between local and European players who were working on the creation of jewellery that was previously and locally idealised, including the Möbius bracelet.

A single fibre, Intaratara marsh grass, and a single tool, Uruhindu, were used to give life to a range of jewellery capable of narrating a singular experience. The natural colour of the fibre is meant to come in contact with the black colour as a symbol of the only thing that differentiates us: skin. The local basket weaving tradition provides that the colours black (Ibyiro) and red (Itaka) characterise handcrafted items insofar as made out of natural materials such as coal and earth. In both cases they would be mixed with banana resin and applied directly to the fibre. Today pre-mixed powders have replaced these items and paved the way to a large variety of colours, but it is always the same craftsmen that take care of dying this fibre.

Soaking Intaratara in coloured water, covering it with banana leaves and then drying it under the sun remains one of the fundamental passages in the creation of these items of jewellery, and as such it fascinated both students and professors. Another aspect of daily life was needed to complete the final picture capable of representing one of the traditional professions that is still alive today, complete with its relative techniques and tools: the production of basketry.

Atelier Rwanda therefore benefited from living in direct contact with the local reality, which it observed, stored and classified in order to then conceive, experiment, create and bring over to Italy a wealth of knowledge that tells the story of an encounter that is embodied in the subtlety and elegance of these items of jewellery.

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The Rwanda Pavilion: banano, bamboo and wood of coffee

Of necessity and virtue: the story of a wood case Filippo Mastinu This story begins with the making of the wood box that would be used to transport to Rwanda the model of the pavilion we were going to build there.

I enjoy talking about this box because out of all of us it is the one that travelled the most and spent the most time in Africa, always following whenever one of us had to travel. However I’d prefer to leave Africa and our work out of the story, and talk about the African people. We arrived in Kigali late in the afternoon. It was dark. The wood case was with us.

The project had been prepared and checked in Italy according to the idea of Africa each of us had before getting there. We had a daily work schedule and objectives to meet. We had fifteen days to build the main structure of the pavilion, after which we would hand it over to the various groups that would replace us to complete the task. However there is always something that can go wrong, some delay, an unexpected event. In the morning we opened up the wood case and at last the small scale model and some Italian air came to light, mixing in with Africa. The model was intact and could be shown around to everyone. The case had done its job.

As time passed we filled it up with papers and other pieces of scrap from the trip. It watched us from a corner of the room. We presented our work to the people who were in charge of the centre that was hosting us and immediately ran into a problem: the foundations we thought we could build discrete and invisible would not be strong enough to offer the necessary support and durability. We had to try a different and more difficult approach, taking into consideration the prerequisites that any new building has to be endowed with, even in Africa. So we made a new design with stones and mortar that would be sunk deep into the earth for ever.

The African workers got busy a few days later, after the rain had passed. They were many, perhaps fifteen counting men and women. They were all busy, the men digging the earth and organising work, and the women, young ebony caryatids, shoeless, looked like empresses without anything. We were all taken in by this way of work. The task was tough, tiresome and slow. Every once in a while I would join them for a smoke and take a few snapshots. Everything, without exception, was done by hand. The earth was dug up with shovels and pickaxes and then carried away, past the outline of the perimeter. All the time we worked on the construction of the structure in the shade that was being offered by the room that acted as both our mess and office. The case was still with us, and its lid had been converted into a workbench. The case itself was stuffed with banana bark that would be needed in our work.

We were happy, and bathed in the sound of the chants and drum beats that usually woke us up before dawn. The women on the construction site were no longer carrying earth: the dig was over and it was time to fill it up with small stones and with bigger stones, all of which were neatly arranged at the bottom of the trench. I checked them out all the time. We all worked at it, Italians and Africans, and we picked up the local language, Urufungusu. Everyone laughed. Our thoughts turned to what to pack in our wood case for the return trip. The case listened to us, indulging us. A week passed, The Rwanda Pavilion: banano, bamboo and wood of coffee

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the laying of the foundations fell behind schedule, and so did our work in the shade. We worked out solutions, and adjusted the design and work schedule accordingly, everything was being done but according to a different, African rhythm. The Africans were unlike us in everything, they looked a lot more relaxed. The people working on the foundations changed often, and so did the women, maybe because there was enough work for everybody.

Not a lot, but enough to go around. They were precise in everything, stone against stone, iron and sweat. Finally work ended, almost two weeks had gone by. We always watched them at work, charmed by their barefooted queens. I think we were also a little in love. They still had to glean what would have happened later, we worked under the shade and kept our planning secret.

Friday came, and the drums of the nearby small church had been playing a beat for some time. The case was preparing to leave with me the next day. The foundations were ready to welcome the pavilion, the bamboo pillars and the large covered wings. We too were ready, with new rhythms and objectives. We had become somewhat African but happily looked back on what we managed to achieve. We were a bit worn out. We knew how to transport anything, we had a lot of manpower, we had African ropes and Italian bolts, we were euphoric and thoughtful. We had half a day to set everything up and anchor it to the ground and the foundations, ready to be handed over to others. Suddenly everything changed. The pavilion had been built, the idea had taken shape and left its mark on the ground. In our eyes the foundations set by the African people were all there was to the pavilion.

The toiling of the women, the experience of the men, the reliability of their work, our project and the respect it was met with all helped to build the pavilion. Its value is now eternal and will travel from Rwanda to Italy just like the wood case. What was born as a necessary alternative to our initial ideas, unforeseen and tiresome, became the meaning of everything, the virtue that will support the pavilion project and our endless love for Rwanda and its people. All that was left to do was to raise the temporary, fragile and ephemeral structure. By nightfall we were done, there were so many of us. We all stood proud. A few workers looked at us from afar and finally I caught the secret. The case that knew everything was ready to leave once more. It was tired, but pleased. It knew that it would soon return with someone else, packed with ideas and materials. Now that it had an African air to it, I was going to take it back to Italy with me. I wished it a safe journey.

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The Kanombe Workshop

Francesca Parotti Engineer Despite my extensive travels to various remote corners of the world, I had always skipped from visiting Africa. Nevertheless, my encounter with the continent must have been in the air. I have to say that it came as an unexpected, surprising and enchanting experience. Thanks to this project I was able to get to know Africa passing through Rwanda, a State that is as large as Tuscany, my region of origin in Italy. Rwanda is incredibly green and covered by lakes and rivers, its people tend to the streets as if they were gardens, and plastic bags are barred from entry.

Thanks to its thousand hills and endless contradictions, this little heart of Africa managed to conquer my own. Maybe it was the smiling faces of all the children and passers-by that I constantly met on the way, maybe it was the energy that was generated in the workshop I joined, or perhaps it was the simple discovery of a pace of life that depended on the sun, allowing me to wake up in the morning and forget the stress of western life. The truth is that I did not want to leave any more, I wanted to stay and tackle bamboo and the structure we had to build, safe in the knowledge that manual skills can transform concept into reality, and that dealing with the problems that arise given by the construction of a building is the greatest possible form of practical experience any designer can hope for.

Bamboo is a material that lends itself well to being used as an experimental material: the pavilion that was designed in Italy gained shape in Rwanda then changed there thanks to the manual and creative skills of the students that were constantly fighting against the problems posed by the intrinsic nature of the structure, testing the limits of materials and the complex shape they hoped to bestow on it. By increas-

ing their knowledge of both the materials and the methods that had already been employed on other occasions, the students of the group were able to develop design skills and manual abilities that allowed them to create shapes that, aside from being beautiful, were also functional and technically sound. The Rwanda pavilion in Kanombe benefited greatly from the possibilities that bamboo, which can be bent according to needs of the project as well as to our imagination, offered to it in terms of a building material that possesses multiple characteristics. Light, resistant, sustainable and very malleable, in the context of this project bamboo once again proved itself to be one of the most innovative construction materials to be found.

Alberto De Simone Architect When someone asks me about Rwanda I talk about the green hills striped by red roads that are always crowded by people and bicycles so overloaded with bananas that sometimes you can’t even see who’s driving, and about nice people who want to learn more about the muzungu. I did not have enough time to fully understand the Country, so I allowed it to surprise me with its landscapes, its traditions, and those things that may appear odd or contradictory to anyone coming from Europe.

I saw children walk for miles on their bare feet to collect some water while they carried a jerry-can in one hand and a cell phone in the other. I saw people who live in homes that have no electricity and others who were laying down fibre optic cables in the road, I visited a Batwa village and it was a marvellous human experience. The limited size of the Country allowed me to visit most of it even though only had a few days to spend on tours. These tours turned out to be quite useful in terms of the reason why The Rwanda Pavilion: banano, bamboo and wood of coffee

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I was there, they gave me the chance to take a close look at the architecture of the homes and at the structure of villages, some food for thought and inspiration for the project we are working on. As a tradition the homes of farmers have always been built on the land property using materials that can be found in the area, and this tradition is still being followed today. Thus the walls of the homes, which were originally made out of straw and papyrus, in time started to be made out of earth (the same red, ferrous and claylike earth that is found everywhere), while the straw roofs slowly turned into roofs made out of wood and earth and tiles, or more recently out of corrugated iron.

These observations led to a desire to set the pavilion into context and resort to the local culture, so we had to choose between one of the various crude-earth construction methods that are already largely in use in the Country.

In the end the choice fell on adopting the ‘torchis’ method for the side walls (wood framework covered in earth mixed with fibrous materials), which granted optimum integration with the structure, while for the back wall, in a sort of backstage area, the choice fell on adobe blocks that would then be plastered and coloured. The earth was tested extensively to determine its exact consistency and composition, and many other tests were carried out to find the right mix of natural fibres that was needed to increase resistance and reduce splitting. In the end we achieved excellent results by using the traditional technique that involves the use roots as the fibrous material that is added to the earth.

Today a smile still breaks out on my face when I remember the looks on the faces of the local builders who were working in a nearby construction site and who would sometimes stare at us for a while as we climbed up that strange thing made of earth and bamboo that we call the pavilion.

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Armando Barp Iuav Professor We arrived in Kigali after a very long trip with endless stopovers. As soon as we got there we started to realise that things were not going to be easy. The police asked where we planned on staying and we had no idea whatsoever. We did not have an address and there was no one outside waiting for us. Fortunately we had a cell phone number to call and we managed to get in touch with our friends in Kigali. They came to get us and drove us to the San Marco centre.

During the drive we found out that streets don’t have a name and that addresses correspond to vague descriptions. The San Marco centre is a delightful place with brick homes and laboratories that teach the crafts to groups of women. As soon as you get there you notice the tall structure in bamboo with two wings that dominates the area. My first impression was that it was much larger than the model made in Venice and that it has a fragile and elegant appearance. We immediately went to take a close look and started to consider our work approach. The students were a little worried and asked us to set up a meeting to illustrate all their concerns.

We had a hard time explaining that this was an experiment where mistakes could also prove useful to make some progress.

The next morning we started to draft a work schedule and we immediately ran into trivial problems that however gave us an idea of the situation. We had to weld some steel plates to the nodes and the power supplied by the network was not enough. We needed an autonomous power unit. But to get it we had to wait two or three days. Meanwhile we started work on the walls. A wall in woven bamboo was ready, so we started to prepare the crude earth that was needed to finish it off. Preparation involves the pressing (by foot, as was once the practice with grapes) of clay, sand and natural fibres. AfThe Rwanda Pavilion: banano, bamboo and wood of coffee

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ter lengthy considerations, we decided to use some straw that was left along the main road after some cleaning operations. We filled a few sacks and got busy. This particular line of work was especially enjoyed by the students, who like children had endless fun getting dirty, throwing clay balls around and then having endless showers to rinse all the dirt out. By nightfall the wall was filled up except for an area that we left uncovered in order to show how it was made. The walls have to dry out for a few days before they can be given the finishing layer of plaster. During this period Davide, our crude earth expert, kept testing various plaster mixtures on one of the brick walls.

We started to prepare the wall on the opposite side with a slight variation to allow full view of the pillar which is partially incorporated in the facing wall, and we addressed the matter of making the window, a square opening made of bamboo inserts tied together with natural fibres.

We also decided to make the moveable parts out of natural components. We started to look for materials that would suit the making of the window. In the meantime three days had passed and the power unit showed up: a huge truck engine hooked up to a power generator that could only be moved about with the help of five people. The welder, a tiny and very likeable guy, asked us to cover the bamboo surrounding the nodes that needed welding with wet rags, and that’s what we did after finding some rags in the dressmaking school and soaking them. Our guy climbed up our makeshift scaffolding and, under the watchful eye of the five movers, finally welded the plates to their hinges. This allowed us to lower the structure a little to position the covering.

The apparently simple task was soon complicated by the height and instability of the structure.

As soon as it is was set free so that we could lower it, it started to bend in an alarming fashion and we had to make a substantial effort to keep it in shape. In any event we could only get it in a horizontal position at a height that complicated the assembly of the covering. The initial idea of using corrugated iron sheets was soon discarded because of the problems posed by working at that height, because of the issues involved in fasten64

ing them to the bamboo structure, and because of their weight. Consequently we opted to cover it with plastic sheets.

Finding sheets of plastic was not easy, but in the end we located some in a small shop in the city centre. We then needed to cut them up and insert eyelets to bind them together. After some searching we also found the eyelets and built a makeshift punching machine with scrap taken from a nearby construction site to sink them in.

