A NEW INDIGENOUS UNIVERSITY IN THE RAINFOREST IN COLOMBIA

A NEW INDIGENOUS UNIVERSITY IN THE RAINFOREST IN COLOMBIA

Studio Anne Lacaton Lacaton & Vassal ETH Zurich D-ARCH

FOREWORD Philip Ursprung → 5 UNIVERSIDAD BIOCULTURAL INDÍGENA PANAMAZÓNICA – AWAI Hernando Chindoy → 9 PART I: CONTEXT INTRODUCTION → 19 BACKGROUND Ursula Biemann → 20 BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES OF THE NEW INDIGENOUS UNIVERSITY → 22 HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF THE INDIGENOUS INGA PEOPLE OF COLOMBIA → 25 EXPLORE THE UNKNOWN, BUILD KNOWLEDGE Anne Lacaton → 30 THE STORY OF A PROJECT → 32 THE STUDIO’S OBJECTIVES → 34 ATTITUDE Anne Lacaton & Jean-Philippe Vassal → 36 METHOD → 38 JOURNEY → 40 REFLECTIONS ON OUR JOURNEY TO THE TERRITORY OF THE INGA Blain, Kaiser, Keel → 113 AFTER THE TRIP Lacaton, Durand → 118 PART II: THE UNIVERSITY PROPOSALS Anne Lacaton → 124 WHAT IS TO COME Anne Lacaton → 126 STRATEGIES FOR A NEW INDIGENOUS UNIVERSITY → 128 STORYBOARDS → 130 1 UNIVERSITY AS A PROCESS: FAMILIAR PLACES IN THE TERRITORY → 140 2 UNIVERSITY AS A PATH: BEYOND CAMPUS → 152 3 UNIVERSITY IN THREE CONTEXTS: CITY–RESGUARDO–FOREST → 162 4 UNIVERSITY OF NETWORKS: ALONG THE FOOTHILL OF THE MOUNTAIN → 174 5 UNIVERSITY: VILLAGE AND RAINFOREST → 186 ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY → 198 SPACE, TIME, AND AUTONOMY: THE UNIVERSITY CAMPUS Philip Ursprung → 200 RAISING DOUBTS Angelika Fitz → 202 HOW DO WE GROUP THE STARS? Santiago Pradilla Hosie → 204 SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH PASSIVE DESIGN Olivier Dambron → 206 A FIRST EXCHANGE OF IDEAS BETWEEN THE INGA AND ETH Teresa Galí-Izard → 208 PART III: CATALOGUES GLOSSARY → 214 MOCOA MEETINGS → 230 ATLAS → 234 SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGIES → 256 CONSTRUCTIONS → 278 PART IV: COLLABORATION ALL PARTICIPANTS → 308 DEVENIR UNIVERSIDAD Ursula Biemann → 314 ETH ZURICH AND PUJ BOGOTÁ Martín Anzellini García-Reyes → 315

A NEW INDIGENOUS UNIVERSITY IN THE RAINFOREST IN COLOMBIA

Studio Anne Lacaton Lacaton & Vassal ETH Zurich D-ARCH

Around 350 years ago, an elder of ours called Carlos Tamabioy told us to protect the territory in order to return it to our descendants unharmed, and he also said that every time we sow, we should remember that not only do we have to plant food for us humans, but also for the other creatures which are also part of our family of life. It is highly gratifying that you, together with Ursula, were able to come to our village with such active and enthusiastic students. I trust that the Indigenous University will be a meeting place that will provide room for varied reflections and for the revitalization of learning and knowledge to keep on living in this "shared home". It is good that life has given us this chance to meet each other and that you have been so positively impacted in favour of our cause: to educate in order to learn to live again in harmony with the Earth.

Hernando Chindoy Chindoy, leader of the Indigenous Inga People of Colombia

FOREWORD Philip Ursprung “Can we talk?” Ursula Biemann wrote to me in late July 2018. She was just back from a long trip with the leader of the Inga people through the Departments of Nariño and Putumayo in Southern Colombia, where she was planning her newest artwork. She had received all the support and permissions for shooting videos that she wished, she told me. But the most exciting result of her trip was that the leader had invited her to consult the Inga people in designing a new university in the rainforest. Centuries of knowledge were about to be lost due to the political and economic pressure on the area, environmental crisis and brain drain to the urban centers. The university was a chance to reactivate this knowledge and make it fruitful to the people and the international community as well.

