MasterDocument CS1: Katanga, Congo

Case Study #1 Master document Context / - system approach - system analysis Concept / - Open - Architecture - project approach - system patterns Scenarios / - growth scenarios

open-community Katanga, Congo

Context System approach For the analysis of the case study we based ourselves on a study made by the ‘Institute without boundaries’ called ‘World House Project’ . This research-project approaches the home as a system of systems, striving for a holistic view of design in housing.

The ‘World House Project” consists of 12 systems divided into 4 themes (terrain, climate, economy, culture). These systems were the basic tool in our search for a global design methodology. Using these systems we questioned ourselves constantly and answered by giving possible options. Some of these options appeared to be usefull others not.

“.....we investigated the home as an entity influenced by the ebb and flow of the time, location, purpose, form and ideas, manifesting themselves as systems innovations within the home.While homes varied in shape, size, aesthetics, utility and permanence, they exemplified commonalities in their aim to provide shelter and nourishment, and represent the connections and expressions of their inhabitants. In breaking down these four broad themes, we were able to identify twelve systems that are integral to every home. The systems approach allows us to see what is necessary for human survival and cultural growth, and opens the door to an emerging method for housing design that integrates these systems in a variety of ways.” “...We found that developments in one system often initiated developments or alterations in another. The interplay between systems creates unique ‘push and pulls’ of influence, so that developments in one system trigger, restrain and symbiose with others, creating tightly intermingling clusters of systems. Observing this, we determined that the design of the home should recognize these interactions and interdependencies, working towards system integration that will capitalize on and make apparent these relationships. In this way systems integration will at once be definitive of the time, as well as timeless. This is what the iconic ‘green home’ will embody – adaptability, scalability, usability and sensitivity...” (‘World House Project’ booklet, Institute Without Boundaries)

System Analysis In the followong pages we analyzed each system within an African context. The systems are categorized as followed: - terrain: water, food, waste - climate: construction, air-handling, energy - economy: communication, mobility, finance - culture: spatial, social, identity

three systems that deal with the terrain: water + food + waste Every aspect of the natural world can be depicted as a cycle. For centuries, societies understood that their life cycle was part of the larger ecological rythm. In ancient civilizations rain, bountiful harvests and fertile soil were celebrated as gifts from the gods. Today, we are less connected to this understanding, and move further away from nature’s cycles. Modern consumption and lifestyle patterns have changed the way we eat, build, design, learn and live.

Population growth increases demand for food and water. Consequently, waste increases. Income growth improves standards of living, which results in increased overall consumption. Fast-paced, industrialized societies create a dependence on the consumption of unhealthy fast food and frozen convenience foods. The manufacturing of packaging for these products, and the energy required to freeze them accounts for 70% to 80% of the food industry’s overall emissions. (‘World House Project’ booklet, Institute Without Boundaries)

System

Questions

Options

Water

- Why are we using drinking water to carry out low-grade functions

- storage of rainwater!

- Collect

- Distribute

- water as part of the infrastructure

- access to water in a gathering place (comunity-centre)

- Public - semi-Public - Private access

within the home?

- should water be stored?

- How will we provide universal acces to water without depleting its limited supply?

- Can we adhere a true value to water?

- what kind of water system is there?

- how much rain falls during the moeson season?

- what is the gound-water level?

- Is there a river?

- How can we make ground-water potable?

- For what do they use water now?

- Public use - Private use: where is the line?

- Should we distinct white/grey/black water

- what can we do with the other watercycles?

System

Questions

Options

Food

- Can we take food from fast to slow?

- integration of private, semi-public, public farming

- Will we locally generate rather than refrigirate?

- Creating a local economy based on local production and consumption

- central point for food distribution linked to a healthcare centre

- Re-Use and Re-Convert objects and materials in Ateliers Open Structures

- Collecting / Recycling

- use waste as construction material? roofs? walls? fences? tools? reassembling? fertilizer?