In the end we managed to ready the sheets (we needed two because there was no single sheet large enough to cover the entire wing). Setting the structure was made difficult both by the height we had to work at and by the wind that often blew off unfastened sections. The final overall appearance is a bit unsettling because it looks like a sail and it is not easy to determine if the structure will hold up to strong gusts of wind. Next came the window. A first test with slightly green latticework failed to convince me and so we decided to use bamboo for the moveable sections as well. In the end we made it out of small pieces of bamboo that were stringed together and even the hinges were made out of heat moulded bamboo. The final result was quite pleasing, even elegant if you like. We then tackled our last task: building a wall with the crude bricks that had been made before our arrival and that were now dry enough. We again went through the ritual preparation of the clay mortar and relative mud bath and, with the help of a set of templates, managed to build a rather straight and solid section of wall. And so after dealing with various issues our stay came to an end. I have to add that on some days the students of KIST showed up to give us a hand with the construction effort.

We only kept one Saturday to ourselves to visit the king’s hut in Nyanza which is a reconstruction of the real hut but still demonstrates the exceptional skills involved in the use of local materials and the truly impressive rituality of its ceremonies and way of life. Sadly we were only able to see the city on occasion of our search for materials and equipment, and during a brief visit to the marketplace. Westerners have a hard time comprehending it because to The Rwanda Pavilion: banano, bamboo and wood of coffee

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our eyes it looks more like a conglomeration of low density villages except for the central area that has shops and offices. The experience we and the students gained on this construction project was very important in terms of grasping design issues in a place where the logic behind work and production is so different to ours.

In the future, the experimental platform set up in the San Marco centre can and must become a place where technologies can be tested and for projects that can lay out the path for local intervention methods. This is a major tool that can be used both to guide preparatory work that can be carried out in Italy and to further increase the involvement of the students of Rwanda and of the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). This involvement is deemed necessary in the design stage as well as during the construction stage.

It would be great, and maybe not all that impossible, to set up a few Iuav scholarships for KIST students.

Maria Rosa Vittadini Iuav Professor I saw the structure for the first time on a 1:1 scale in Venice, with the Giudecca canal and the red bricks of the Stuchy Mill in the background. The shape was strange and beautiful, similar to a light insect ready to unfold its wings. Technical explanations followed. I really liked the idea of building bamboo structures with walls made out of crude earth, employing traditional materials along with discarded materials such as banana leaves or very hard coffee wood. This was enough to convince me to join the group that was leaving for Kigali without even having a specific task other than that of focusing my urban planner’s point of view on the land and the changes that are swiftly transforming the character of settlements. I had no great expectations other than to observe and

seize the signs and opportunities to do something useful. Maybe find some criteria to better localise Iuav’s future initiatives, such as the design of the integrated education centre provided with housing and technical education laboratories that is scheduled for September. Looking at things in Kigali was a completely different and surprising matter.

First of all the landscape, completely alien to my notion of Africa, is a series of rolling hills and water-filled valley floors that are sometimes swampy. The dirt roads are fiery red paths that cut through green hills that are always farmed in small, well tended plots of land.

Hedges that have been set up to prevent erosion draw neat geometries with their varying curvatures and levels. Life in the San Marco village, which is perhaps too much of a European oasis, was different. However the efficient toilets, the good food and functional mosquito nets allowed us to leave our worries behind and focus on several construction issues, on our work and on getting to know the magnificent craftswomen and their beautiful jewellery items made out of intertwined vegetable fibres, the tailors of the training school, and the KIST engineering students that joined us in the making of crude earth bricks and helped to set up the walls. But most of all this is where we met the marvellous children, both the ones dressed in blue and yellow elementary school uniforms and the poorer ones, without uniform, who immediately learned our names and had fun calling us from outside the walls, probably wondering what we were up to.

Then there is Kigali: vast and dispersive, with occasional masses of glass buildings that are the offices of multinational companies from all over, neighbourhoods with beautiful and luxurious homes locked behind the The Rwanda Pavilion: banano, bamboo and wood of coffee

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safety of tall walls, but a lack of common areas and public meeting points. It is a city where the very poor outskirts are steadily driven further away by urban change, which makes it increasingly difficult to reach essential services such as water, schools and marketplaces. Perhaps there are forms of rational urbanisation, but they are more reminiscent of post-earthquake emergency areas than of the nucleus of new villages that are being set up.

This urbanisation involves major distances that have to be covered on foot or, if one has the money, by taking public service minibuses or riding with bike and motorcycle cab drivers. There are swarms of minibuses and private motorcycle cabs in this country where cars are mostly owned by the rich, but the first signs of traffic are emerging and large amounts of space and resources are already being allocated to the highway system. Maybe it is the right time to think about public transport as a tool that can be used to organise urban growth before running into the traffic problems that are so widespread in European cities.

Some mention must also be made of the ‘Maison du Roi’ in Nyanza, the complex of round huts where the king, his relatives and officers resided and held relations with the people. An extraordinary complex, where the internal and external spaces are full of meaning.

Each opening, each delimitation plays a role in the symbolic representation of the social structure and of the daily life led by the king and by his people. Each fence, each hut is a fragile masterpiece of shapes, woven textiles, intelligence and craftsmanship.

From this point of view the royal palace that was “donated” by the Belgians is impoverishing: the Liberty style pleasant to our European eyes totally annihilates the meaning of space

according to Rwanda’s codes! I would like to use it as an inspiration for Iuav‘s upcoming project proposals: if the creation of new settlements represents in any case a vital necessity for a country that has such a high demographic growth rate as Rwanda, then we have to find the way to design on location, involving the local people and becoming intimate with their lifestyle, encouraging social relations and gaining a feel for their vital space. Which is what even the admirable UNICEF officers who tend to the school construction programmes implicitly suggested we should do. A lot harder to achieve, but definitely more useful and interesting!

Julijana Kaftanic Designer You can gather information, study, read up on all sorts of things before setting off on a long journey, but inevitably you’ll always be swept off your feet by what you discover once you’re there. That’s exactly what happened to me during this workshop in Rwanda. Already on the flight from Addis Abeba to Kigali, site of the Atelier Rwanda workshop, I was struck by two strong images: the immense glitter of tin roofs which, hit by sunlight, looked like a vast expanse of small mirrors and the suffused light glowing down, enveloping Rwanda’s green hills, and making the landscape appear soft and toned-down.

I left for Rwanda at the beginning of July, together with the students of the workshop’s last group. As soon as we landed, despite being worn-out after travelling for many hours, we headed to the San Marco Centre where we were welcomed by the students of the previous shift. Even before putting our suitcases down we immediately went to see the bamboo structure which proudly sits among and overlooks the red brick buildings.

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The next day we all took stock of the situation together. We gathered the experiences of the students who have already been here for two months and we looked forward to set to work, full of ideas and enthusiasm. We immediately drew up a draft programme: the architecture students would continue working to finish the bamboo structure, learning and experimenting with the unfired clay construction technique, while design students would set to work with textiles and weaving natural fibers. This latter project will be aimed mainly at the local tourist market and is born from the observation of retail outlets, types of objects, techniques and materials available to local craftsmen. We will also try to understand how to boost local textile production, which is currently mainly based on imports.

Over the next few days we started experimenting with textile dyes, using local plants to obtain hues that are typical of the Rwandan landscape.

In order to do that, Maya and Eugenia gathered the plants they found nearby, to steep them and then boil the cloths in large aluminum pots.

Matteo, Luca and Davide instead worked on the bamboo building structure, and turned over the covering wing to lay a tarpaulin on it.

The construction team, led by Davide, dug out, sifted and prepared the soil to make the adobe bricks. At the end of the day, after the excellent meal made by Samuel, our cook, we usually play cards or Igizoro, a typical Rwandan game, we drink a few beers, we have a chat and a few laughs.

Over the following days the work proceeded busily and the groups often mingled – some designers decided to join the architects’ group, and vice versa. Days go fast and after one week we realised that working rhythms here are quite different from the ones we are used to, but we have cheerfully adapted. By now we all know the local markets where we source the materials we need for our research and work: Kimironko, Kabuka, Kumurindi. We travel by mototaxi, and bargain the fare and the price each time, a practice which is used here practically for everything and every price. In the last week we have finished work on the structure, we have

finished the wall with the “torchis” cob technique and we have covered the structure wing with the tarpaulin to protect it from rains and weather. We have made the samples of the adobe bricks, after mixing them with various types of plant fibers to test their resistance and improve their features. We have dryed the first samples of textiles with local plants and we have made the wood blocks for decorating the walls.

All results are shared and everyone is overjoyed when we realise that the bricks turn out fine, the textiles take on the desired hues and the woodblocks work perfectly.

This first period has served the purpose of making us understand that clay construction in Rwanda is synonymous of poverty and consequently it is a construction technique rejected by the local population, who can now afford buying concrete or bricks. We have then decided to devise different finishes and wall decorations, seeking to give clay construction a new look and thus improve local appreciation of this ancient construction technique. The internal walls will be decorated using the imigongo local technique, which uses a cow dung and ash mixture to create a relief, geometric pattern decoration which is then painted. External walls will be decorated by pressing the plaster with the woodblocks we made, inspired by the imigongo patterns. One week after our arrival the students who arrived here before us had to go back home. Everyone was getting emotional when it was time to say goodbye: they would have liked to stay, while the local craftswomen and the cooks that worked with them were tearful. I sympathise with them, we have only been here a few days and we have already grown fond of it all too. Rwanda is already getting under our skin, with its ever-smiling and kind people, with its verdant and rolling hills, its patches of bright red soil, the silver eucalyptus leaves and banana trees everywhere. I am sure that this workshop will be an unforgettable personal experience for all of us and it is my wish that our research work will contribute to stimulating interest in the 2011 workshop by future participants. “Murabeho, tuzabonana Umawaka utaha”, goodbye, see you next year.

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San Marino, 2008

Banano panel

Iuav Professor Matteo Borghi

The first workshop that was carried out in September of 2008 in San Marino concerning the ‘Use of banano leaves for various items and construction components’ represents the first stage of research into the relatively unexplored potential of this material. Matteo Borghi and his students sought to increase their knowledge of this plant by focusing their work on a design that would truly exploit its physical and technical characteristics, laying the initial foundations and the first ideas for research that were later developed in Rwanda.

The information we collected tells us how this plant, which is rather similar to palm trees, in truth is a herbaceous plant with a stem that measures 10 to 25 cm in diameter and that reaches a height of 12 metres. It lacks the consistency of wood and is surrounded by tightly bound leaves that are wrapped around each other. The stem is so soft that it can be easily cut with a knife. It has fragile leaves that are 30 to 60 cm wide and up to 3 metres long, with central ribbings of various sizes. Bananas grow in bunches that weigh up to 60 kilos.

The question is, how can such a soft and meaty ‘blade of leaf’ actually bear such loads and encumbrances? In its simplicity, Nature is in truth incredibly complex and hides many secrets and mysteries that translate into efficient materials and incredible performances. By overlaying fibres, membranes, and any material in general, we can distribute forces and achieve stable equilibriums. Every student studied this fascinating material to develop a particular use that went beyond the woven banana leaf items made by skilled craftsmen and sold on many market stalls. The projects are the result of simple manual experiments and their relative findings that were used as the starting point for more detailed research.

The research carried out by Eugenia Morpurgo developed along the lines of these proposals and formed part of the dissertation of her three year university degree course. The study revolves around the particular cross section of the leaf stalk which, once dried out and

Iuav Tutor Luca Morganti Students Giulia Balzi, Nicolas Battistini, Luca Buggin, Marianna Calcagna, Silvia Camboni, Riccardo D’Amato, Alessandro Facchin, Federico Ghignoni, Pamela Manieri, Francesca Merciari, Eugenia Morpurgo, Nicole Santini, Silvia Orsetta Rocchetto, Michele Rocco, Nicole Santini, Licia Sanges, Francesca Valerio, Enrico Zuccarello

Iuav Degree in Industrial Design, 2009 Graduation Thesis for Academic Year 2008/2009 Student Eugenia Morpurgo

Rwanda, 2009 Professors Leoplold Mbereyaho, Gaddo Morpurgo, Joseph Ruhumuliza, Frédéric Vagenheim, Marco Zito Iuav Tutor Mauro Paialunga Students Antonio Colomboni, Gratin Habarlirema, Thierry Iraguaha Matteo Mazzero, Eugenia Morpurgo, Edmond Ndahayo, Augustin Ives Nzabondora, Emmanuel Rukundo, Cristian Tittoto, Seth Uwimana

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cut into equally sized sections that are characterised by a spongy and low density structure, allows us to create the core of a double panel that has load bearing capabilities as well thermal and acoustical insulation properties. The bark of the plant, which is characterised by a unidirectional fibre and is highly water repellent, overlays its fibres orthogonally compared to the smaller internal section, which makes the panel resistant to the forces of traction and torsion. Our efforts gave birth to MUSA®, a thermal insulation panel made of out of banan0 fibre that is designed for manufacture and use in all tropical areas and to offer interested technicians an environmentally friendly and low cost viable alternative to imported synthetic insulation materials.

The banano panel was created as part of the Atelier Rwanda . Laboratoire de recherche et de projets d’innovation de design en Afr ique project during the workshop that was held in Rwanda in September of 2009. Testing, which is ongoing, highlighted issues that are currently being solved and studied by research groups working for Rwanda’s KIST University and Italy’s Iuav University on various fronts: - Identification of the organic products that are most suitable for fireproofing applications and to protect against insects present in banana fibres; - Identification of the organic products that are most suitable for use as adhesive in the creation of banana fibre components; - Rationalisation and semi-industrialisation of banana components; - Static tests and identification of the types of component arrangements for the creation of infill panels.