What a commission! As Dean of the Department of Architecture, I promised that our school would be engaged in this project and contribute to the plans for a new university. My main goals during my tenure as Dean were to strengthen the research culture at the school, and to improve its international outreach. The planned project was exactly what I was dreaming of: a real project for a burning issue, combining issues that we know – designing spaces, dealing with academic structures – with issues that we don’t know – the culture of Southern Colombia and the very specific knowledge about plants, medicine, language and cultural traditions of the Inga people.

It allowed for a combination of teaching and research and promised to connect architecture to science and art.

I invited Ursula to give the Department Lecture in early October 2018 and suggested that she should mention the plans for the new university. I was hoping that some of my colleagues would be attracted by such a possibility. Luckily, Anne Lacaton attended the lecture and immediately saw the opportunity. Together with Biemann she designed a two-semester studio which would focus on the study and proposals for the university in the rain forest. It turned out to be the most exciting studio that I have witnessed at our school so far. Never had I seen such an engaged and productive group of students.

From the beginning, the project was conceived as an opportunity to learn from a highly complex situation, and not to tell the Inga people what to do. The studio did not attempt to solve the problems but to offer a space of production of ideas, questions and proposals that would be shared by the Inga and by our partner school in Bogotá.

The project was a lens to focus on the unknown, not a mirror to reflect ourselves. Such a project does not fit the standard models of one semester teaching. It also eludes the capacities of a single studio. Luckily, the project will continue with new colleagues. The journey has just started.

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THE INDIGENOUS INGA PEOPLE OF COLOMBIA GUARDIANS OF THE EARTH

UNIVERSIDAD BIOCULTURAL INDÍGENA PANAMAZÓNICA – AWAI Hernando Chindoy Chindoy Weaving bridges between indigenous learning systems and western science PRESENTATION Colombia is the world’s second most biodiverse country, and the majority of this wealth lies in the territories of indigenous peoples whose knowledge and wisdom have protected it. The advanced process of colonization, coupled with war, politics, education, religion and the economy, which have tried to undermine or erase those it considers underdeveloped or “savage”, has met with the fierce resistance of Andean and Amazonian indigenous peoples and communities who, despite being on the verge of physical and cultural extermination, are the Guardians of the Earth. For this reason, the Inga people in Colombia, descendants of the Inca, are dedicated to conceptualizing, designing and weaving the house of learning, which is understood as a meeting place where different strands of knowledge “can coexist without any one claiming greater rights over the others” and which will guarantee the dignity and the physical, cultural and spiritual survival of the indigenous peoples both in time and in place. This will only be possible by strengthening the dialogue between systems of indigenous learning and western science and technologies with the purpose of fostering biocultural peace and safeguarding natural resources worldwide from a plural perspective of resilience aimed at wellbeing. The Inga people of Colombia, ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich), Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, National University of Colombia, the National Pedagogic University of Colombia, La Salle University, Instituto Humboldt and UNESCO have joined forces in the project for the Universidad Biocultural Indígena Panamazónica (Pan-Amazonian Indigenous Biocultural University) which will be known as AWAI (meaning “to weave” in Inga), with the purpose of promoting the following vision: (1) to participate in the research and creation of a higher education institution to foster a vision of biocentric support; (2) to commit to the co-creation of knowledge, bestowing the same recognition on academic teachers and the masters of ancestral wisdom and knowledge; (3) to actively advocate a paradigm shift in the relationship between nature and humankind in order to protect biodiversity and the preservation of mountains, plateaus and forests, which play a key role in offsetting and adapting to climate change, and which ultimately benefit not just the indigenous peoples who live there but also the whole planetary community.