- be confronted with it, re-use it, live in it, understand it,...

- storage of waste: Bio-gas

- Can production be on a local scale globally?

- Can food become healthcare?

- Can we synchronize supply and demand?

- Will urban farming become the new norm?

- What do they harvest?

- What do they eat?

- How, where, when, what do they cook?

- How, where and with who do they eat?

- How does there food distribution work?

- locally produced?

- How, when, what, where do they sell products?

- What does the act of eating mean to them?

Waste

- Can we make waste sexy?

- Can we give waste a place? Waste equal energy?

- designing social interactions? semipublic cooking, public farming, outside eating, ...

- Will we be able to stop creating waste, and stop wasting what we have created?

- Can we replenish rather than deplete?

- How can we connect to our waste?

- Which kind of waste is mainly present?

- What do they do now with their waste?

- Which kind of waste is useful?

- Should we treat organic waste and chemical waste differently?

WASTE

GAS digester GAS

storage cooking

- use of recycled materials, if not recyclable, biodegradable

three systems that deal with the climate: construction + air handling + energy Climate, helps to define who we are and how we live our lives. Acces to clean drinking water, the ability to produce food and the formation of community have, throughout time, been directly related to local microclimates. Our ancestors accepted this relationship and used it to their advantage when they deigned and built their homes, some of which still remain today. Connection between home and the natural environment is not evident in most of today’s conventional housing. However, practices such as collecting and storing rainwater, and utilizing natural shading and passive orientation are slowly being reintegrated into home design. (‘World House Project’ booklet, Institute Without Boundaries)

System

Questions

Options

Construction

- Is the lifespan of our homes linear or cyclical?

- Creating construction system that can be easily changed, re-arranged, deconstructed and re-builded in the same or different way.

- Materials need to come from the environment of the project area. (materials will be cheaper and more sunstainble)

- A construction that can adapt itself to the existing traditions, culture,....a construction that leaves space for the own identity

- A kind of Plugin-City?

- A construction that is not finished but is continiously a work in progress

- Construction becomes infrastructure

- Can we construct to deconstruct to reconstruct?

- Which construction materials are favorable for this climate?

- Can we attach, stack and connect instead of sprawl?

- Which local green construction materials are available?

- How can we benefit from re-using materials?

- Can we simplify to the level of LEGO?

- Where is the line between architect and inhabitant

System

Questions

Options

Air-handling

- Should our homes be lightly sealed or open to the elements?

- Solar chimney, natural ventilation system

- What are the different kinds of envelopes for a home and how do they work?

- manipulating windflows by designing high covered public and semi-public spaces

- How does air move in our homes?

- Can we condition air for health and not only for comfort?

- Should we be allowed to pollute what others consume?

- How can we balance between passive and active air handling?

Warm

- How is humidity handled?

- How do buildings materials effect our air quality?

- What kind of materials are they using?

Cold

- Are they spending the most of the time inside or outside of the house?

- What kind of climate is there?

Energy

- How will our homes power itselfs?

- What are sunstainable options for powering our homes?

- Energy from sun-panels

- Energy from windmills

- Industry often produces her own energy that sometimes is too much for their own use.

- Energy from solar chimney

- Energy from waste (Biogas)

- Can we learn to genarate energy with our neighbours?

- Can we mimic nature’s means of harvesting energy?

- Can we create a grid that switches demand to suply?

- Can we make our energy consumption transparent?

- Which quantity of energy is necessary?

GAS

WASTE

generator

POWER

digester

storage

GAS

three systems that deal with the economy: mobility + communication + finance The word economy originates from the Greek oikonomia, meaning ‘houshold management’. Eco -’oikos’ or ‘house’, also describes the word of ecology -”the branch of biology concerned with the relations of organisms to one another and their physical surroundings”. This would suggest an intrinsic connection between our reliance upon the natural world to provide resources to maintain our human economic system, and the elements of that system engaged within our homes to ensure survival and physical comfort.