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Iuav Master Degree in Product Design, 2010

Bamboo Pavilions

Iuav Professors Filippo Mastinu, Gaddo Morpurgo Students Alessio Abdolahian, Nadia Andreatta, Elisa Argenta, Isabella Balzano, Sara Bertoldo, Wang Bin, Elia Borgato, Sara Breda, Gaetano Bruno, Luca Buggin, Enrico Carboni, Davide Carlet, Federica Carlet, Stefano Castegnaro, Riccardo Cendron, Silvia Collino, Cristina De Pascale, Martina Facci, Paola Garatto, Silvia Gasparotto, Maja Jovanovic, Anna Maria Laterza, Chen Lei, Chiara Mari, Dario Martini, Caterina Marzolla, Matteo Mazzero, Idoia Mendiola, David Montenegro, Fabrizia Parisi, Giuseppa Passamonte, Arianna Picco, Valeria Refratti, Nicholas Restivo, Irina Righes, Gloria Segantini, Alessandro Squatrito, Maria Antonella Stagno, Jacopo Stefan, Liu Xiaying, Zhao Yunyan, Elisa Zago, Moreno Zandonà

The structure that was created in Rwanda is an effort that summarises the path followed by the ‘Laboratorio di design del prodotto 8’ (Product design laboratory 8) held in Venice by professors Gaddo Morpurgo and Filippo Mastinu in 2010.

The students adopted both a theoretical and a practical approach to vegetable fibres, studying bamboo and its mechanical properties. The body of work produced by the students came in the form of five pavilions, the final proposal for the second series of workshops carried out as part of the Atelier Rwanda project.

Workshop/Construction site The construction site, which deals with the processing of vegetable fibres, is a modular structure with a main inner hall and two external areas. Illumination inside is zenithal, coming through the rainwater collection point.

The structure of the roof comprises a variable height reticular beam made out of bamboo that measures approximately 12 metres in length.

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Bamboo Pavilions

Bamboo Pavilions

School area The roof is made in part of taut modular sheets cut up into independent sections and in part of an internal covering in banano material that insulates the building and regulates the passage of (zenithal) light. The two coverings, which are superimposed and separate, allow a natural convection effect that cools the halls. The upper roof, which provides zenithal illumination to the rooms, right in the middle, includes a transparent panel made out of cloth that not only allows the passage of light but also serves to channel water and allows instant checking of the state of cleanliness of the roof. The internal distribution of rooms is achieved by setting up fixed walls made out of banano bricks and moveable walls that allow the internal areas to be changed around.

Services/bar The building is a square modular structure that covers 81 square metres and is based on two types of beams. They support the roof which uses a ‘cascade effect’ to collect water in the centre before it is distributed to public facilities or in the refreshment area. The covering is made out of modules that simplify assembly and maintenance. The central sheets can be made transparent to exploit sunlight. A number of structures can be joined together by setting up adjoining external covered areas.

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Bamboo Pavilions

Bamboo Pavilions

Common open space A recreational area where people can gather together for celebrations. A large roof under which to share stories and experiences. This particular structure was designed to meet the need of adding an external covered area to the San Marco centre for use during social and convivial events. It is typified by a highly modular structure and great flexibility of use. It is made up of two main sections which comprise the overall load bearing structure, and threepronged frames to support the covering.

Common area The name of the structure, ‘big leaf’, is in itself a description of our creation. Inspired by nature, we sought to design a very flexible and organic structure to offer shelter from the sun and rain and harness their energy as a fundamental source, and discovered the world of leaves. The shape of every leaf represents a sophisticated design which plants developed to allow the process of photosynthesis. There is no apparent end to the variety of formal configurations that can be adopted by leaves, according to their family, shape, colour and consistency. We started work by looking into the various configurations that can be set up to meet the various kinds of human needs, without forgetting that we are working for Rwanda, a developing country. The shape we focused our efforts on The Rwanda Pavilion: banano, bamboo and wood of coffee

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had to be very organic and essential as well as light, flexible and resistant, so we chose bamboo, a versatile material taken from nature, as the construction material. The end result represents our responsible approach to the values of innovation, joined by the economy and functionality offered by nature.

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Screws made out of coffee wood The by now unavoidable need to avoid any form of waste, whether of energy or of materials, allows us to grasp the extraordinary potential inherent to the recovery and exploitation of the wood of coffee plants, which today is first discarded on location and later set on fire, adding to the production of carbon dioxide (CO2) without being recycled.

The current processing cycle for coffee plants has always and only focused on the coffee beans, but the sustainment of the environment and of the life forms therein imposes the need to avoid any waste and to analyse the coffee plant crop cycle as a whole.

Research into the exploitation of coffee wood is based on its physical and morphological characteristics to turn it into a range of different products. According to this approach, the ClasDIP laboratory UNIT 8 held by Gaddo Morpurgo and Filippo Mastinu in 2010 develops one of the concepts surrounding the application of techniques relative to the use of coffee wood in the manufacturing of finished and auxiliary structural components. Students tackled this field of research by making screws and “hardware” out of coffee, structural elements that are truly innovative and wholly experimental, to include in the overall plan of the structure made out of banana and bamboo materials. As a consequence the Country’s natural resources play a prominent role during the opening stages of the project, but the underlying idea is first and foremost to involve the local human resources.

These activities also see the involvement of parties who will later be able to contribute to the improvement of the environment and their living conditions by gaining a revenue from what is currently being ignored and discarded.

There still is the need to increase attention and knowledge in the areas where coffee is actually grown, and develop the right pruning methods in order to grow plants that are more suitable for later production needs. A new challenge for Atelier Rwanda and its human re-

sources, whose search for new production forms and techniques will help to kick-start the local economy, creating a structure of specialised workers that will emerge, and thus contribute to the spread of the crafts in Rwanda.

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Iuav Degree in Industrial Design, 2010 Iuav Professor Marco Zito Assistant Julijana Kaftanic Students Gioele Antonello, Milo Baù, Christia Bergamini, Daniela Bientinesi, Cesare Bizzotto, Edoardo Boato, Marco Bolis, Aaron Borin, Gionata Brizzi, Margherita Brunelli, Marco Canal, Stefano Carniel, Marco Carnelos, Alberto Cavallin, Laura Cavasin, Riccardo Cecchinato, Luca Cicchelero, Giulio Colla, Kim Costantino, Irene Costariol, Laura Dal Bò, Luca De Lorenzi, Luigi De Sica, Margherita Donà, Elena Facchin, Giorgio Fanecco, Ketty Faoro, Tommaso Fido, Sara Folegotto, Adelaide Imperato, Andrea Lacchin, Anna Lanaro, Alice Longo, Andrea Marchi, Lara Maschio, Pietro Mazzucato, Giulia Mellon, Vania Minotto, Matteo Messinese, Laura Moras, Roberta Olivo, Marco Paquola, Matteo Possamai, Irene Ranzato, Massimo Romagnolo, Francesca Rossetto, Andrea Tiozzo, Serena Trevisiol, Tommaso Tronchin, Mattia Ventura, Giulia Vetri, Roberta Zamuner, Alessandro Zatta, Alvise Zennaro, Tommaso Zennaro

Kigali coffee - Made with love The coffee crop is cut, for productive reasons, every three or four years, we were not aware of this. The wood of coffee plants (Coffea Arabica) is a fascinating material that could be employed in the creative process of product design. It is compact, has a high specific weight, can be finely woven, is malleable like beech, is light straw-yellow in colour, and is odourless.

Its only defect is its limited trunk size, which reaches a maximum diameter of 8 centimetres, a stimulating challenge for our project. What is the sense of burning it? A range of products, made with low technological investments, dedicated to the consumption and promotion of the varieties of Rwanda’s coffee.

The trunk segments have been turned into cups, plates, teaspoons, coffee grounders and coffee machines. A small set, part of a promotional message that can be sent by mail, comprising ground coffee, four small paper cups, and of course four teaspoons made out of coffee wood. This project speaks about the place, its traditions and crafts, and is a design project carried out by intelligent students who transformed waste into opportunity.

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YEGO!

YEGO! A Rwandan Story Leandro Lisboa When I was asked to document a design and architecture project I really didn’t know what to expect in Rwanda. I had some ideas but I wanted the Country to tell me about itself rather than relying on my preconceptions.

And so I left Italy with a single aim, to film the Atelier Rwanda project, a collaboration in the fields of design and architecture between two universities, the Iuav in Venice and the KIST in Kigali. But of course I decided to go beyond that and try to understand a little more about this small country in the heart of Africa.

Rwanda is located between Congo, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi. It seemed strange to me that there could be such a small country in the middle of such large ones… just take a look at Congo and you’ll see what I mean!

And added to its small size the entire population is squashed into an area of just 26 square miles making it one of the 30 most densely populated countries on earth with almost 400 inhabitants per square km. Apart from in the Akagera park I don’t think I ever went more than a minute without seeing someone. Believe me this is quite a feat wherever you may be!

Despite the fact that Rwanda is very close to the Equator the climate is pleasant with temperatures between 18° and 20°C all year. There are two seasons, the rainy season and the harvest. This temperate climate is a result both of the landscape and the altitude which averages 1500 to 2500m above sea level. This is also why Rwanda is called the “Country of a thousand hills”, an appropriate name as almost everywhere there are hills as far as the eye can see. Rwanda’s climate gives life to its greatest economic asset, agriculture, which employs 90% of the workforce.

Everywhere we went we found large, medium and small plantations of sorghum, beans, sweet potatoes, cassava, tea, coffee, banano and bamboo.

Coffee wood, banano leaves and bamboo. These are the materials – so common in Rwanda – that form the basis of the Atelier Rwanda project at the Centre San Marco. The Centre San Marco is run by the Kigali Soroptimist Club which provides training and encouragement for women with lessons in IT and sewing as well as a school. More than 80% of the Rwandan population still live in rural areas and so while the centre was being built I decided to go out of Kigali to get to know the country better. I wanted to see the people, I wanted to see how they lived and the real situation in the villages.

I travelled a lot, going north to Giseny, west to Kibuye, south to Butare and east to Kibungo.

I was fascinated by the Batwa, the first inhabitants in Rwanda who today account for just 2% of the population. They still use the traditional ceramic-making crafts and techniques which have almost vanished as a result of globalization and the mass importation of products from Europe and Asia.

They are lovely, joyful people and they gave us a wonderful welcome.

Despite being a small country, Rwandan offers many different kinds of nature, depending on where you go. I wasn’t able to see the gorillas on the border with Congo and Uganda but I was in any case struck by the beauty of the countryside and animals that live in Lake Kivu in the west and in the Akagera Park on the opposite side. Lake Kivu is very large and sits at 2000m The Rwanda Pavilion: banano, bamboo and wood of coffee

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above sea level on the border between Rwanda and Congo. The lake provides large quantities of small fish which are either dried or fried and eaten.

Travelling in the islands I had a strange experience as I came across a large colony of bats. The Akagera Park is on the other side of Rwanda and borders with Tanzania. The region is exactly what I imagined when I thought of Africa with its rolling plains and wild animals.

As part of Atelier Rwanda there is a project for the creation of jewellery made from natural fibres. This is the result of a workshop where Italian and Rwandan students as well as local artisans came together to use traditional techniques. In the past the houses in the east of Rwanda were completely decorated using an ancient indigenous technique called Imigongo.

Sadly today only a handful of artisans still know this technique and it is really only used to make pictures for decoration. Imigongo involves the use of earth and cow dung to make patterns which, once dry, are painted creating beautiful, original geometric figures.

The isoko, the Ikinyarwandan word for market, is the place where people come together. The markets provide everything that the people need such as fruit, grain, flour, animals, fabric for making clothes and other knick-knacks. It is a wonderful mixture of colours which make the simple products on offer incredibly inviting.

At the Centre San Marco the day has come to put together the bamboo structure with coffee wood inserts. This frame is the conclusion of the first in a series of workshops. In the next phases students and professors from both universities will continue to perform research and come up with ideas so as to complete what is in fact an experimental laboratory.

I went to see a game of football with the Rwandan national team. Despite having no real footballing tradition it was interesting to witness the passion that the people have for football. They just have a good time and maybe that’s what matters most to them. Right now the World Cup is starting in South Africa and even in Rwanda the effects can be felt. It was wonderful to see how passionately they supported the other African nations. As a brazilian I can’t see myself supporting Argentina...

The work at the Centre San Marco has moved on to a new phase where they are experimenting with mud bricks for construction. A number of other solutions have also been tried using natural fibres. In this way the Atelier Rwanda Project continues its work through experimentation and research into new types of houses and local materials. I was really enjoying an ancient Rwandan game called Igisoro. I had the idea of taking it with a friend of mine and playing with the people we met so as to get to know them better. The origins of the game go back to pre-colonial times and still today it’s played to pass the time among friends. The aim of the game is to use a number of strategies to get as many balls from your opponent. - These small balls called ‘Inkas’ mean cows. Cows are sacred in Rwanda and in the past were used to represent a person’s wealth.

