Shortsighted El Rama Update end of May 2014 by BAMBÚ SOCIAL

SHORTSIGHTED EL RAMA // UPDATE 03 // 16-05-2014 // INFO@SHORTSIGHTEDARCHITECTURE.COM

MAY 27TH, 2014

APRIL 14TH, 2014 SHORTSIGHTED EL RAMA // UPDATE 04 // 31-05-2014 // INFO@SHORTSIGHTEDARCHITECTURE.COM

B AMB AL OOYAH!

THE WOOD CONNECTION FOR THE BAMBOO COLLUMNS

El Rama, 31-05-2014 ...building with bamboo has begun! A quick overview: •

We set up the first bamboo columns! The neighbours are getting more curious every day. Meanwhile, the transformation of the surrounding environment is taking place, the preparation to make a beautiful garden has already started. @ BICU

•

More and more prefabricated parts are coming out of our small bamboo factory in the centre of El Rama. @ ATELIER BAMBU SOCIAL

•

We changed our strategy because for the third time a pila is leaking in our plantation and self made treatment facility. The cutting is still going strong, with a focus an the species Bambusa Gigantochloa. @ EL RECREO

•

We presented a proposal for the bamboo garbage bins for the United Nations Development Programme and the Inter-American Development Bank.

•

We placed three water filters for families in the village of El Recreo.

•

And finally in this edition, a photo series: one day with Shortsighted Architecture in El Rama.

Read on and enjoy!

SHORTSIGHTED EL RAMA // UPDATE 04 // 31-05-2014 // INFO@SHORTSIGHTEDARCHITECTURE.COM

B ICU

HENKY ADJUSTING THE WOOD CONNECTIONS ON SITE

BICU - CONS TR UCTION The bamboo had been cut, treated and transported, so it was high time to start construction. We positioned the first columns on the foundation. The way we have done this, is a new proposal to prevent moisture problems. The idea and design is result of research and many experiments made by Max Verhoeven, Laurens van der Wal and Henky Borgstein (see sketches and image below). The core idea is to lift the bamboo of the ground and connect it to the foundation via a durable wood, that works well together with bamboo. These prefabricated wood pieces that slide into the bamboo, were made by Henky Borgstein in his carpentry and the final adjustments were made in loco. We noticed that working with bamboo and nonindustrial materials requires a different way of thinking, for example even if the bamboo culms are from the same plant, each culm has a different size. Besides that the plantation El Recreo, where we get our bamboo culms, does not manage the bamboo plants, which makes the culms differ even more from one another. This requires adjustments in the work. We also installed the tie beams (the top beams that keep the columns together) that were prefabricated at ATELIER BAMBU SOCIAL. Right now we continue to work on beams for the first and second floor and soon we will place the permanent bracing to replace the current temporary bracing

THINKING AND DESIGNING SHORTSIGHTED EL RAMA // UPDATE 04 // 31-05-2014 // INFO@SHORTSIGHTEDARCHITECTURE.COM

EXPERIMENT

BICU - CONS TR UCTION SITE

LECTURE

FINDING THE RIGHT BEAM

MAKING A BAMBOO JOINT

TEMPORARY BRACING EXPERIMENT

SETTING A COLUMN

SETTING UP SCAFFOLDING

As if it were magic the bamboo columns came together and created the outline of a house. PLACING THE FIRST BEAMS

FOUNDATION CONNECTION

PLACING TEMPORARY BRACING

BAMBOO JOINT

SHORTSIGHTED EL RAMA // UPDATE 04 // 31-05-2014 // INFO@SHORTSIGHTEDARCHITECTURE.COM

ABRA KADABRA!