Located in a fertile equatorial region with exceptional biodiversity, AWAI will adapt to the needs of life in the territories with an educational focus centred on environmental sciences, territorial knowledge, ethnobotany, agro-ecological production, bioethics 9

and indigenous systems of governance, promoting research and education practices that strengthen the coexistence of regional and global biocultural diversity. The project is firmly based on the UN-backed understanding that the preservation of the diversity of species on Earth also calls for the protection of the epistemic diversity that has co-evolved with them. This biocultural paradigm acknowledges the inextricable ecological bonds between nature and culture, and for this reason it is at the centre of a shared vision, as well as the fight against discrimination in education.

Studying at AWAI will strengthen the collective efforts which the Andean and Amazonian indigenous peoples are already undertaking for global life from Abya Yala (America) with pluriversal, critical and decolonial gazes. In this regard, it will: 1) promote access to knowledge based on contextual, epistemic, methodological and empirical premises of research; 2) reaffirm ancestral knowledge on biocultural peace; and 3) give visibility to experiences, practices, theories and narratives that contribute to the social, economic, cultural, environmental and spiritual advance of the peoples, building productive bridges between different systems of knowledge for a governance adapted to the territories, to safeguard the natural and cultural environment and, in general, to increase the resilience of indigenous, peasant and Afro-descendant peoples with an emphasis on a multi-epistemic plural, evolutive, experimental and constructive dialogue.

The project is conceived to begin with 3 phases in a time frame of 12-15 years and with a presence Emberacing the whole of the Inga territory, with installations in various places which will be adapted for the learning of particular content. Studying the Earth, rivers, forests, jungle, languages, medicine and agriculture require different places that are able to negotiate the infinite paths of access to knowledge and the constructive power of human dignity based on respect for non-human beings.

The initial opening phase covers a 4-5 year period of undergraduate studies and foundation courses. The second phase of consolidation will continue to years 8 to 10. The third phase will be one of sustainability which ranges from years 12 to 15.

Once these three phases have been passed, AWAI will inscribe itself in a phase of continuity over time and in space for infinite existence hand in hand with the indigenous peoples who give it life. The opening phase will include 5 programs following national and international regulations and standards for higher education in Colombia, beginning with 125 students and finalizing with 500 to 625 students.

Annual enrolment calls will be made for 25 students per program. Postgraduate, doctoral and postdoctoral programs will be considered part of the strengthening of the educational quality of AWAI. Vocational training will be carried out by a highly qualified faculty made up of indigenous and non-indigenous teachers, both national and international. In order to ensure that the students at this indigenous higher education centre are properly equipped and establish fruitful legal, academic and economic relations at all scales, 10

there will be an active exchange with international institutions (for instance, an existing network of 25 Universidades Indígenas Interculturales (UII) in the whole of Latin America, or Campus Global, a network of university environmental programs with headquarters in McGill in Montreal).

REGIONAL AND GLOBAL BENEFITS AWAI is a project for the construction of a society whose existence is based on achieving and maintaining biocultural peace predicated on a plurality of learnings.

The Inga people, administrators of this initiative, work hand in hand with other Andean and Amazonian indigenous peoples like the Kofán, Kamentzá, Siona, Quillasinga, Awa and Eperara Siapidaara with whom they revitalize efforts to recover wisdom that will allow them to reconstitute a proud consciousness of being and to re-establish dignity despite the disintegration of their territories and identity. Hernando Chindoy, as the Legal Representative of the Inga people of Colombia, participates actively in all AWAI’s phases of conceptualization, decision taking and target setting. The higher education institution makes a major contribution towards strengthening indigenous identity, social organization and the construction of security in the region. Gender equality in the make-up of the faculty and students is another pillar to guarantee equity for integral social advancement.

The core of the future higher education campus will begin with a site of 100 hectares in the Inga territory called El Tambor, located in the municipality of Piamonte and an interdepartmental area covering the departments of Nariño, Cauca, Putumayo and Caquetá. The grounds are located near rivers and forests that offer extensive resources for practical training in agro-ecological production, proportioning a selfsufficient supply of food for the university community. Very nearby is the Serranía de los Churumbelos-Awuka Wasi and the Doña Juna-Cascabel Volcanic Complex, two national parks which, taken together, account for 160,000 hectares on the convergence of Andean and Amazonian (panamazonia) flora and fauna in the middle of the equatorial region which has a global environmental impact. This little explored and unprotected reserve is frequently exploited by settlers. By introducing environmental management, AWAI will guarantee that these reserves will be properly monitored and protected. The region is a privileged place for national and international researchers.