I compare this moment to the Atelier Rwanda Project in which we try to understand the local culture and work with the local people following their rules. In the end it is not who wins that matters but the benefits we get from this shared experience. Everywhere we go we are called “Umuzungo”.

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It means white man and we are a huge attraction, especially for the children.

Rwanda is still trying to heal the wounds of the past. This is a young Country trying to raise itself up with dignity and hard work. But there is still a great deal to be done…

I come to understand that there is a missing generation here which, together with globalisation is why old traditions are being lost. The people are in love with everything foreign and these external influences are damaging local traditions in music, crafts and general daily life. In my opinion the strength of this country will depend on how it manages to look to the future without forgetting its own culture.

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Women call for women

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Francis Diébédo Kéré’s Project for a Women’s Centre in Gando (Burkina Faso) Esther Giani The main reason behind the work of a person from Burkina Faso is to help his people to feel better. To live better. To study. To work. To be free of the limitations imposed by an apparently hostile environment. Kéré proposes forms of architecture that join passive techniques used to control the environment with the use of local materials; not a vernacular or naive architecture, which is only sustainable in a true Africa. And modern. New. For Africa. Within the economic range of its people. An architecture for its people.

Insofar as the descendant of a r ural Af r ican communit y whose population is more than 80% illiterate, and being lucky enough to have had the chance to study in Europe, I deem it my dut y to use my skills and what I have lear nt to benefit the people of my home countr y. (Diébédo Francis Kéré) In my first school in Gando (1998), I taught the local people how to refine clay, how to combine it with other local mater ials, and how certain adjustments help to improve its per for mance levels. By working on the constr uction, the men of the village not only built the ver y first elementar y school of our village, but also acquired a technique. Today those same men are employed as workers and are specialising in specific techniques, providing to the sustenance of their families and contr ibuting to the wellbeing of the village itself. (Diébédo Francis Kéré) Time proved this enterprising young man right: architect, teacher, Argonaut, African, black, full of enthusiasm and rich with an ancient knowledge that is only awaiting to be updated through his architectures for Africa and its people. In time the village school grew larger (2008) and added housing accommodations for teachers (2001) and a doctor’s office.

Now it is time for a Women’s Centre (2010). This is a simple project that was born under a tree. The tree. The place where some women gather together to support each other, help each other out, teach and learn from one another. To face together a life that can be rough should you be a widow, sick, disabled, nubile, and even worse if you long for independence. With The Women’s Centre is a women’s project for women, Kéré shielded his person and stateed that he ‘did nothing more’ than trace an outline on paper.

But then he developed an effective technology capable of conjugating climate mitigation with an exquisitely feminine functionality.

A body hovering above the earth, which bends out of shape to give room to the large tree, which rises like a solid mass to defend the training of women, with a gently shaped opening which allows soft light to pass but not perplexed stares (from the outside!). A place whose interior offers the reassuring security of tradition with its ample court, cluttered with common tools and objects, large terracotta vases waiting to be filled while displaying their empty mouths to the women who know (because it is they who will build it, since they have already carried out the first tests), the women who know that the jars they made are literally immersed in the massive wall in crude earth (pisè) which keeps them safe and which, together with the overlaid covering, will offer pleasantly cool air throughout the entire day. Today Women call for women

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90 women are meeting under that tree, and if only there was a safe and exclusive place to furnish, between 150 to 1200 women would show up within a year. 1200 women capable of drafting a project that would grant them access to microcredit; 1200 women capable of supporting themselves, of looking after their children; 1200 women free to live in Africa, their Africa. Maybe this is the most poetic of our projects and the one that best represents the concept of integrated architecture (integrated with techniques, with functions, with traditions, with constructability, with maintenance, with management, with costs) so often invoked in our practices.

In other words the Women’s Centre is nothing more than a sustainable project. “The project is here, we only need to polish it off, but in Africa we work by successive approximations. And above all in situ. Now we only havr to raise the necessary funds. We are also here to spread knowledge of this reality, of this project. What better chance than that offered by the Biennale Architecture meets people event and by an exhibit sponsored and carried out in partnership with one of the world’s most important female associations? We’re fortunate! Then maybe the students will be able to come along to lend a hand. They learn, we learn. Who they are and who we are is up to you”.

For their friendship, for their cooperation and their optimistic enthusiasm, for the materials displayed and collected in this publication we would like to thank Francis Kéré, Claudia Buhmann (head of the Kéré studio), and Dagmar Hoetzel (video interview).

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Material culture in African tradition Esther Giani The African works of art on display in the Rwanda pavilion for the twelfth edition of the Biennale di Architettura di Venezia “are part of a private collection put together in Burkina Faso by a young couple of Italian citizens who reside in Ouagadougou for work reasons. It is the result of a path of initiation to the knowledge of the stylistic aspects of African art that developed between 1968 and the early ‘80s”. These are the opening words of ‘Segni e forme della tradizione africana’ edited by anthropologist Alessandra Cardelli Antinori, a presentation essay of the Antinori collections in Rome, some items of which are on display next to Kéré’s Women’s Centre.

“The selected items share a common geographical and cultural origin, but are also share another social provenance: women. These works of art want to create a connection, like in a philological story, to Diébédo Kéré’s project for the Women’s Centre”. (Alessandra Cardelli) Ethnic works of art, whose value is oftentimes linkable to the domain of rites or in any event to traditional knowledge, gained popularity thanks to 20th Century artists who were however indifferent to or unaware of their original meaning. Naturally today items of African origin can no longer be considered as simple appendages of the avant-garde movement: the anthropological knowledge of this resulted, for example, in the proliferation of ethnographic museums (we will limit our mention to J. Nouvel’s Branly in Paris), especially in those places that have a deep rooted colonial history; but we are also witnessing a reborn or rather a renewed historical and artistic conscience of African artefacts. Galleries and displays of African items are experiencing an intense season, items, artefacts won back the adjective “of art” and are all the rage even in any kind of auction, rightfully earning their own place in the perverted mechanism so typical of western works of art on the basis of which (market) value is directly proportional to the size of the audience in auctions or exhibits and no longer simply related to the (artistic) qualities they represent.

Even Venice did not escape this trend, as demonstrated by the wellknown exhibition of the Peggy Guggenheim’s ethnic art collection (Venice, 2008) that carried a significant name; Ethnopassion. In the opinion of a number of researchers the geographical dimension (the nature of separation) and the mystery of the meaning of these objects are among the reasons which through the centuries drove the pleasure, desire, and passion of collecting them. These researchers made reference to 20th Century collectors, but the history of the Antinori collection, which was first started in Burkina in the 1960s and then constantly and competently enlarged by father and then son, is evidence of the truthfulness of the claim that the proverbial longing for Africa must be intended as all-encompassing.

The choice of providing a few items of African art to the architecture project is justified by the proposed added value of wanting to make these works of art overcome their consolidated status: the simultaneous presence of the cultural value and the aesthetical meaning of the artefacts is perceived as a positive tension with multiple meanings and a complex system of values.

In this exhibit we reintroduce almost all the process of the accepted allocaWomen call for women

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tion of value: from the creator of at least one of the items on display (Francis Kéré, who comes from Burkina Faso just like the works of art), to the collector (Antinori collection), to the (in this case, temporary) end user, in other words those who visit the exhibit. Between the first and the last of these there lies a multiplicity of metamor phic values, and allocation of a sense that is best assessed by the visitor. The model of the Women’s Centre is a scale reproduction of an aspiration that is also a message, the precise meaning of which is given by codified and shared systems of mimesis (and formal analogy in this case). African works of art are instead items that transcend the reproduction of reality because they were conceived as communication tools but assumed a more general meaning. Ownership of these items within village communities guaranteed the presence of a certain type of knowledge.

We are convinced that the Women’s Centre project, in its original form, in the balanced verification of technical and technological performances, in the delicate functional response, in the soft spoken formal attire that characterises it, can be an eminently symbolical testimony, just like the art objects that counterpoint it. Like these small dolls that have been chosen to complete the profile.

The Mossi people of Burkina Faso, just like many other African populations, once made widespread use of wood figures they called biiga (child). Little Mossi girls used to carry the doll on their back, wrapped in cloth just like a real child. Sculpted in wood, of cylindrical shape, sometimes covered in leather, the dolls precisely reproduced, with rigorous stylisation, the most representative aspects of maternity, such as drooping breasts that indicated breast feeding, scarification on the chest (sign of puberty) and on the abdomen, arranged in converging patterns around the belly button in the wake of the first maternity. Arms and legs were never represented, while hairstyles were instead portrayed with great detail and accuracy in the many different regional versions. (Alessandra Cardelli)

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Architecture in Africa and the Iuav University of Venice experience Esther Giani The profiles included below represent a brief summary of the IuavAfrica exhibition and of work experiences in Africa sponsored by the Faculty of Architecture of Venice in recent years. Most of them have to do with internships, although there is one ‘bureaucratic’ exception to the summer workshops: Sara Omassi’s dissertation. Internship is a sine qua non condition for graduation. This activity must be carried out by all students, and is calculated in terms of hours/credits according to the applicable system. Since there is always a risk of misuse, FAR imposed that firms offering internship must be registered with our Institution. Risk avoided, but only in part. Without prejudice to the fact that internships are deemed to be an essential part of training received by student Architects because they offer young students a preview of their future work, sometimes internships do not include practical work because they are only carried out in order to meet ministerial requirements. This is often, but not always, the case. We can proudly state that we were among the first in our Faculty to come up with an alternative answer to mandatory internship: field experiences in Africa capable of combining foreign travel with work experience in a construction site.

“The purpose of internships/study trips to Mali (2009), South Africa (2009/10) and Rwanda (2010) is to offer our students an opportunity to work in the field of sustainable, sponsored and experimental design in the context of intricate and thought-inducing environments”. This is the purpose of all our trips abroad, be they to Africa or to other countries that are equally remote in both geographical and cultural terms. The internships and study trips to Africa opened the way to a new range of subjects that are now available to students, and which now include a greater number of destinations (from the Arizona desert to Vietnam, from Peru to East Europe) and planned projects (from potential construction yard scenarios to the testing of materials and methods that can be applied during our construction efforts). This kind of internship, with workshops dedicated to countries, cultures and practices so different to the personal background of our students, and the dissertations that often spring from these experiences, “mark a sort of rite of passage, a sudden awareness which, because of the unexpected uprooting, propel our young people into a world of knowledge where Architecture plays a true social role, a practical function, and can no longer be traced back to the kind of knowledge based on theory and books which leads to cynical disaffection”. 1 We based all of our experiences and adventures on those who dealt with these ‘tours’ ahead of us so that we could then put together our very own diary. Upon their return from abroad, each student worked on the diary that had accompanied them on their excursion and came up with valuable reports of the experiences gained by these young architects who discovered themselves to be more curious and capable of watching and learning than when they had left. The notebooks offer a renewed awareness that architecture, in its fullest acceptation, in its tectonic-formal expression, in its overall arrangement, in 1Cfr. G. Carnevale, ...tra l’oleandro e il baobab, in E. Giani, edited byi, Tirocinio/viaggio studio in Sudaf r ica, in «Giornale Iuav» n. 77 , Venezia 2010, pag. 24.

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the choice of materials that dictate rules and entail techniques, can represent a functional reply to the needs of man by affording a substantial value to the very notion of Beauty, that of Necessity. And, thus taken, the trip becomes a great teaching moment.

The summer workshops included in the Venice university degree offer the chance for practical composition exercises, experimentation with themes that explore the various dimensions of a project, spacing from the land to the individual artefact; they explore the many different interpretations of architecture, ranging from temporary interventions to urban planning that redesigns the territory. Among the spontaneous characteristics (in the sense that they are not required by the organisation) of the courses held each year by professors over the last nine years, perhaps the most important is the exclusion of experimentation with non-Vitruvian architecture, the casting out of proposals that portray sensationalism and plastic modelling as the main project purpose. At the same time there is a core presence that bases its approach to a project on material culture, on the attention to performance aspects, on the reassessment of adopted practices, on the search of a formal declination of traditional techniques seen through the eyes of current cultural and aesthetic sensitivities. On occasion of the 2009 workshops we wanted to ‘stretch’ this trend a little and so we called in teachers who for one reason or another are linked to the African world, and we were rewarded with the work of Francis Diébédo Francis Kéré (Burkina Faso), Peter Rich (South Africa), Pancho Guedes (Portugal), and Gaddo Morpurgo and Filippo Mastinu (Italy) who, in the company of others, proposed and worked on a non-Eurocentric culture that focused on those countries that apparently lack resources, confirming the expressive potential of techniques that today are somewhat unusual, if not forgotten. These experiences, carried out with the stimulus of ‘in progress’ research, with the assistance of experts, with direct links to the locations, cultures and techniques, and with freedom of action, often times commit our students to their final effort, their dissertation. The training courses, the results of which are collected herein, gave way to a dozen dissertations, some of which have already been successfully discussed, while others are still involved in the research stage. This is perhaps the most important outcome of the fundamental didactical effects of this form of research that sees Iuav involved in Africa. And, “as often happens, we discover that reality is better than we imagined it, that our students, apart from the historical conditions they are immersed in, have generous human resources, that our teachers can rely on a wealth of culture and sensitivity that is still capable of delivering surprises”.2 There is a growing consensus that architecture is not a pre-packaged product and that it includes a global and specific approach to physical space, to its transformation and interpretation; what is not equally obvious is that our science is above all the patrimony of a material culture and therefore subject to the reality of local weather and technology conditions, as well as political and economical ones, which in any event are external to the population itself.