Critical to the funtioning of an economy is the non-monetary exchanges based on relationships and the intrinsic value of the goods and services we need and desire. The informal network of support that passes from one person to another is not measured by the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of a country. the evaluative tool currently utilized that best indicates the elements of the love economy. (‘World House Project’ booklet, Institute Without Boundaries)

System

Questions

Options

Communication

- what kind of communication is accesible there?

- Tecnology as social gathering point (e.g. internet-bar, windmills as monuments,...)?

- How do people communicate in Katanga?

- What kind of tecnology do they use and could be interesting to use and update?

- Can technology become polyvalent (e.g. solar panels as shading, windmills as lunapark attraction, waterpump as kids playground,...

- Can the house be read as a calender

- phone-lines?wath with the internet and cellphone connections?

- How can we improve a lifetime with technology without taking our life to learn them?

internet

- How can we use technological automation to make better inter-

9 8

active environments.

- Can we create an interactive environment that can help us enhance our experience of our city, town or home?

- Will we want a physical home that can adapt as easily as the virtual world?

- Can we make virtual communication personal?

- use technology more in public spaces than in private spaces.

- housing that changes with the seasons,expandable/scalable...

3 7

6

4

System

Questions

Options

Mobility

- Will people increasingly seek sustainable alternatives and vi-

- mobile houses

- mobile infrastructure

- mobile constructions

- economy based on open-structures

- Creating a local economy based on local production and consumption?

- small central/local market place

able modes of transportation?

- Can we work where we live?

- How will we define divisions between workspace, and livingspace?

- Can the climate of our home be mobile?

- Can we make communication truly mobile?

- What kind of transportaion system does Katanga have?

- How nomadic are the people there?

- On which basis do they choose a place for a home?

- How mobile are they and do they need to be?

- How does a typical day in Katanga looks like.

Finance

- Can we develop small enterprises?

- Can we redefine wealth?

- Can we create our own markets?

- How do we sustain diverse rural to urban economies??

- What is the average wealth of Katanga?

- Are there a lot of local economies?

â‚Ź

OR

OS

three systems that deal with the culture: social + spatial + identity Many elements combine to form culture: from customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits, to the characteristic features of everyday existence shared by people in a particular place or time. The dictionary defines culture as “the act of developing the intellectual and moral faculties especially by education.” In the instance of culture and home, we can see the influence of 21st century technological advances as a primary component to the education of an individual and of society as a whole, thus influencing the creation of culture. (‘World House Project’ booklet, Institute Without Boundaries)

System

Questions

Options

Social

- How does the social system work in Katanga?

- Building up a small community around “open structures” that can serve as example for the rest of Katanga and expand in form.

- How does a family look like (members,..) and what are their functions within the family?

- Social interractions:

- housing that interacts with the public space, centered around a semi-public space creating an inner private space. =layering layering

How? where does it take place?male-female relation? where do they gather?

- Where and how will we create our social networks?

- Should our homes be inward-looking (to a courtyard) or outward-

- Open-structures creates open-housing

OS

looking (to the neighborhood?

- Can local communities reshape global communities?

OS

- How will my home adapt to changes in my social unit?

OS

System

Questions

Options

Spatial

- Can we popularize intimate homes instead of monster homes?

- Masterplan that acentuets the individual within a community.

-working with a high mixture of private, public and semi-public spaces which interact with eachother.

- colorful environment betters the atmosphere.

-housing with a high amount of open spaces (private, public, semi-public) and relations to the exterior.

- differentiation by colors, materials,...

- Create a new identity but leave space that can be filled by their own perceptions (e.g. unfinished housing in Chile by ELEMENTAL)

- Can a house make space outside itself?

- How does the placement of our homes influence its

- creating a high level of depth within the urban/rural/builded environment

surroundings?

- How do our homes handle the flow from public to private spaces?

- Are the spaces in our homes multifunctional or specialized?

- Are our spaces inviting or closed?