Presented by Atun Wasi Iuiai - AWAI, Indigenous Territorial Entity of the Inga People of Colombia

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PART I: CONTEXT

Villagarzón, + Putumayo, Colombia, 1°01‘46‘‘N 76°36‘59‘‘W

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COLOMBIA Area: 1 142 748 km2 (total) Population: 50 372 424 (2020 estimate) Density: 44.08 pop/km2 Official language: Spanish Recognized regional languages: >65 Capital: Bogotá, 4°35’56’’N 74°4’51’’W Time zone: UTC-5 (COT)

INTRODUCTION The Inga indigenous people of Southern Colombia between the Amazonian lowland and the Andes decided to create a university and build a campus in their territory, in order to fill the lack of an institution for higher education in the region that is particularly tailored to their specific knowledge and to the requirements of a life in the territory.

The vision of the Inga for the university is to perpetuate their knowledge and to bring it in conversation with contemporary science and technology, and also to offer a high level of education to the young generation and give them a future in the territory.

Beyond this aim, The Inga, also called the Guardians of the Earth, see the university’s project as the mean to achieve their commitment and mission to protect and strengthen nature (the condition of their survival, but also of all of us).

The projected site is a 400 ha plot of forested indigenous-owned land adjacent to a large National Park of extraordinary biodiversity, which is currently unprotected.

The program will focus on herbology, biodiversity, agro-ecology, forest conservation, bioethics and medicinal knowledge. By introducing environmental stewardship as an essential organizational practice, the university, which is to be built on the edge of the national park, will guarantee that the natural reserve is properly monitored and guarded, that their specific knowledge is transmitted to the future generations and that a sustainable local economy is developed. The program is open to all ethnic groups in the region and to international students.

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BACKGROUND Ursula Biemann

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES OF THE NEW INDIGENOUS UNIVERSITY BACKGROUND In 2003, the indigenous community of Aponte of the Inga people who live across southern Colombia initiated a remarkable process of self-determination and rediscovery of their ancestral way of life and their vital relation to the natural environment. This would lead them away from making a living from drug production towards a life as coffee planters. Now, they strive for a university that will safeguard their knowledge, their natural environment and culture, and educate a new generation of indigenous youth to be prepared for a professional future in their territories.

The Inga inhabit a large area reaching across several departments of southern Colombia: Nariño, Cauca, Caquetá, Putumayo and Guaviare. From the Andes to the Amazonian lowlands, their territories are biologically rich and strategically important as the source of major Amazonian rivers. Over the past 300 years, they have been severely affected by colonial expropriation, rampant deforestation, narcotraffic and armed conflict. Fifteen years ago, the Inga people embarked on a path of strengthening their indigenous culture and economy and reconnecting with their ancestral way of life based on a philosophy of Good Living or "Sumak Kawsay".

The majority of the population living in this remote region, whether indigenous or colonial settlers, have a low degree of education. As in many other marginalized areas in Colombia, the number of students who enter university here is below 10%.

As there is no institution of higher education in large parts of Putumayo, Cauca and Caquetá, students who are striving for a university education have to move to towns in the Andean zone or to far away cities such as Medellin and Bogotá, which for a poor population represents a major obstacle. Those who do complete their degree in these institutions often don’t return to their community, not least because the education they receive fails to meet the demands of a life in the indigenous territories. The continuous drain of young educated people leads to a population who lack the skills for assuming many of the most essential tasks required to thrive culturally, economically and environmentally. Hence there is a great need for an institution of higher learning in these remote post-conflict territories.