Many examples can be drawn to support and illustrate architectures whose

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technologies derive from the skills and ‘genius loci’ specific to the popular traditions they intend to revive and rationalise. That of modernity at any cost is a very expensive choice, even more so because its social cost, which is often particularly high, is almost never reported in numbers. Of course traditional architecture cannot and must not be considered a ‘deus ex machina’ for the problems that affect our science, but a potential resource, as shown by the work of Hassan Fathy, which is better known (studied, used) by us than in his country of origin, which still considers spectacular Western design as the yardstick of modernity. The diversity of traditional architectures and their relative construction techniques is a guarantee against the cultural imperialism of leading architects and against the return of the standard and ‘passepartout’ rules of the International Style we managed to escape. Pagano himself warned new generations, inviting them to “seek reconciliation with the meaning and use of the ‘genius loci’, without losing sight of the continuity that runs between history, current events and the future”. Among the many examples that can be cited, should there be any need, we can point to Le Corbusier (Les Maisons Murondins, 1940), or to the dry-stone MAS buildings: in effects the Maestro experimented in equal measure with new technologies and with innovative applications for old technologies, teaching us that it is the internal logic of a project that highlights the true requirements, the need to shift towards new technologies and new building logics (and, if we may say so, a different use of materials), rather than the whim of a shape. Fortunately many examples of this newly rediscovered trend can be easily found in Expos, ‘Biennali’, exhibitions, books, reviews, etc.

FAR proved its commitment to this aspiration by validating the experiences we illustrated above, allowing us to collect the results that were gained from time to time in the ‘Giornale Iuav’ (No. 74/2009 on Mali, No. 77/2010 on South Africa), sponsoring the IuavAfrica event by making Warehouse 6 areas available around the clock, and contributing to this catalogue so that the written word may regain the value of holder of truth and the task of promoting curiosity.

To conclude my contribution to the catalogue, and because of the intricacy of the organisation and the ambition of research that is still in progress, I cannot fail to thank all of those who contributed to any and all of the activities carried out to date, from the students to the teachers, from the researchers to the assistants, from the technical and administrative staff to the institutions and associations that helped to make it happen. My heartfelt thanks go to the dean, Giancarlo Carnevale, for his generous and unconditional support; to Gaddo Morpurgo, inventor/promoter/curator of the Atelier Rwanda initiative that drives this effort, who with his passionate allowed for a momentary, though very virtuous and prolific, reunion of two Iuav faculties; to the Rwanda Pavilion that interested us all; to Francis Kéré who allowed us to publish an unknown project; to Giovanni Vio and Elisa Dainese who helped to coordinate contributions from South Africa and Mali; to Alessandra Cardelli and the Antinori family for their philological considerations and the generous loan of certain items of the collection.

And to Giovanni for his infinite patience.

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Iuav Degree in Building Technology

Environmentally friendly technologies and tradition in the land of the Masai lt of a real need to preserve the construction traditions of the Masai people. This is because they risk being replaced by western construction systems based on the use of prefabricated concrete blocks that are spreading in the land of the Masai because of the greater curability of these technologies compared to the local traditional ones that use crude earth applied to wood frames. The use of small concrete blocks does not allow the replication of the traditional shape of local dwellings and is therefore placing at risk technical know-how and an entire culture characterised by a strictly oral tradition.

The aim of our work was to study traditional techniques, identify their weak spots and point out methods for technological improvement that make exclusive use of local materials that are typical of the Masai material culture.

The analysis, which was also carried out with the help of finite element models, highlighted that structures have in essence two weak points: the first concerns the wooden latticework that comprises the load bearing structure of the dwelling, and the second concerns the crude earth material which leans towards excessive crackling and poses a problem during the rainy season because of water infiltrations.

Proposals to improve the situation covered two areas: for the structure, we proposed to strengthen the main pillar in order to prevent it from bending and water from stagnating on the covering; for the material, once the final-year university student returned to Venice we carried out compression tests, varying the concentration of the various components of the traditional mix. The tests showed that by increasing the percentage of ash in the earth mix to 10% there was a drop in crackling and the material’s resistance to compression doubled.

It is worth noting that with an ash percentage equal to 20% resistance to compression was lower and similar to that obtained with a 5% ash percentage in the earth mix (which was

Degree in Sustainable Architecture Graduation thesis for Academic Year 2005/2006 Supervisors Umberto Barbisan, Mauro Bertagnin Co-examiners M. Guardini, M. Lazzarini, P. Mgeni Final-year university student Anna Toso Academic Year 2005/2006 Topic Construction in clay academic

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also taken back to Venice!). Presently architect Toso and co-examiner Mgeni are offering on location these potential technological improvements to tradition and providing interesting results to the younger generations of the Masai people.

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Iuav Degree in Sustainable Architecture

L’hOMme Est LA The title of the dissertation draws its name, and meaning, from the place where the project is being carried out, the city of Lomela which, according to a popular legend, makes reference to an exclamation made by the Belgian colonisers when they caught sight of the first village on the river: l’homme est lá! We are in the province of eastern Kasai, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the largest state in Africa that is rich with natural resources (the Congo river feeds three dams that provide hydroelectric power to all the states lying on the shores of the Mediterranean; there are diamond, gold, copper, coltran, uranium and cobalt mines to name a few) and is home to a large variety of ecosystems (equatorial forest, tropical savannah, mountainous plateaus and coastal swamps). But on the other hand Congo is very poor in terms of infrastructures (only 10% of the country is served by road, railroad or aeroplane infrastructures), 75% of the population is living on less than $2 a day, and less than 40% of these people have access to drinkable water.

Our student, whose personal history includes a project sponsored by the NGO ‘Architettura senza frontiere’, made a long trek to Lomela to provide us with observations that turned out to be extremely valuable in the drafting of the architecture project. The subject of the dissertation derives from a request

by NGO ‘Développement Intégral du Paysan’ (the local counterparty) to build a training centre (sewing classes, carpentry) and some accommodation for teachers. Her adventure soon switched from exploration to training, and can be seen through the emotional and sharp pictures she took and filed away to create a knowledge base for the project. From the identification of types to their variations and subsequent strategy of arrangement we can infer the direct and close relationship with the places, traditions and practices of the people addressed by the project. Her research was expanded and put into focus, once back in Venice, with the support of the laboratory teacher and thanks to the precious advice offered by professor Lan-

Graduation thesis for Academic Year 2009/2010 Supervisors Davide Balbo, Esther Giani Co-examiners Franco Laner, Fabio Peron, Gianna Riva Final-year university student Sara Omassi Topic Professional training school in Congo

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er. Her starting point was given by material and techniques: by making them her own she was able to better interpret housing and collective types which, in a country such as Africa, do not necessarily translate into enclosed volumes. Her choice of the butabau technique for the load bearing structure (perimeter walls with wood poles joined by horizontal slats of bamboo which create a hollow space filled out with balls of compacted earth and later covered with earth mortar, in turn protected by wide coverings), is dictated on the one hand by tradition and on the other by the principle of self-construction. This technique characterises temporary housing (S, M and L for teachers and XL for the caretaker and his family) fitted with a rainwater collection system that channels excess tank capacity towards water wells used for agriculture and towards water sterilisation systems.

The classrooms, whose only crude earth walls protect the storage rooms that hold materials and equipment, can be changed around thanks to the bamboo framework that can be placed and removed at will and which is protected against the sun and rain thanks to filters made out of vegetable fibres. The coverings offer a new interpretation of the traditional truss by taking advantage of Leonardo’s rule for bridges (the covered opening measures up to 6 metres and allows for an external drop of another 80 centimetres to protect the walls made out of crude earth and comprises the supporting structure for the eaves and the pivoting bamboo walls. Each structural element was conceived according to the principle of tolerance in order to adjust to local conditions: not standardised industrial materials, but ‘unique’ items drawn from the nearby forest.

After having tacked the school and accommodations, she moved on to the study of socialisation types: simple shelters, open air classrooms, market points, mess hall: the circular base dictated its rules and the largest variation was achieved with the help of a technique imported from neighbouring countries: twin roof, polygonal covering with supports exclusively along the perimeter, which remains upright thanks to a system of beams that interIuavAfrica

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sect and support each other. This construction model entailed a hole in the middle of the covering that is left open to keep sight of the sky and the elements that populate it, a tangible manifestation of the presence of their ancestors, according to the indigenous animist religious traditions. The compositional strategy is simple but in harmony with local habits, classes on one side and teacher accommodations on the other with the common mess hall, a system of gardens following the wings, all of which is shielded by a semi-transparent bamboo latticework that delimits a boundary without preventing the view of activities of a small community made independent by detailed and efficient impor ted systems.

The examination board praised her project for being so gracefully inter and multidisciplinary and for its attention, observation and interpretation of the genius loci, which provides its true interpretation.

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Iuav Master Degree in Product Design

Sharing Design, Updating Rwanda’s crafts This research dissertation focuses on Design’s strategic role in determining internationalisation actions and activities. Such actions and activities steer away from traditional processes to identify and set up innovative and socially sustainable growth processes in developing Countries. The work presented in this dissertation is the result of an international cooperation project between Italy and Rwanda, whose general purpose is to promote the Country’s economic development. Implementation of the project provides for the recovery and reclassification of the local arts and crafts and cultural heritage, and furthering the growth and professionalism of craftsmen. The partnership set up by the project benefited from the cooperation of Genoa’s ‘Bottega Solidale’ (Solidarity Workshop’) and the Copabu crafts cooperative in Butare, Rwanda. Work on location focused on finding a solution to the need to innovate traditional handcrafted products in order to make them more suitable for placement in the current context and to make them competitive on both local and international markets. This is a form of micro-intervention based on the direct involvement of the beneficiaries and on a bottomup logic that identifies the need for intervention by first looking at local needs and skills.

The first stage of research highlighted the importance of the local crafts cooperatives that were set up to meet the demands of the community itself in the various local environments, most of which are rural. They represent a form of support for entire families, but are also an expression of a policy of reconciliation and unity for the survivors of the genocide who need to regroup and overcome daily troubles, and can do so through these associations. From this we can understand the importance of handcrafted products as a source of revenue for many people, the true starting point for the potential creation of renewed professional figures based on their traditional manual skills. Research and experimentation carried out during the trip to Rwanda from February to March of 2009 characterises the submitted projects, which can in-

Graduation thesis for Academic Year 2008/2009 Supervisor Gaddo Morpurgo Co-examiners Riccardo Varini, Giuseppe Lotti Final-year university student Alice Cappelli Topic Updating Rwanda’s crafts

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dividually be defined as ‘seed projects’. Their peculiarity lies in the ability to allow craftsmen to express themselves freely. The experimental stage thus led to the creation of prototypes in close cooperation with the craftsmen, and the definition of four potential paths to follow: 1. Formal and functional innovation of handcrafted products and handicraft techniques with the purpose of increasing, through the project action, the innovative potential of handcrafted products; 2. Contamination between materials in order to bring various skills together in a dynamic and creative matter in order to innovate products and broaden their market; 3. Experimentation with different techniques and transfer of the same to other types of products in order to create a relational system between the various local and international handicraft productions and to highlight the lack of suitable tools; 4. Identification of work processes in order to create a system in the community itself and between the various local handicraft productions that would strengthen and raise the value of the same.

These four methods of intervention represent potential guidelines that designers may choose to follow, independently or together, in the course of international cooperation projects.

By working in this manner designers will be able to recognise the cultural values of the community in the global context and will become the promoters of a new form of socio-economic development. The type of research and experimentation that distinguishes this project leaves the door wide open to a variety of bidirectional paths. Their organisation can become the conclusion itself, insofar as work carried out on location allowed us to come into direct contact with the local reality and the issues that have to be dealt with in order to allow for real and independent development. The prerequisite conditions for this to happen entail that these people must be made aware of their capabilities, and of the countless opportunities that can follow.

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al cooperation project set up in stages capable of achieving a specific target. The first step is the consolidation of knowledge, through training courses, in order to deliver excellent techniques and products. This is followed by the intervention of Design through forms of cooperation that include innovative processes and mechanisms capable of triggering the response of craftsmen who can revisit the past using present cultural and aesthetical trends. The importance of the second step lies in the possibility of involving, to the greatest possible extent, other representative exponents of the land such as students and universities to set up new cooperation methods on location.

Introducing a change in the use of materials enhances skills and tradition and leads us to the third step: the notion of system within the community. Enhancing the competitiveness of a product by exploiting new potential uses for known materials by exploiting their aesthetic and functional peculiarities as well as the systems and criteria employed to create the item allows us to introduce the notion of chain production that involves the cooperation of different crafts.

By this stage craftsmen should feel like they are a part of the community that they helped to create. Consequently the work of craftsmen, which plays an integral and definitive role in the independent development of a country, can be reassessed not only as a source of revenue to elevate one’s lifestyle, but also as a true and proper profession capable of elevating man. Currently the work of craftsmen is not considered as a profession with a rich history, but simply an activity that is associated to the poverty of rural areas. The intervention of Design to enhance the value of products also aims to enhance the value of craftsmen as part of the economy and the society. The next step can see the birth of real manufacturing establishments that offer professional training, practical workshops for the new generations. The community also benefits from the training of apprentices who are eager to gain a status for themselves. The presence of countless cooperatives can be viewed as a good starting point for the dissemination

of knowledge together with manual and technical skills, and result in specialised craftsmen.