- How can we enhance our space with color, texture or light?

- What is the traditional housing system in Congo?

- How do the flows work in a small comunity in the Katanga region?

-How are the interiors of the houses organised?

-are there any social rules that have to be respected?

Identity

- How can the identity of the Congolais people be defined?

- How do they live, what do they like,...?

- Can there be a global identity?

- Can we create a new identity? and for whom?

- How is identity expressed in our homes (materials, form, location, integration)?

- What do we express through our homes (the community, myself, my relation with my surroundings)?

- Does home express a single comunity

- Open spaces (e.g. balconies) and decoration is the place where identity shows itself the most.

Concept Open Architecture: Can we design architecture like how we design software?

Open - Source A big part of today’s software community is based on a broad and firm community, working with the open source principle. In this way of thinking, it’s not one person who delivers a finished design. It is in fact a whole community who contributes to an ever changing process of design, whereby the evolution of the design is open for everyone to see, understand, use and adjust. Of course, there are starting axioms or language that have to be used, for example the rules and grammar of a certain programming language. From these abstract givens, development of open source content can begin. Thus, the evolution of an open source product happens in a non-hierarchical, never-ending way, based on certain systems or languages.

Also, there’s a tendency to conceive and create upon the shoulders of predecessors, and share experiences inside a massively interested and active community. The social aspect in an open source thus has become very important.

This social aspect leads directly to an economic aspect, without becoming financially contaminated. You give to the community, you take from the community. This can be seen as an economy of trading knowledge, experience, ideas or designs, but it doesn’t necessarily involve money. These economies cross borders of countries and disciplines, of prices and work hours, as they are extremely reachable and evolutive for people, but unreachable and unfixable for existing economic structures. Open source economies exist next to the capitalist and nationalist economies, without being incorporated by these.

As a last point of the open source principle, we can point out that these communities are not mandatory: they don’t oblige you to take on an identity as member of this or that community. There is no act of joining an open source community, as you can go by anonymously. In this way, a person can be a contributor to very different communities, and this person chooses how

to construct his identity by different open source and closed communities: he can be a father, a government employee, a software programmer, and a DIYconstructor at the same time, sharing and creating in different communities, maybe even bridging them. The identity of an open source community is social, and it doesn’t necessarily reflect on individuals: anyone can participate, for as long or as short as needed.

Open - Architecture It’s easy to understand that the emergence of open source communities is changing the face of contemporary society. A challenge now is to take the principle of open source products and communities out of the digital atmosphere and bring it into ‘the real world’, to use its power for designing our society. To go from open source software to open source hardware: this is exactly the field of OPEN ARCHITECTURE. This is what we aim to investigate. This is our concept, our mission.

To conceive of a truely open architecture, is to think of a modular system where everyone can design from its principle.

This modular system cannot be hiërarchical, whereby all modular elements are designed by one person or institute and for one system. It has to be modifiable by different persons, yet combinable with designs of other people.

For this, we work with the open-structures grid. The grid is scaled to architectural size, so that different participators, inhabitants and designers can respond to this grid and to each others design. For example, different connectors can be designed according to the open modular grid, so that beams of steel, columns of wood and wind bracings of rope can be connected to eachother. Every person can re-use, adjust, build upon the construction of other community members because of the shared modular grid. Even custom connections can be constructed according to ones needs, as long as it follows the simple division of the modular grid.

Classic company Closed design and economy

Open source community Open design and economy

The Community

Structure-infrastructure

The community that this open source architectural approach creates, cannot be a community of internet and virtual worlds. It can rather be a community with real social interaction and economic activity. A society where components and little structures, knowhow and information, materials and services can be exchanged in a humane way. Here lays the difference between an internet open source community and a possible architectural open source community.

Architecture deals with society and its people, and thus every approach in architecture has to deal with this fact, whereas internet communities stay more anonymous.

Just as open source software needs its programming language, open architecture needs its infrastructure to work as an open source community.