DIANA AND JUAN RAFAEL PREPARING THE COMPOST

BICU - GARDEN A truly sustainable house can not be seen apart from its environment, therefore an equally important part of the project is creation of the garden. Sustainability might even be more apparent in the use of the house then in the creation and the garden is paramount in this. The garden will provide for food, waste decomposition, relaxation, beauty and even construction materials, by planting bamboo. Mother nature is benevolent. In our opinion the house and the garden should create a synergy, the house providing the garden with nutrients and the garden giving back to the house and its inhabitants. The garden design was made by Diana Gonzalez, she is coordinating the activities on site. The proposal is based on permaculture design ideas. Within the smaller scale we like to create certain strategic areas that contribute to existent natural patterns. For the garden we again work together with the students of the Agrofloresta course at BICU (Bluefields Indian and Caribbean University). They recommended us to look into the work of Prof. Jairo Restrepo Rivera, a researcher and specialist on organic agriculture for instructions of how to prepare the compost and biofertilizer. We are very thankful to Prof. Jairo for all the information shared online.<http://lamierdadevaca.com/web/> In this first stage we are dedicated to explore and clean up the area and at the same time, we are preparing the compost and the biofertilizer so that it can rest for about three weeks. Thanks to the students of the “Técnico em Agropecuária” from Instituto Bernardo Ciriaqui for the help! To prepare the compost we used: 12 bags of earth; 20 bags of manure; 20 bags of rice rusks; 2 kg baker’s yeast; 3 bags of crushed coal; 2 gallons of molasses (sugar cane syrup). The process of creating the compost is an aerobic reaction in which, for three weeks, it is necessary to mix the ingredients everyday in order to keep the temperature at a maximum of 60 degrees, facilitating the work of the microorganisms. The fertilizer is created in an anaerobic reaction inside a closed barrel. We used: 60kg of fresh manure, 3 liters of molasses, 4 liters of milk, baker’s yeast and ashes. It is necessary to dissolve the manure first in water before inserting the other ingredients. To release the gasses, we attached a water hose connected to a PET bottle with water which prevents air coming in. SHORTSIGHTED EL RAMA // UPDATE 04 // 31-05-2014 // INFO@SHORTSIGHTEDARCHITECTURE.COM

BICU - GARDEN

DRAINAGE CHANNEL

CLEANING

ORIENTATION

The garden will provide for food, waste decompostion, relaxation, beauty and even construction materials, by planting bamboo. THE DESIGN PROPOSAL

COMPOST HOUSE

SHORTSIGHTED EL RAMA // UPDATE 04 // 31-05-2014 // INFO@SHORTSIGHTEDARCHITECTURE.COM

BIOFERTILIZER

AT E LI ER B A M B U S O CI A L

THE BEAMS ALREADY INSTALLED

ATELIE R B AMBU SOCIAL In the previous update we talked about the making and testing of molds for making beams existing of two bamboo culms connected to act as one beam, taking place at our atelier . Two weeks later and we are producing at full capacity, with a team of 6 to 8 workers solely focused on making bamboo pegs and beams. Hundreds of pegs have been made and dozens of beams have already came out of our little bamboo factory in the centre of El Rama. To produce enough beams in a short time span we work with hired labour. However even this job turns out to be a real learning experience for us and the guys producing the beams. To our pleasure they have expressed interest to learn more about working with bamboo. We try to circulate them throughout different jobs and also involve them in the cutting, treating and construction process. This way when they are done working they not only have a wage but also experience working with bamboo. At the same time the constant focus on making just beams and bamboo pegs gives tons of insights for improving the process and the products. Besides working on the beams we are also working on another very important structural part of the building, the bracing of the building. The diagonal supports that are responsible for the rigidity and stability of the construction. For some parts of the building we will be using a system of cross braces. This means two diagonal supports placed in an X shaped manner. One of the diagonal supports will handle the tensile (pull) forces while the other takes care of the compressive (push) forces. For this reason the braces have different designs, the compressive brace is made of a whole bamboo and the tensile brace made of two parts of bamboo combined with wood to allow space for connections.