This Design project examines these potential scenarios in a non–invasive manner, developing ideas based on a joint research approach. Resources interact in the creation of a competitive identity which is turned into a strategy for local development not by making but rather by digging into the culture and history of the society, bringing it closer to a global market with an emphasis on the identity and vision that characterise the place itself.

Many believe that these projects are new forms of colonisation, but if anything this project is a form of mutual colonisation, where cultures meet and local does not object to global, but rather enriches it with a real dialogue between different cultures, trading and comparing without losing its own specific properties. In this global age we should try to use the manufacturing economy as a cultural vehicle capable of making different people meet and break down the walls of ignorance that lead to fear. Products will be distinguished from others because of their search for a cultural elite which is no longer tied to the economic possibilities of a person but rather to the person’s will to see and embrace change. Updated crafts to produce items made precious not by their luxury but by their intrinsic message. Munari loved to say that revolutions should happen without anyone noticing, and the creation of these international knowledge networks could be a fitting example of this.

We could see the various societies of this earth as trees whose roots support the trunk, representative of the country, which grow along with its various ramifications. The pruning carried out by external interventions must not prevent the tree from developing or bend it to a desired shape, but should instead help to set it on the right path. Strengthen it. After that it will grow by itself, feeding on the soil and taking the shape that suits it best in an independent manner.

“ALBERO l’esplosione lentissima di un seme” Bruno Munari, “fenomeni bifronti”, 1993 IuavAfrica

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Iuav Master Degree in Product Design

Pop up A rainwater collection and filtering system for the South of the world

Graduation thesis for Academic Year 2009/2010

The project looks into matters that concern the improvement of precarious health conditions in countries of the South of the world. The idea of collecting rainwater is a consequence of the awareness that demographic growth, especially in rural areas, and the ever lower availability of resources is driving us to a mindset that is more focused on recovery and renewal than on straightforward consumption.

Through study, research and experimentation we aimed to identify the basic aspects of a rainwater collection and filtering system, on the grounds that in rural areas, remote from industries, any rainwater can be made safe to drink through a process of disinfection. The purposes of the project consequently were to cut down the cost of high capacity tanks, limit the cost of the product by subdividing it into parts, include a local component in order to lower burdens and encumbrances, and free it from the customary adjectives which denote it (bulky, large, opaque, and with a negative aesthetical impact) and characterise the larger part of water collection systems that are used in the wealthy western world as well as in the most remote areas of the world’s South.

Rooting out this mindset entails reshaping the image of water itself, which in truth carries a completely different set of values. Not only because of the ever increasing worth of the liquid, but also because increased available quantities translate into benefits that range from hygiene to greater economic independence. The research process highlights the conditions of certain countries of the South of the world affected by water shortages, paying special attention to the economic consequences, which translate into dependency on highly expensive supplies, and impact health, often resulting in sick environments characterised by high infant mortality rates.

The truth in numbers is that there are approximately two billion people who do not lead

Supervisor Gaddo Morpurgo Co-examiner Filippo Mastinu Final-year university student Martino Alessandro Guadalupi Topic Water system

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a normal life because of the lack of water and approximately 3.5 million of them die because of the precarious health conditions they live in. This project does not aspire to completely solve water-related problems, but it is designed to bring greater equality in a world that really needs it.

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Iuav Faculty of Architecture Mali, 2009

Internship at Carola’s building construction in Sevaré Mali, together with Niger, Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast, should be considered as one of the lands in Africa that can boast the presence of a population that is among the most interesting and differentiated in the South Sahara area.

The objectives of the study trip included the direct learning of Mali’s culture, especially that of the Dogon ethnic group and of the cliff villages. The ‘pretext’ for this first didactic experience in Africa was offered by architect Fabrizio Carola, who in 2008 held a conference in Iuav following an invitation by Benno Albrecht and who offered to open up his construction site to students. The programme that was finalised in September 2009 was set up as a proper internship, insofar as students would gain practical project and construction experience by actively cooperating with a number of Iuav teachers and architect Fabrizio Carola in the making of dome-shaped dry-stone buildings.

Even though onsite experience, the pragmatism of a compass, and the satisfaction given by a day of hard (and very hot) work all represent a major experience in the training of young architects, above all it is the voyage, the trip (even if only for a very brief period) to a very distant country that is often quite different to how we imagine it, that comprises the true novelty of the offer which is designed to mix education with a life experience.

The study trip placed special attention on visits to the Dogon villages. In is only in niche literature that many travellers (sociologists, anthropologists, historians, biologists, simple tourists, architects) unveiled the African culture of the Dogon people, publishing classic diaries along with more specific considerations on the multiple characteristics presented by a culture that is so ancient that it can be mistaken for myth. We chose to start from those who had already been on this trip to then put together our very own diary. The trip, this trip, gains importance because it is the voice of the soul, because the words of the Dogon hide within essence, or-

Head scientist/project author Benno Albrecht Teachers Mauro Frate, Esther Giani Tutor Anna Magrin Assistants Elisa Dainese, Edoardo Faggiani Contributions to preliminary workshops Alessandra Cardelli, Anthropologist; Matteo Guardini, Technologist; Stefania Lopez y Royo, Doctor; Giovanni Mucelli, Technologist; Paolo Senudo, Historian; Giovanni Vio, Urban planner; Internship Studio Fabrizio Carola, Sevare (16-28 February 2009) Topic Vault Construcion Students Lorenza Agosti, Lionella Biancon, Fabio Bortolussi, Elena Della Torre, Jacopo Galli, Erica Geremia, Alvise Lucchetta, Irene Peron, Francesco Piubelli, Eleonora Reato, Giorgio Scalvini, Andrea Serreri, Emanuele Trainini, Michele Zenere, Alessia Zuanon Academic year 2008/2009

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igin, desire, and sense. The memory of this cosmogomic culture, but above all the awareness that architecture in its tectonic-formal expression is an icon of socio-religious functionality that attributes a high value to the very notion of beauty, and the trip, thus conceived, can represent a great educational moment.

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Iuav Faculty of Architecture South Africa 2009/2010

Projects for Mapungubwe Housing and services for students visiting the archaeological site and Mapungubwe park.

Teachers Esther Giani, Giovanni Vio

The Lear nt in Translation – Imagining Af r ican Space project, conceived and carried out by Peter Rich in 2008 in New York’s Architectural League, was presented to our students during the course of the 2009 workshops and embodied the chance to propose a design experience located in the rich and intricate context given by the Mapungubwe national park in northern South Africa. The students tackled practical experience through the project, inventing and creating models, selecting materials and testing techniques, and finally submitted their proposed scenarios with convincing arguments.

From September 2009 through to May 2010 the students were divided in two groups and visited Mapungubwe (in September in the company of Giovanni Vio and Marco Montagnini, and in February with Esther Giani and Stefania Lopez y Royo) for intensive onsite workshops, attended weekly workshops, and were supervised by Iuav teachers and by assistants and experts not part of the Faculty. Both groups were introduced to design techniques by architects Peter Rich and Heinrich Kammeyer, who were working in Mapungubwe with the Interpretation Centre project; they proposed that we come up with ideas and scenarios to host South African students visiting the marvellous archaeological site and natural park of Mapungubwe.

In the context of this training offer the project played a central role in experimentation: even though the students were accompanied on a prearranged itinerary to discover cities such as Johannesburg and Pretoria, they also explored the generously rich flora and fauna of places such as Tabapaswa, Leshiba and Kruger.

The trip, but especially the precious tales of a certified mentor such as Kammeyer, the lively debates with Peter and Robert Rich were the elements that students used to work on the proposed scenarios and come up with sustainable and practical solutions that also paid attention

Tutor Marco Montagnini Assistant Damiana Paternò Workshop and project contributions Bryan Alshular, Historian; Alessandra Berto, Lorenzo Carlesso, Adriano Favaro; Matteo Guardini, Technologist; Franco Laner, Technologist; Stefania Lopez y Royo, Doctor; Ugo Mazzali, Physics technician; Sara Omassi, Designer; Aldo Pavan, Photojournalist; Marco Pretelli, Robert Rich, Architects; Cinzia Robbiati, Carlo Trevisan Internship Peter Rich design studio, Mapungubwe Topic Housing and services for students visiting the archaeological site and Mapungubwe park Students Jessica Benetton, Mariachiara Calabrese, Serena Casamento Barbitta, Tania Crepan, Ixia De Marco, Davide Favaron, Alberto Favero, Matteo Giurato, Mario Guarnieri, Giorgia Liguori, Andrea Maggiolo, Beatrice Manente, Mattea Marcolungo, Daniele Pasin, Antonio Pennisi, Paola Perozzo, Luca Rando, Giovanni Righetto, Francesco Scomparin, Paola Sprea Academic year 2009/2010

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to the specific location: materials, techniques, environment. Without having to forfeit venustas, which offers a glimpse of the fantasy that is responsibly enriched by this experience.

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Iuav Faculties of Architecture and Arts and Design Rwanda, 2010 Scientific coordinators Gaddo Morpurgo, John Mshana Didactic coordinators Filippo Mastinu (Iuav), Esther Giani (Iuav), Josephine Malonza (KIST) Teachers Armando Barp, Alberto De Simone, Esther Giani, Julijana Kaftanic, Josephine Malonza, Filippo Mastinu, Gaddo Morpurgo, Francesca Parotti, Mariarosa Vittadini Tutors Alice Cappelli, Christian Benimana Workshop and project contributions Massimiliano Botti, Designer; Matteo Guardini, Technologist; Franco Laner, Technologist; Stefania Lopez y Royo, Doctor; Ugo Mazzali, Physics technician; Maurizio Milan, Engineer; Marie Luise Niwemukobwa, Writer; Irene Peron, Designer.

Thierry Iraguha, Arthur Joash, Gabriel Kalup, Fabiola Karigirwa, Telesphore Kayibanda, Ilaria La Corte, Xiaying Liu, Lucia Fanetti, Luca Lardera, Maddalena Lazzarin, Riccardo Lunghi, Paolo Marchiori, Chiara Mari, Amri Miheto Babli, Silvia Milan, Valentina Milan, Matteo Mazzero, Daniel Mogorozi, Marios Moros, Eugenia Morpurgo, Richard Mpfizi, Oliver Raoul Mpinga, Emma Mugenzi, Solange Marie Muhirwa, Leandre Mulindahabi, Abbias Philippe Mumuhire, M. Derrick Muneza, Jacques Murama, Shaffy Assouman Murwanashyaka, Jean Eudes Ndayisaba, Jean Bosco Ndungutse, Jean De Dieu Ngendahimana, Alexandre Ngendahinyeretse, Aime Ngizwenimana, Alexis Niyongombwa, Oliver Niyonsaba, Reagan Nkundimpa, Felix Burgingo Noel, M. Ange Nsabimana, Aime d’Eric Nshimiyimana, Alois Nshimiyimana, Raymond Nshimiyimana, Eric Ntayoberwa, Marie Amelie Ntigurirwa, Lambert Nyirimana, Fabrizia Parisi, Davide Pedemonte, Andrea Pellizzari, Enrico Perini, Irina Righes, Luca Rubin, Emmanuel Rukundo, Alois Rwagasore, Jean Paul Rwakiyanja, Jean Paul Sebuhayi Uwase, Anita Silva, Francesca Taglioni, Alice Tasca, Alfred Tuyiramye, Chan Emmanuel Tuyisenge, Jean Pierre Tuyisenge, K. Denyse Uwera, Marthe Uwera Marissa, Seth Uwimana, Riccardo Valsesia, Chiara Zaratin, Moreno Zandonà, Samuel Zizinga, Chiara Zonta

Internship Centre d’accueil et de formation San Marco (Kanombe-Kigali‚ Rwanda) of the Kigali Soroptimist organisation: home of the research laboratory on the application of vegetable fibres, operation centre of the scientific and didactic cooperation project between Iuav and KIST Topic Vegetable fibres in design activities.

From design to architecture Students Alessia Anese, Sierra Bainbridge, Anthony Baraka, Chiara Becciu, Maya Ben David, Alberto Bergamo, William Bianchi, Sofia Bertoli, Hasna Bokuru Umubyeyi, Michela Bortolozzi, Sara Breda, Husna Butoya Umurerwa, Silvia Collino, Aziza Cyamani, Maria Da Schio, Giulia Di Marcantonio, Marc Disingizimana, Roger Filbert Dusabe, Philbert Dushimimana, Dieudonne Dusinzgizimimana, Gabriele Fabbri, Riccardo Feligiotti, Luca Ferrari, Giulia Ferrario, Monica Fontana, Silvia Gigante, Gloria Guglielmo, Enan Habiyambere, Jean Nepo Hagenimana, 158

Atelier Rwanda Workshop The last internship on show is the one in Rwanda: it is the last in order of time and, as often happens when an experience is carried out in stages, is also the one which, having collected the fruit of previous experiences gained in the field of Iuav training offers and relations, best knew how to draw the interest of students, teachers and researchers. The promoter of this didactic offer is Gaddo Morpurgo, a teacher of the Arts and Design Faculty that spent many years studying and researching the use of vegetable fibres in the various contexts that comprise architecture. From the design of jewellery to load bearing structures, from structural nodes to furniture, Morpurgo reinterprets Roger’s corollary “from the spoon to the city” engaging his students in the design of water sanitations systems as well as in tests to ascertain the mechanical properties of banano bricks.