Infrastructure can be defined as the basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function.

In order to keep a real-world open source community out of a real-world closed economy, our aim is to create an economy that functions from within the open source approach of architecture. Our intention is to design adaptable systems that can contribute to a local economy who escapes dominant closed economies - either capitalist, communist and/or nationalist. This local economy based on open source foresees in basic needs, such as warming, cooling, water, electricity and other life facilities. The open architecture that we are investigating thus results in a local economy, attentive for recuperative systems: water can be collected and re-used for washing and cooling, food waste can be recycled for creating biogas, and bio-gas can be used for cooking and generating electricity, and so on.

It’s in this way that open architecture means open local economy, collecting/ recycling/re-using water/waste/materials into an open source community.

In our context, the context of Katanga, Democratic Republic of Congo, we provide a structure, a construction based on the open modular grid. This structure is modifiable at any time, and is constructed over a yet-to-consider timeline, based on a analysed growth scenario. It is our opinion that this structure is needed for the emergence of an open society. It can be seen as a 3D grid where people can plug in walls, floors, facilities, furniture, and what they can even think of. This 3D-grid is real-world material, constructed in bamboo and adaptable with customizable connections, yet abstract in its use and function. it’s the people of the open source society who plug into this structure, who define its role.

Thus, this given 3D structure, to be constructed over time, does not contain in itself a concrete function, rather this structure becomes infrastructure, that is, the condition for society. It offers possibilities to collect water, to collect waste, to give shelter, to generate electricity, to design housing and social spaces, to trade materials and goods.

The structure becomes infrastructure, providing necessary systems for society to function as an open source and local economy.

Designer A designs modular system 1

Company B designs modular system 2

Although all these systems enjoy the benefits of modularity within their system, they most of the time are completely incompatible with one another.

Project approach Construction Structural connection The most important aim in the development of the constructionsystem was to design a connection which could be applicated in different ways: a multi-functional connection that allows the use of different materials and forms. The design of the connection can be compared to a sandwich. 2 steel plates (each 1cm thick and designed according to the openstructures grid) work as ends of the node, in between are wooden connectors (each 4cm thick) placed according to the material and form of the used column, beam or diagonal. The whole is attached with bolts and screws.

A maximum of 8 different columns can be arranged around the node to improve the strength of the construction.

The centre of the steel-plates is left open to leave space for the water-pipes which lead the water from the roof to the water-storage points. steel end-plate wooden circulare connector diagonal connector

wooden rectangular connector

screw and bolt

water-pipe

water recuparation by screens, which lead the water to the 4 waterpips in the 4 columns

Structure The framework structure is arranged according the openstructures grid of 5,12m on 5,12m (which is the dimension that admits the placement of components inbetween the framework). The columns, placed on the cross-sections of the grid, support the roof which functions as water-recuparation platform. The structure is kept so easy to construct that it allows a fast construction and de-construction.

The sides of the construction are protected against the rain by screens

Open-structure The framework is the basic component of the further development of the community. Using this framework people can easily create platforms, spaces,... using the earlier explained construction node, or other techniques suitable and compatible to the grid and framework. This freedom creates a patchwork of architecture within a homogeneous structure.

Water Water is one of the most important cycles. Within our construction we try to develop a closed system where water is collected (the screens of the roof and the waterpipes in the columns), stored (in pet-bottles or reservoirs) and distributed. It can serve as a trading element in the creation of a local economy.

1

Rainwater harvesting

rainwater vessel

2 3

5

recycled plastic bottles rainwater storage

4

Shower

Farming

Farming 6

SODIS purifying system Cooking

2

1

6

5 4

3

Sunny: 6 h Cloudy: 32 h E B

A

E

C

Following the principle of the communicating vessels, Water is stored in reused PET-bottles. According to the same principle, water can be taken from this bottle storage through a tap.

Also, water can be taken by replacing a full PET-bottle by an empty one.