The indigenous and peasant communities in the South of Colombia have been deeply affected and isolated by the armed conflict for decades. Since the Peace Agreement was signed in 2016 the populations in these Amazonian Departments have welcomed a gradual process of pacification. With this comes a desire to be reconnected and to build on a vision for the future, which includes permanent structures for higher education to enable the integral strengthening of competencies in the young generation.

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OBJECTIVES The University creates an actualized vision of the indigenous society. It is tailored to the specific requirements for a life in the territory. A primary objective of this institution-building project is to strengthen and disseminate the ancestral knowledge, know-how and millennial experience. Set in the midst of a fertile region of exceptional biodiversity, the educational focus is on environmental studies and ecological agriculture, indigenous medicine and territorial governance in dialogue with the indigenous ethics of Earth Rights. It will also have a strong bilingual component to strengthen language, indigenous semiotics and cultural history.

Rooted in the indigenous understanding of human interaction with Earth and all species, the University is open to incorporating compatible Western environmental science and productive methods in an effort to bridge these distinct knowledge systems in fertile ways. Hence the future University embodies the idea of an interepistemic dialogue, which helps to ground the education in the indigenous reality.

The project is firmly based in the understanding that the preservation of biological diversity also requires the protection of the cultural and epistemic diversity that has coevolved with them in that same space. This biocultural paradigm, recognizing that nature and culture form inseparable ecological relationships, is at the heart of our shared vision. Safeguarding the precious knowledge pertaining to these ecosystems is all the more urgent as the indigenous people are on the way to physical and cultural extinction due to the gap of an entire generation lost to conflict and emigration.

The University is to provide professional training by a qualified faculty composed of indigenous masters of knowledge and national and international scholars. As indigenous knowledge is not being a primarily a text-based practice, the curricula will be implemented through active, place-based learning in a lively setting of workshops, fieldwork, social investigations, laboratories, agricultural test grounds and research gardens (Chagra). In this culture, work, and particularly collective work (Minga) and solidarity (Ayny), embody the process of building knowledge, which is intimately connected to making territory. Conceptually, the University is a composition that spreads across the entire territory encompassing various locations that are suitable for learning particular contents. River-learning, forest-learning, language-learning, agricultural practice, all require different sites for education.

The location of the main site for the new University has been decided by the Assembly of the Inga People. It is situated in the municipality of Piamonte-Baja Bota Caucana, in the territorial and spiritual heart of the Inga people. It will include a system of agricultural production to be run by students, assuring an autonomous food supply for the campus. Destined for this use is a parcel of land called El Tambor bordering the vast National Natural Park “Serrania de los Churumbelos – Auka Wasi�, a park of exceptional biodiversity set in a tropical environment where the Amazonian and Andean climate and geographic zones merge. The region also features very particular seismic, climatic and material conditions which must be factored in.

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HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF THE INDIGENOUS INGA PEOPLE OF COLOMBIA Assembled by Ursula Biemann Amid an armed conflict that ravaged through the Southwest of Colombia for several decades, the Indigenous Inga people of Colombia have undertaken a remarkable process of regaining sovereignty over a sizeable part of their ancestral territory.

Their landmark case of resistance and recuperation was channeled through the renewal of their indigenous cultural identity along with a revitalization of specifically indigenous values and traditions. The story of the Inga reflects a larger movement that has gathered momentum in the 1980s and 1990s in Latin America and in the global arena, where a new vocal public persona and globalizing voice made itself heard: The Indigenous presence. Diverse in their scope, they generally pursue a vision of liberalization and cultural difference that challenges the modernizing agendas of nation-states and transnational capitalism. In light of the fact that the models of progress and development linked to modernism are running up against their limits with staggering evidence of overexploitation and environmental exhaustion, the indigenous struggle gained vast support from international activist organizations and academic scholarship. This prompted the United Nations to issue the legally binding Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention enforced by the ILO in 1989, which laid out new international standards. The C169, as the Convention is called, created the legal basis for a more effective Indigenist struggle on a global scale. It had an immediate impact on the New Constitution of Colombia signed in 1991, which recognizes a number of these indigenous rights, including the right to their specific culture and language and an inalienable territory, eliminating earlier policies aiming at cultural assimilation.