The De Carlo training method and a sense of belonging to the scientific community of Venice’s Iuav, joined with the research he promotes, are the starting point for an offer that sees the two Faculties, Architecture and Design, join forces again and work with well established cultural institutions such as the Fondazione Claudio Buziol in Venice and the Soroptimist International. We are setting up a task force of specialists and researchers focused on Rwanda, with the reciprocal support of the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). A first move to close the gap was carried out in 2009 with the presence of the Rwanda Pavilion in the FAR summer workshops: 90 university degree students and hundreds of bamboo and rattan models. The exhibit was awarded the jury’s special mention because of the chosen topic and because of the ‘material’ approach that characterised the work.

The figures of this internship can help to better illustrate our exceptional achievement: approximately 50 students, selected from all over the world according to their curricula; approximately 20 Rwandan students; 6 scholarship students, 5 final year students, 12 teachers, and two dozen experts; a very active interactive

blog with more than 40,000 visits! Another exceptional aspect, the most important in scientific terms because it represents the purpose and objective of many laborious initiatives, is given by the programme, which is ambitious and virtuous at the same time. Atelier Rwanda examines local materials, investigates traditional techniques, observes settlement patterns, the environment and anthropological aspects (in other words, looks at the culture) of a small country in Africa to then process them to the benefit of both societies by producing works of architecture. On any scale. Practical and theoretical research that is conscious of the importance and of the reciprocal advantages given by cultural interaction.

The first of the 4 scheduled workshops started in Kigali on May 10th with the opening of the construction site and the making of the bamboo structure of the pavilion which had been previously lab tested in Venice as part of the design class led by Morpurgo and Mastinu at the Arts and Design Faculty. On June 4th another 6 students joined them to test and build the walls in crude earth and the panels made out of banana materials. July 3rd saw the opening of the workshop for the study and manufacture of furniture and other components made out of vegetable fibres. August 16th instead saw the opening of the international workshop named Padiglione Rwanda Biennale, and on September 3rd the last 10 students from the Venice and Kigali Faculties of Architecture will work together to sum up what has been learnt/tested/ ascertained on occasion of the previous workshops and propose alternative scenarios for architectures in Rwanda (typological exercises for the sustainable development of local crafts practices).

Atelier Rwanda is part of the scientific and didactic cooperation project between Iuav University of Venice and the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), and of the cultural cooperation project between Iuav University of Venice and the Fondazione Claudio Buziol in partnership with the Soroptimist International (more specifically, the Kigali, Italy and San Marino organisations) which first came up with IuavAfrica

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and sponsored this project, whose objectives include: promoting the efficiency and sustainability of activities involving natural fibres to develop product innovation through the use of local materials; improving the manufacturing capabilities of the local craftspeople by strengthening the role played by female work; boosting the development and trade of local resources and products; improving the use of water resources; strengthening, in the context of architecture and architectural design, cultural exchanges between Europe and Africa in order to add value to the cultural traditions and manufacturing capabilities of the African continent.

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Iuav Summer Workshop Burkina Faso, 2009 Teacher Diébédo Francis Kéré Tutors Claudia Buhmann, Donat Kirschner Assistants Ana Fabian, PierCarlo Palmerini Students Giovanni Asmundo, Marco Baldina, Maria Elena Beccaria Balduzzi, Martina Belmonte, Alessandro Berton, Francesca Biasco, Tommaso Biasiolo, Sara Bocus, Francesco Bogoni, Enrico Borsato, Mahdi Boughanmi, Anna Brambilla, Nicolò Bressan, Raul Buta, Benedetta Caliari, Melissa Cappozzo, Niccolo Carini, Valentina Cascione, Damiano Celebrin, Marco Cestarolli, Alessandro Chiodin, Stefano Cisterna, Lara Corli, Daniele Crovato, Silvia Dacca Libera, Chiara dal Mas, Cristina de Gennaro, Laura de Rocco, Sofia Beatrice D’Este, Silvia di Pieri, Selen Erkal, Paola Facci, Alessandra Farina, Valentina Fattore, Diana Faustini, Anna Favaretto, Roberta Filippi, Antonia Filomeno, Angeliki Fotopoulou, Roberto Fulciniti, Maria Garbellotto, Alessia Gaspari, Margherita Gazzola, Jacopo Gozzi, Enrica Maria Innocente, Maddalena Iovene, Katja Kavreck, Giorgia Lixi, Elisa Marianna Lorenzi, Argent Lumi, Edoardo Matteoda, Anna Michielin, Simone Ares Monzio Gompagnoni, Gaia Mosconi, Alessandro Padoan, Andrea Pagotto, Guido Pantani, Enrico Pasin, Chiara Patuzzi, Nicola Pellegrini, Antonio Pennisi, Martina Petrosino, Maria Pilotto, Nicola Pinazzi, Massimo Plazzer, Emilia Quattrina, Alex Scian, Claudia Simonato, Marta Speronello, Guido Tagliapietra, Marina Tenace, Francesco Tessaro, Alessandra Toffoletta, Elena Tolin, Matteo Tomasi, Claudia Toniolo, Marco Torresin, Riccardo Viola

A school in Burkina Faso.

Step after step: sustainable buildings for Africa Kéré’s studio, based in Berlin where he teaches in the TU Faculty of Architecture, grasped the occasion given by WS09 to offer Venetian students the chance to continue working on the topics that most interest him, involving them in sustainable projects that consciously and carefully account for a culture that is not one’s own but is nonetheless equally stimulating and potentially rich with creativity that still has to be investigated.

During the three weeks, work with the students (who turned up in droves) focused on a prototype school inclusive of a library, accommodation for teachers, a kitchen, common mess halls, and ancillary services.

The students used, acquired and then reinter preted traditional mater ials and technologies: the climate, just like water, played a fundamental role in our design efforts. For the sustainable planning in economic, so cial, ethical and cultural ter ms of a school in Burkina Faso. (Francis Diébédo Kéré, WS09)

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Iuav Summer Workshop Kigali, 2009 Teachers Peter Rich, Vio Giovanni Tutors Marco Montagnini, Damiana Paternò Students Elena Agostani, Riccardo Bortignon, Roberta Bresil, Alberto Campagnoli, Marco Cuzziol, Andrea Demo, Veronica Di Blas, Marta Fabris, Angela Gagliardi, Carlotta Galeazzo, Francesco Ganga, Manuel Gasparinetti, Anna Gatto, Lavinia Guiotto, Alessia Lombardo, Riccardo Lunghi, Francesco Miani, Federica Mion, Giuseppe Palombo, Sebastiano Passaler, Elvira Pietrobon, Tommaso Pietropolli, Giovanni Righetto, Giuditta Rizzato, Giacomo Roccaro, Caterina Soranzo, Alberto Tardivo, Alice Trevisan, Erica Vecchio, Marco Zambrino, Marco Zambrino, Paride Zanini, Giulia Zordan

KIG-ALIANS: Italians in Kigali Is it possible for us to work on a remote context of which we know practically nothing?

This is the question posed by South Africa’s Peter Rich and young urban planner Giovanni Vio during the presentation of the workshop which in 2009 selected a location in Africa in order to propose a sustainable project to Venice’s students, one that paid attention to the ‘genius loci’ but which most of all served to draw them closer to a different reality. The group of teachers knowingly insisted on the literature of the places, on the infertility of self-referencing, on the importance of sedimentation. And on freehand drawing.

The programme states: The project area, for which we propose a reclassification for mixed use, is located in the commercial area of Kigali Cit y, in Rwanda . The location, which measures 100 x 120 metres, is a block of t win unit lots character ised by a trans versal inclination which var ies bet ween t wo and a half and three stor ies. The nor th side, uphill, is made up of commercial buildings f rom three to five stor ies high. The lower street mostly looks onto industr ial warehouses.

The programme includes: the creation, as an integrated transport node, of one way access routes for Af r ican cabs (minibuses) along the base of the block; the introduction of a long pedestr ian commercial area (similar to a souk) just above the ser vice road, exploiting cur rently unused back yards and existing artefacts. The objective of the exercise is to generate flows of people coming f rom the upper areas of the cit y through a ser ies of changes in level to and f rom the taxicab station along the base of the lower street. Linear taxi/pedestr ian switching point; inter mediate infor mal market; revitalised commercial street on the upper level; ter raced buildings with inclination f rom six to eight stor ies with a view of the mountain and valley, and top floors for residential use. (Peter Rich, Giovanni Vio, WS09)

And the students, careful, curious, and not at all intimidated by having to deal with pencil and Indian ink in such remote places, produced a large quantity of designs and models that were later displayed through calibrated disorder in a detailed scene design of an improvised market where the items that were on display, sale, offer, shouted about and exhibited were Architecture Projects.

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Iuav Summer Workshop Rwanda, 2009 Teachers Filippo Mastinu, Gaddo Morpurgo Tutor Mauro Paialunga Students Anita Aggio, Alvise Allegretto, Alessia Anese, Elisa Angelini, Antonia Araldi, Cristina Baggio, Marco Baldan, Marco Bernardello, Beatrice Bernardi, Anna Bettiol, William Bianchi, Jacopo Biasio, Andrea Biesso, Luigi Bisognin, Gregorio Bonato, Andrea Boscolo, Massimo Brancati, Francesca Bressaglia, Alberto Bressan, Jessica Cacciavillani, Carlo Calzavara, Emanuele Capovilla, Gianmarco Cazzaro, Michela Ceotto, Verdiana Chiesatto, Rossella Cosimato, Sara Dalla Mora, Andrea Davanzo, Chiara De Gennaro, Jessica De March, Valentina D’Emma, Simone Farinon, Alberto Favero, Andrea Ferraro, Giovanni Fiamminghi, Matteo Fioretti, Grazia Fiorillo, Massimiliano Fontolan, Anna Fornasier, Nicola Galati, Filippo Galli, Claudia Gallo, Laura Garbo, Alessandra Gardin, Carlo Gennari, Stefano Giolo, Chiara Girardi, Eva Girolimetto, Tommaso Marchi, Elisa Marcon, Mauro Martini, Sara Maschietto, Francesca Mazzocco, Elena Menegaldo, Alessio Menegazzo, Claudia Michelazzo, Michela Miglioranza, Fabio Antonio Milan, Samantha Minozzi, Giulia Mollame, Erika Naccari, Francesco Nanni, Alessandro Pasquinelli, Luca Pastore, Matteo Pedrotti, Caterina Peretti, Enrico Perini, Friederike Peteler, Giacomo Pizzo, Ismaele Poli, Silvia Poretti, Davide Prataviera, Francesco Pregel, Rossella Remonato, Annalisa Righetti, Elisabetta Roviaro, Laura Rudellin, Luca Rudellin, Giulia Saccardo, Michele Sbrissa, Luigi Scapin, Tania Schiavon, Elena Scquizzato, Claudia Simoni, Gioia Sopelsa, Alberto Spillare, Paolo Toldo, Andrea Tommasin, Luca Toniolo, Anna Valandro, Riccardo Valsesia, Lorenzo Zaccarin, Andrea Zambello, Chiara Zonta, Alessio Zorzi Secondary school students Riccardo Bevilacqua, Matteo Casarin

Rwanda Pavilion The opening words of the workshop proposed

by Mastinu and Morpurgo in 2009 recites: when immersed in the virtualit y of design activities, it is salutar y to offer pauses pertaining to matter dur ing training c ycles. And the WS09 jury certainly noted the ‘matter’ acquired by the Design teachers who interested one hundred architecture students in an unparalleled production of models made out of bamboo, rattan and other various types of wood.

We have been acquainted with WS models for over a decade, but the novelty introduced through this experience/experiment is given by the type of materials that have been used: 100% natural.

The fact that nature is involved does not entail any facilitation concerning assembly, connection or anchoring, but the material properties of bamboo segments or rattan strips suggested uncommon spatial modelling and forced each student to come to terms with the practical issues imposed by the materials they were dealing with. In effects, even when in scale, the material was the same as the one used in the prototype. Consequently shapes, solutions and joints are reminiscent of a distant knowledge, of which Africa is a faithful keeper. And it is even in workshops that experimentation/innovation meets the tradition of doing things that encloses in itself all the stimuli needed to open up to new solutions.

And one of the solutions rendered on a 1:1 scale was the second objective of this workshop: the Rwanda Pavilion project taken as an urban sign that emerges f rom the fabr ic of Venice to show, and prove, the potential of vegetable fibres as components of a renewed activit y that adds value to local mater ials (Gaddo Morpurgo and Filippo Mastinu, WS09).