A : Air tube B : Water tube C : End tube communicating between D and E D : Rainwater standpipe E : ventilation standpipe

7

7

Drinking

Waste biogas

As waste can be re-used to create gas and elecricty. It can become a precious and unlimited resource, transforming our waste into a useful survival tool.

fluid zone sludge zone dung zone

1 kg of droppings a person a day

means half a ton for 50 people in 20 days

same principle with waste of food

means biogas 100 l

means 300 l of usable biogas for generator

equals 1 h of gas for cooking

equals electricity for letting 150 light bulbs of 100 W burn for 10 h

Community The community and its economical aspect are organized around the Atelier. This space collects construction materials/ waste to re-use it other projects.

This centre becomes the motor of the whole community as it developes new pieces to integrate in the already existing construction, and as it builds up new structures. It becomes a economic/research/recycling/ construction centre for the community.

AT ELI ER

AT ELI ER

Local economy

Trading open structures parts

AT ELI ER

Assembling in atelier

Local economy

Trading open structures parts

Assembling in atelier

Local economy

Trading open structures parts

Assembling in atelier

System patterns Looking for synergies in / between different systems.

Wind

Cooling by construction

Sun

Cooling by ventilation

Energy by wind

Cooling by shadow

Screens create shadow and shelter

Sun collectors

Rain

Community

Local Construction

Collect water

Collect/recycle materials

Atelier

Synthetic waste processing

Open construction

Construction waste processing

Wages from services

Recycling

Selling digital OS pieces

Wages from openstructures

Making OS pieces for other villages, communities

Hanging structures terraces

Screens create shadow and shelter for public spaces

Screen collectors

Water distribution

Energy by water

Water wheel

To chill Living

Bottle rain water collector

Solar oven Using water

Water source

Re-using the heat to accelarate the fermenting proces

Pump

Growing of food

Food storage

Cooling by condensation

Drinking

Hygiene

Energy of people

Eating

Cooking food

Working

Wages by agriculture

Drip Irrigation Kitchen gardens

Use water

Biogas generator

Energy from food

Fermenting of food/droppings

Organic waste processing

Urinate, defecate

Selling bottles to Atelier to create bottle collector

Scenarios Growth scenarios Step 0

Step 1

An existing village/neighbourhood which is supported by a NGO and is interested in the Openstructures system.

The first basic construction is a 12 roof structure which creates a meeting/market place and offers the possibility to collect rainwater.

Attached to this construction are a small Atelier and biogasdigester and reservoir. The Atelier (small at the beginning) is the local recycling and construction place. It educates people in the OS-principles and creates the new materials/nodes/structures used in the further development of the community. This place will become the centre for the local trade-economy. The biogasreservoir will provide the Atelier of some of the necessary electricity and gas.

Step 2

Step 3

With the collected rainwater a small public farming initiative can be started next to the roofstructures and waterreservoirs. This farm can be used to start the local production/ economy of food and be soled at the adjacent marketplace.

The whole structure can stay as in step 2 and just provide the village of a local economy (based on buildingmaterials and food), water (collected from the roof), electricity and gas. On the other hand it can grow if inhabitants enjoy the possitive impulses of the OS-system. If this is the case a Education/Research-hub can be built with elements of the Atelier. This hub would function as a school for the children and as administrative centre for further organization of the community and its economy. New biogasand water-reservoirs can be placed in function to the needs. New systems can be developed to improve the structures and houses within the OS-system.

Step 4

Step 5

To further improve communitylife, a multi-purpose space and dispensary are built. The new structures increase the quantity of the collected water. The education-hub can be expanded if needed.

Housing will be builded in the structures together with some commercial activity. The shops would be mobile so that they could function in the whole area and could easily adapt to the precise goal of the shopkeeper (e.g.phone booth,..). The houses can be built as wished and can be fully made and installed by the Atelier.

Step 6 The principles of openArchitecture are now fully appropriated and incite an organic growth of patchworks.