SHORTSIGHTED EL RAMA // UPDATE 04 // 31-05-2014 // INFO@SHORTSIGHTEDARCHITECTURE.COM

ATELIER B AMBU SOCIAL

BAMBOO PEGS

MOLD FOR THE BAMBOO PEGS

[...] the constant focus on making just beams and bamboo pegs gives tons of insights for improving the process and the products.

MAKING A BEAM

BRACING

BEAMS

CONNECTION

MAKING A BEAM

CONNECTIONS

BEAMS

SHORTSIGHTED EL RAMA // UPDATE 04 // 31-05-2014 // INFO@SHORTSIGHTEDARCHITECTURE.COM

EL R E CREO

CUTTING BAMBOO IN EL RECREO

EL RECREO Activities in El Recreo continue to happen on a regular basis, the difference being the focus is now only on one species of bamboo, Bambusa Gigantochloa: cutting, cleaning, soaking, drying and transporting. We are hiring more workers to help us, speeding up the process, increasing the amount of pieces that we cut in one go. Last week we had an incident: one of our pilas (treatment reservoir) leaked (again). This means wasting all of the solution and worse, a delay in the treatment process. We changed the strategy and decided to only keep using one pila for the longer pieces but at the same time use more barrels to treat short pieces (up to three meter) of bamboo by capillary action. To transport the bamboo culms to El Rama, sometimes we hire a truck, but whenever possible we use the truck of the municipality. A truck that is bigger, fitting more columns easily. At the moment all the columns of the species Dendrocalamus Asper (the big bamboo) are already on the construction site in El Rama. Last but not least, we are very glad to have people from the El Recreo community helping to clean the bamboos from time to time; also the students from the Curso Tecnologico Agropecuario from Instituto National Tecnologico - INATEC have helped a lot.

THE EMPTY PILA AND THE FULL PILA

THE MUNICIPALITY TRUCK

SHORTSIGHTED EL RAMA // UPDATE 04 // 31-05-2014 // INFO@SHORTSIGHTEDARCHITECTURE.COM

THE LADIES FROM EL RECREO

EVE N T S

DETAIL OF THE MODEL FOR THE GARBAGE BIN

DESIGN F OR THE GARB AGE BINS The project of GISRES (<http://www.undp.org.ni/equipo/pnud>) has the objective to improve the quality of life of low income communities and aims to implement a regional planning for solid waste management covering three regions: Bluefield, Corn Island and El Rama. Trough this program the BambĂş Social team was asked to present a proposal, designing a garbage bin using bamboo to go along with the start of a system of waste separation (plastic, organic and others) in El Rama. Jezabel Mejias, who worked on a similar project in Rio de Janeiro, coordinates this project. Together with a local craftsman, Don Samuel, she made a model and presented a proposal using a combination of woven bamboo and thin strips of bamboo. The intention is to start implementing 50 garbage bins containing three barrels of 38 gallons in El Rama, and extend this to 350 garbage bins serving the entire city. Last Wednesday, May 28th, we had an important meeting in El Rama with the local authorities and United Nations representatives through the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) and the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank). Juan Carlos Gaviria Moreno presented the model of the garbage bin and talked about our project. We are very happy to share that it was a success.