On a local level, though, for the Inga of Colombia, the indigenous experience was rather that of an isolated struggle for survival in the presence of the guerillas, armed drug traffickers, and the paramilitary, who between 1986 and 2004 infested the indigenous communities, violated their territorial rights, degraded the local ecosystems and hampered any mobility or development of the rural population.

At the heart of this liberation effort lies Aponte, an Inga Resguardo (reservation) located at 2000 m altitude on El TablĂłn de GĂłmez in the Andean department NariĂąo. If the community managed to rid themselves single-handedly of these groups, it is in part due to their successful negotiations with the State of Colombia to reformulate a national program designated to financially compensate indigenous people for eliminating drug related plantations from their land. Instead of state funds being allocated to individual families, the Inga insisted on obtaining a communal fund for the support of the entire community, which facilitated the organization of a local governance based in a shared vision of justice and collective action. The funds enabled them to economically bridge a difficult period of transition to more peaceful crops. The immediate outcome of their 25

communal program was to obtain the land titles for over 22200 ha of ancestral land of which 17500 ha, i.e. 78 percent was allocated to a protected sacred zone. A driving figure of these radical transformations was Hernando Chindoy who was elected Governor of Aponte in 2005. Starting in Aponte and emanating into other Inga communities spread around Nariño, Cauca, Putumayo and Caquetá, as well as reaching other Indigenous peoples who live in the region, this process of self-organization, resistance and cultural renewal kicked off a wave of initiatives and inter-tribal exchanges which strengthened a more collective effort to engage in a conscious historical process of indigeneity.

Before this breakthrough moment, the indigenous population in the region was simply considered “campesinos” – peasants, often bearing adopted Spanish names.

No distinction was made between colonial settlers and indigenous people whose ancestral land this was. With the conscious choice to relink to older traditions, taking up their indigenous names again and remembering their cosmology of deep connection with the Earth and the land with all its species, ecosystems, medicines, spirits and resources, they began a significant process of rearticulation.

HISTORY The Inga people of Colombia have their origin in the Inca Civilization stretching along the Andes who expanded into Colombia through the tropical forests of Ecuador in the early 15th century. At present, the ethnic group inhabits the departments of Caquetá, Putumayo, Nariño and Cauca, with the majority of the Inga population living in the Amazonian department Putumayo. The Testament of an early Inga leader, the Taita of Taitas, Carlos Tamabioy, dated March 1700 and duly protocolled before the Spanish Crown, witnesses the original territories passed on to the Inga people, in particular the reserves around the Higher Putumayo, Cauca, Aponte and in the Valley of Sibundoy. However, the ownership of these lands has been contested time and again.

The indigenous struggle against the colonizers took a sharp turn in 1887 when the Colombian government signed the Concordat with the Holy See by which vast areas of uncharted territorios nacionales – including the tutelage of the entire indigenous population who inhabited these territories, was handed over to the Roman Catholic Church for compensation of lost properties. The state of Colombia saw the Catholic Church as the perfect institution to hispanicize and assimilate indigenous peoples. A few years later, the first missionaries arrived in the Putumayo unleashing a long and perverse process of colonization and conversion. From there, they advanced to the Lower Bota Caucana and the Caquetá in the late 19th and early 20th century. What used to be sacred Inga spaces for Ayahuasca ceremonies, fishing, hunting and the collection of medicinal plants, was transformed into transit routes for the messenger services of the Dominicans, the Capuchins and the trade of quinine, caoutchouc, gold and furs. Even if on a few occasions reservations were issued to the Inga, the most valuable lands remained firmly in the hands of the missions and the settlers. In 26

light of this first occupation of the Inga territories and the abuses experienced by the community, they began to migrate as an alternative to resistance and later to initiate legal processes of land reclamation.