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Iuav Summer Workshop Rwanda, 2010 Teachers Filippo Mastinu, Gaddo Morpurgo Tutor Alice Cappelli Students Alessia Anese, Davide Battilana, Alessia Benso, Silvia Bezzecchi, Sara Bocus, Sebastiano Cattiodoro, Michela Ceotto, Matteo Corazza, Laura Cravin, Silvia Dabrilli, Selena Dal Dosso, Valentina De Agnoi, Alessandra Feliciotti, Francesco Ferraro, Giovanni Formentin, Denis Fralonardo, Margherita Ganz, Massimo Gatti, Andrea Alberti, Elisa Angelini, Martina Basso, Carlotta Bergamin, Andrea Borgato, Michele Buono, Chiara Cirrone, Gianluca Comandini, Alessia Daniele, Jessica De Marchi, Gabriele Fabbri, Grazia Fiorillo, Giacomo Fizzo, Nicola Galatti, Claudia Gallo, Anna Gatto, Alessandro Giacon, Sara Goic, Gianluca Grignolo, Francesco Guidi Colombi, Irene Guzzonato, Riccardo Longhi, Giulia Lorini, Alberto Maggio, Jacopo Manente, Margherita Manzon, Andrea Marinelli, Mirko Melotto, Elena Menegaldo, Matteo Merli, Francesco Montaguti, Alvise Nicolussi Paolaz, Gaicomo Nostran, Alberto Oliviero, Chiara Patuzzi, Rossella Pemontato, Enrico Perini, Enrica Pilan, Noemi Polo, Angela Robusti, Elisa Romano, Gargarella, Sabrina Rossa, Giorgia Rossi, Francesco Russo, Elisa Sanavio, Giacomo Scarpa, Fabio Schiavone, Anna Scorretti, Lorenzo Setti, Erika Simonetto, Simone Soligo, Caielli Stefano, Isabella Tenti, Alessandra Toffolet, Anna Trentin, Roberta Vettorato, Silvia Vidotto, Alessio Vinante, Fiorenzo Volpato, Gianluca Volpato, Leonardo Zanella, Vasco Zanet, Alice Zenere, Martina Zilio, Giulia Zuin, Giulia Zurlo

Rwanda Pavilion: Costruction site Part I Testing (2009 summer workshop) and verification of the potential expressions of vegetable fibres in architecture.

Part II Projects (Product design laboratory – clasDIP, January/March 2010) Typological exercises on the Pavilion which aside from using components made out of vegetable fibres (bamboo, banano and coffee) would also allow an improvement in the collection of rainwater. Creation of a prototype in Rwanda (Atelier Rwanda Workshop 2010) and verification of the performance of the individual building components in specific climate conditions.

Part III Sharing The objective of this workshop is to create the staging, and relative communication, that will character ise the exhibit named Tradition and innovation in vegetable fibres’ design that will be open in September 2010 and to present the results of cooperation bet ween the Kigali Institute of Science and Technolog y and the Iuav Universit y of Venice in the context of Rwanda’s official participation to the12. Mostra internazionale di Architettura, la Biennale di Venezia.

Critical dissection of the nature of the social issue to be assessed by applicable interdisciplinary analysis eventually leads to a synthetic definition of the topics that have been dealt with. The didactic repercussions of research represent an integral and fundamental part of the stated premise: the task of didactic exercises should be that of experimenting and, so to speak, focusing on certain nodal issues that have already been identified in multiple active researches. This wealth of experience can serve to offer, with growing precision, project solutions suitable to problems which are not always clearly outlined during the opening stages (i.e. during research).

Consequently we can attempt to formulate training proposals that are ‘dedicated’ to

emerging topics, more closely related to the context of applied research, setting up, as mentioned, professional training modules and coordinated domestic and international workshops.

Generally speaking, the sponsoring and publishing of lab experiences and research activities necessarily entails a discrepancy compared to the project results because we are dealing with a stage that comes in the wake of experimentation. The sharing of achieved results, albeit temporary and incomplete, represents an unalienable tool for any scientific community: the moment of comparison, debate and synthesis. We are forced to a dialectic clarity that cannot exist in the absence of an in-depth knowledge of the topics that have to be discussed.

The promotion and dissemination of project , even initial ones, aside from offering the chance for meditation and debate, allows us to emphasise other potential research and work opportunities based on the very same (practical?) scientific approaches that are capable of delivering results that can be assessed and documented, with repercussions and effects on didactic activities which, as in this case, gain a social and ethical value that we can no longer do without.

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Iuav Summer Workshop Mozambico, 2010 Teacher Pancho Guedes Tutors Dagmar Hoetzel, Andrea Treu Students Luni Arget, Selene Basso, Beatrice Baratella, Mariamarcella Barigozzi, Jacopo Berlaffa, Segastiano Berloffa, Elena Blazevic, David Boscaro, Luca Brusegnan, Piero Buadagnin, Laura Buongiovanni, Marina Caneve, Alice Canova, Francesco Caratti, Ferreiraolga Carvalho, Maristella Casci, Evin Coccolo, Domenico D’amato, Alberto D’inca, Martino De Rossi, Cristina Di Paola, Ana Dunic, Debora Ferron, Gilda Furlan, Nicolas Geretto, Lorenzo Giacomello, Andrea Giacomini, Yi Ming Guo, Katja Kostrencic, Karla Kravanja, Michela Lacella, Maja Licina, Elisabetta Lombardo, Babriele Longega, Alberto Lubiani, Andrea Manente, Vivian Manfroi, Annachiara Marcon, Francesca Martina, Mauro Martinelli, Nicola Mascotto, Anna Mazzucato, Valentina Melon, Tommaso Miele, Mirko Moretti, Federica Nion, Maia Pedro Jorge Oliveira, Valentina Orsi, Azzurra Paggiaro, Giulia Pauletti, Eleonora Pavan, Tommaso Pietropolli, Ilaria Pittana, Yves Polo Friz, Tiziana Priante, Jeff Quartey, Giulia Racioppi, Giusy Rella, Giulia Ricciardini, Paola Righetto, Valentina Righetto, Giulia Rizzato, Federica Romano, Nicola Russolo, Laura Sari, Nicola Scabbio, Melanie Simonetti, Iylenia Sinotti, Giula Sonzonio, Claudia Stancanelli, Margherita Tavoga, Monica Teo, Giulia Torino, Serena Trebuio, Luca Velerin, Erica Visentin, Chiara Zaccaria, Agnese Zanetti, Matteo Zorzanello

African village Pancho Guedes disseminated his knowledge of Mozambique through the team X he joined, and more specifically thanks to the several extended visits paid by the Smithsons, and made it available to Europe in the 1950s during a period when it was mostly trying out what was being offered by an increasingly cutting edge industry. Tireless and with the same enthusiasm we still find in the chronicles of the time, Pancho again offered our students the chance to study topics linked to Mozambique.

African village is an apologue and a screenplay at the same time: a young student of architecture travelled to Mozambique after being invited there by a colleague, but soon got bored of its beaches and nightlife and decided to explore the country by hitching rides. His destination was a beautiful bay, but fate made him run into a young priest who offered him a ride and told him about his mission, about how to reach Maciene and build homes and a church for a new Anglican community. The young man, being a student of architecture, could not resist the priest’s invitation and decided to visit the site of the future settlement. During the first half of his stay the young student had the chance to admire how the people were capable of building their own homes, and made a list of the materials and techniques he encountered along the way. After his detour to visit the place the young man resumed his trip... but it was too late. The lingering idea of the project, the chance to test out techniques and the challenge offered by the priest managed to win him over and so he returned to Maciene to propose his African village.

His project area comprised a flat and sandy terrain in the vicinity of a slow river that during the rainy season would collect water and feed grass, cashew trees and tall bushes, along with a water reservoir and a well.

The lucky student in this case is each WS10 student who, through patience, teaching, practical experience and the passion of a great Maestro, manages to describe, give body to and carry out his own African village.

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The houses of genies and the energy of the objective

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The houses of genies and the energy of the objective Cristina & Gaddo G It was the 26th of April 2008, on a Saturday morning, when I met Bettina Scholl-Sabbatini for the first time. We were both standing in a queue at the Brussels airport check-in. In that last airport space, where all boarding passengers to Africa gathered, she was pushing two bulky suitcases full of things to take to ‘her’ San Marco Centre in Kigali. That evening, when we landed in Rwanda, I already knew ‘the Bettina’. I had been caught by her energy. There are few people like Bettina, who cannot be described without using the term energy. Energy as vigour, firmness, expressive force ... the ability to capture ones’ attention. Before meeting her I had heard about her from her friends from the Soroptimist Club of San Marino. But they never had described her to me, almost always evoking her. ‘According to Bettina...

Bettina says...’

Then, from that April 26th on, our meetings became more diligent, with additional trips to Rwanda, a country that she made me know, by email or Skype when she was not busy and unreachable at the foundry. Only long after I met Bettina I figured out she was a sculptor. In Africa, she is only ‘Bettina’, the one from the Soroptimist of San Marco, the Marathon for Peace...

Eventually I got the opportunity to see some pictures of her giant chairs and other sculptures. I was attracted by her way of interpreting objects by animating them with the insertion of oversized heads that stare at you and catch your eyes. But it was in Rimini, in a quick meeting near the train station, where I got hold of some ‘genies shells’. Small sculptures where the fusion material is converted, almost relieved, with fine chromatic variations. Small sculptures where the insertion of heads establishes a silent dialogue between protective shells and possible inhabitants of a world of ideas.

Where, again, it’s their stare that catches your eyes. Genies as pagan statuettes, or mental capacities of those who have something to say?

beyond the obstacles and solve problems, and with an energy that pushes to go further. Such an energy is necessary to those who work in a foundry.

Small coloured shells made of bronze, large cooperation projects, both with a high, specific weight.

Bettina calls them ‘The houses of genies’: actually, they are also evocations of colourful microcosms, materialisations of African experiences, and more. Bettina’s artistic world takes shape blending facial expressions that have the small, almond-shaped eyes of Rwandan children, small faces that can be motionless, enigmatic, astonished, or wide and round as a full moon over the equator. They emerge from the domed floor of a hut, a long narrow neck with rings, reminiscent of Burmese or South African Ndebele women, or the body of a clay-coloured warrior. They are standing at the foot of one of the thousand hills or on the arid ground of the Sub-Sahara desert. They are small satellites anchored in the orbit of a vision, a goal, a universe of ideas. Ancestral spirits, energy, forces that convey a vision full of optimism.

They translate into colour and shape one of the worlds Bettina lives in and helps growing and improving.

C Bettina has piercing, lively eyes, expressively ever moving on her candid Central European face, almost an icon of herself, with a braid on one side of her head. We sat in darkness pierced by small lights on Schola’s terrace in Kigali. I spoke in truly broken English, and even less fluid French, trying to summarise the events that had marked the days in Africa so quickly. For me it was the first time. For Bettina it was yet another step on a path pursued with tenacity and energy to achieve the objective.

And it does take energy to deal with Africa. Because when you see certain things you can’t just pull back. When you leave the boundaries in which your knowledge lies, you cannot turn away: you cross the line and what you see extends the horizon of your certainties. Sometimes you feel like Ulysses, brave explorers who consolidate their wealth of knowledge and wisdom through travelling and crossing boundaries. We may discover that, like Ulysses, it is the force of reasoning that encourages us to search for knowledge. Such is the force of reasoning that guides the activities of Bettina, the artist and Soroptimist: in this case, with a woman’s aptitude to associate and link relationships with extraordinary ease, a female ability to see The houses of genies and the energy of the objective

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The houses of genies and the energy of the objective

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Atelier Rwanda Tradition and innovation in vegetable fibres’ design curated by Alice Cappelli and Gaddo Morpurgo

Atelier Rwanda is a multi-year project, which consists of a series of workshops made in Kigali (Rwanda), realized thanks to the combined efforts of the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology, the Iuav University of Venice, the Fondazione Claudio Buziol of Venice, Soroptimist International and with the scientific collaboration and the contribution of Favero & Milan engineering Web reference atelierwanda.wordpress.com

SUMMARY Presentation Joseph Habineza Republic of Rwanda Minister of Sport and Culture Gaddo Morpurgo Republic of Rwanda Commissioner and Co-curator John Mshana KIST, Academic Vice-Rector Amerigo Restucci Iuav University of Venice, Rector Giancarlo Carnevale Iuav University of Venice, Faculty of Architecture Dean Medardo Chiapponi Iuav University of Venice, Arts and Design Dean Renzo di Renzo Fondazione Claudio Buziol Artistic Director Hanne Jensbo Soroptimist International President Bettina Scholl Sabbatini Co-curator

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New jewellery based on rwanda’s traditional The luxury of the fibers Alice Cappelli Jewellery on Intaratara fibres

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The Rwanda Pavilion: banano, bamboo and wood of coffee Of necessity and virtue: the story of a wood case Filippo Mastinu

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The Kanombe workshop Francesca Parotti Engineer Alberto De Simone Iuav Professor Armando Barp Iuav Professor Mariarosa Vittadini Iuav Professor Julijana Kaftanic Designer Banano panel Bamboo Pavilions Screws made out of coffee wood Kigali coffee - Made with love YEGO! A Rwandan Story Leandro Lisboa

Women call for women Francis Diébédo Kéré’s Project for a Women’s Centre in Gando (Burkina Faso) Esther Giani Material culture in African tradition Esther Giani

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IuavAfrica Architecture in Africa and the Iuav University of Venice experience Esther Giani

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Environmentally friendly technologies and tradition in the land of the Masai L’hOMme Est LA Sharing Design, Updating Rwanda’s crafts Pop up. A rainwater collection and filtering system for the south of the world Internship at Carola’s building construction in Sevaré Projects for Mapungubwe Housing and services for students visiting the archaeological site and Mapungubwe park Atelier Rwanda Workshop A school in Burkina Faso. Step after step: sustainable buildings for Africa KIG-ALIANS: Italians in Kigali Rwanda Pavilion Rwanda Pavilion: Costruction site African village

The houses of genies and the energy of the objective Cristina & Gaddo

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