DISCUSSING THE PROPOSAL

DON SAMUEL WORKING

SHORTSIGHTED EL RAMA // UPDATE 04 // 31-05-2014 // INFO@SHORTSIGHTEDARCHITECTURE.COM

UN PENUD AND

THE DELIVERY OF THE THREE FILTER FOR THE EL RECREO COMMUNITY

WATER FILTERS A month ago we organised a lecture and a workshop on clean drinking water for the students of the Sustainable Construction Course. We had two specialist from the Blue Energy Group Bluefields, Carlos and Violeta, that helped us organizing and teaching the three days activities. The lecture was given at the BICU on Monday, approaching health issues related to water quality, good sanitation practices and water purification techniques. Some special attention was given to explain the functioning of the biosand filter in order to be well prepared for the practical work of the next day. The biosand filter is a simple and very effective purification technique. It functions based on an active bacterial top layer of the gravel material that is spontaneously created after pouring water from a fixed source through the filter for thirty days. Tuesday and Wednesday we constructed four filters with two different groups of students. They made the entire process: pouring concrete in the molds, sieving and washing the different sand types and installing filters. We did an example using smaller plastic bucket versions, because the concrete molds still needs time to dry. The workshop provided an overview of the current problems concerning the access to clean and reliable drinking water. It is noticeable that a lot can be improved and we feel pleased to make our (small) contribution. This week we organized an event to deliver and install three of the constructed filters at the beautiful community of El Recreo . Violeta, from Blue Energy Group came and gave all the instructions for the proper use and maintenance of the filters. In a few hours we installed the filters were and the group of the community could be informed about preconditions, maintenance and clarify their doubts regarding the system. We would like to give special thanks to Blue Energy Group Bluefields, to Violeta and Carlos that did not save any effort to realize this activity. We are very happy to end it successfully! SHORTSIGHTED EL RAMA // UPDATE 04 // 31-05-2014 // INFO@SHORTSIGHTEDARCHITECTURE.COM

WATER FILTERS SPECIAL THANKS T O BL UE ENER GY TEAM

LECTURE

WORKSHOP

WORKSHOP -SELECTING THE GRAVEL

WORKSHOP - THE CONCRETE MOLD

This week we organized an event to deliver and install three filters at the beautiful community of El Recreo

WORKSHOP

DELIVERING THE FILTERS

EXPLAINING HOW THEY WORK

SHORTSIGHTED EL RAMA // UPDATE 04 // 31-05-2014 // INFO@SHORTSIGHTEDARCHITECTURE.COM

THE FILTER

ONE DAY WI T H S S A

COMING BACK TO RAMA FROM EL RECREO

ONE DAY WITH SS A_EL RAMA After three months of living and working in El Rama, we would like to present to you a selection of pictures that illustrate our daily routine. They present the different activities that are happening in the same time. We usually circulate throughout the different places, in order to learn about everything and to experience every aspect of the process. For your understanding here once more a brief explanation of what happens where: EL RECREO - The place where we find our bamboo, located 15km from El Rama. When we cut, we wake up at 04:30 and get the taxi at 05:00 to start the cutting process as early as possible because before sunrise the level of sugar in the bamboo culms is lower. The activities there usually last the entire day: transporting, cleaning, taking out the treated bamboo of the pila, putting new bamboo in the pila. We usually finish the day swimming on the river, or even sometimes we enjoy the peace of the countryside and spend the night there. BICU - Our construction site, we start at 8:00, have a break at 12:00, sometimes we eat at a restaurant nearby, sometimes the university provides us with food on site, but most of the time we have lunch together at the atelier. ATELIER BAMBU SOCIAL - Our loft, home and working place. We usually have all the meals there. HOTEL OASIS - Our office support, the place that we can have internet access, and a big table to work and do the meetings after the working day. BODEGA - Our bamboo storage, where we constructed a drying rack for treated bamboo. CARIBBEAN RESTAURANT - It is the restaurant of Henky, we love to relax there, talk to Sonia, the wife of Henky, and just have great time.

SHORTSIGHTED EL RAMA // UPDATE 04 // 31-05-2014 // INFO@SHORTSIGHTEDARCHITECTURE.COM

ONE DAY WITH SS A_EL RAMA

_05:00_El_Recreo_team_leaves

_06:00_Maria_doing_the_breakfast _07:00_breakfast

_07:30_briefing

_07:50_arriving_at_BICU

08:00_work_at_the_BICU

_08:00_start_of_the_course

_08:00_work_at_El_Recreo

_08:00_work_at_the_atelier

_09:00_work_at_Hotel_Oasis

_09:00_work_at_the_bodega

_12:00_lunch_at_the_atelier

SHORTSIGHTED EL RAMA // UPDATE 04 // 31-05-2014 // INFO@SHORTSIGHTEDARCHITECTURE.COM

ONE DAY WITH SS A_EL RAMA

_12:00_lunch_at_BICU

_13:30_siesta

_14:00_work_in_progress

15:00_facility_manager_running

15:30_financial_department

16:00_work_in_progress

_17:00_cleaning

_17:00_the_guard_don_Calderon

_17:30_swimming on the river_\o/

_18:30_dinner_at_atelier

_18:30_de-briefing_Hotel_Oasis

_20:30_relaxing_at_Caribbean

SHORTSIGHTED EL RAMA // UPDATE 04 // 31-05-2014 // INFO@SHORTSIGHTEDARCHITECTURE.COM

THE BEAUTIES OF EL RAMA

FRESH FRUITS ON THE MARKET

SUNSET AND THE PORT

BUSSES

THE BICU UNIVERSITY

STREET LIFE

THE PLAZA AND THE CHURCH

THE COUNTRYSIDE LIVING

VIEW FROM THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN

THE RIVER

EL RECREO BRIGDE AND RIVER

RODEO

TORTILLAS

SHORTSIGHTED EL RAMA // UPDATE 04 // 31-05-2014 // INFO@SHORTSIGHTEDARCHITECTURE.COM

TRANSPORTING BAMBOO IN EL RECREO

THE B AMBU SOCIAL NET W ORK Bambu Social Team Diana Jimena Gonzalez Floor van Eijden Henky Borgstein Jezabel Mejias Reyes Juan Carlos Gaviria Moreno Karin Fernanda Schwambach Laurens van der Wal Max Verhoeven Sheila Oroschin Sherman Tam Ties Temmink

Cookers Sonia - our second mother Doña Candida - an angel in earth Doña Elza - delicious food Lesbia- great cooker Doña Maria Davila Zamura Neizi Jiron

Students from Sustainable Construction Course Alfredo Quijano Angel Theodoro Eddy Manuel Sandoval Eliel Altamirano Engel Villata Giovany Flores Jamir Raudes Javier Antonio Rodrigues Johanna Jose Antonio Jose Armando Ruiz Juan Carlos Ruiz Juan Rafael Rosa Moreno Octavio Latinos Ramon Flores Ortega

Transport Freddy

Workers Adan Alan Miguel Salazar David Gabriel Padilla Deldifoneo Nicolas Kelly Ruiz Elias Manuel Alvarez Arroliga Erlin Ezequiel Jesus Mazanari Henry Jose Batancour Nuñez Juan Rafael Davila Martin

Workers in El Recreo Don Saul - motorsaw Don Julian - motorsaw Calisto Ariel Tacho Nelson Johnathan Doña Margarita and many more!

SHORTSIGHTED EL RAMA // UPDATE 04 // 31-05-2014 // INFO@SHORTSIGHTEDARCHITECTURE.COM

SPECIAL THANKS SHEIL A OR OSCHI AND SHERMAN TAM

SHORTSIGHTED EL RAMA // UPDATE 04 // 31-05-2014 // INFO@SHORTSIGHTEDARCHITECTURE.COM

BABE

CREDIT S SHORTSIGHTED ARCHITECTURE UPDATE 04 Coordination Sheila Oroschin of External Karin Fernanda Schwambach Communication Marketing Consultant

Sherman Tam

Layout

Max Verhoeven Karin Fernanda Schwambach

Text Karin Fernanda Schwambach Jezabel Mejias Reyes Ties Temmink Diana Gonzalez Laurens van der Wal Photos Jezabel Mejias Reyes (Thank you very much for your beautiful clicks!) Max Verhoeven Floor van Eijden Karin Fernanda Schwambach Laurens van der Wal Period

18/05/2014 - 31/05/2014

SHORTSIGHTED EL RAMA // UPDATE 04 // 31-05-2014 // INFO@SHORTSIGHTEDARCHITECTURE.COM

THE MODEL HOUSE