From the 1920s the colonial pressures on the indigenous population to leave their lands increased. A major reason for this was that in prior decades, the Colombian state had sold vast chunks of land to pay off debts accrued during the independence war. The result was an acute inequality where nearly a third of all farmland was owned by a small number of wealthy private landowners while landless peasants were locked into unfair sharecropping contracts. On the back of the rising tension between landowners and peasants, two attempts were made by the government in the 1930s and 1960s to redistribute land and legalize property titles. They both failed under the pressure from the collective efforts of conservative cattle rangers and the industrial bourgeoisie to neutralize land redistribution, with the effect that land ownership concentrated even more, pushing colonial settlers further into uncharted indigenous lands. These land politics, inherited from the Spanish conquerors and never turned into a democratic system, received validation from international bodies at the time.

In the 1920s, the Colombian government adopted a new development strategy recommended by World Bank economists who saw the success of any politics not in the economic advancement of peasants, nor their education, but in sending them to the cities where they would work in the factories of the industrial revolution. Taken together, these factors led to a prolonged period of migration of indigenous people from the region to the cities or abroad, leaving behind a weakened rural population.

With the stock market crash of 1929, which brought about a drop in coffee prices and the fall of the Conservative regime, a new Liberal government took its place during the 1930s and 40s, setting out to tackle the agrarian reform that was meant to change the unequal distribution of land. It was often intellectuals, artists and architects of the middle class who were driving the attempts to modernize „rural folk“ and engage with indigenous communities. In search of a Colombian identity that was linked to a desire for Latin American cultural independence from Europe and the United States, this intellectual quest, also called Indigenismo, prompted visits to the Putumayo and other Amazonian regions that were widely unknown to citizens and universities in the capital. Motivated by the potential discovery of remnants of indigenous civilizations similar to the Aztecs in Mexico or the Incas in Peru, which could serve as a foundation for a new authentic Colombian identity, the Indigenistas discovered instead an impoverished, marginalized indigenous population in need of political support. The insights gained during these trips led them to rethink land tenure in Colombia and entailed the elaboration of a new political discourse, which saw the indigenous ethnic identity inseparably linked to land. Hence they argued for the importance of the Resguardos. The tight cooperation between Indigenistas 27

and politicized Indigenous communities in the 1940s created a cultural and political space that rediscovered and valorized the indigenous culture.

In the 1970s, these political claims were successfully taken up again by the premier indigenous grassroots organization, the CRIC, the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca in Popayan, which became the cradle of Indigenous uprisings in Colombia.

It was in the Cauca where in October 2008 some 12000 indigenous Colombians marched onto the Pan-American Highway and refused to lift their blockade until their demands for land, liberty and life were met by the state. In the following year, the first Indigenous University of Colombia opened in the Caucana capital Popayan.

The 1970s saw the rise of another development that would have a lasting impact on the Inga territories. Groups of armed landless peasants who had organized into a guerilla movement, showed up in the area, followed by drug traffickers who introduced a gigantic system of illicit cultivation, production and export of coca to finance the guerilla war. It is estimated that another 15 percent of Colombia’s land properties changed hands during the armed conflict, mostly seized from indigenous populations. In the Latin American context, Colombia represents an extreme case where 1% of big landowners (500 ha or more) own 85% of the land.

In the Andean territory of Aponte, the planting of poppy (Papaver somniferum) for heroin production began in 1991 taking over an impressive 2500 ha of cultivated land.

Indiscriminate logging for the massive expansion of poppy and coca fields took a heavy toll on the forests. To add to this environmental disaster, the poppy cultivation dried out and practically sterilized the soils. With the implementation of the Plan Colombia signed with the United States in 1999 to combat drug trafficking in the country, the situation was aggravated further. Part of this deal to control cocaine supply included the aerial fumigation of large swathes of land using Glyphosate, an aggressive herbicide patented

by US-based firm Monsanto. Nearly half of the spraying took place in the Putumayo and NariĂąo departments along the Ecuadorian border, severely affecting the environment and indigenous populations. The deadly campaign left deep footprints in the landscape.

Regardless, the conflict continued and drew the life out of the Inga community in Aponte where most of the school-aged children and youth were working in the poppy plantations without anyone challenging the dismal situation. It is the Inga women who finally faced up to the problem and initiated a process of analysis and reflection on how to move forward as an indigenous people. In 2003, a strategic alliance of Inga community members decided to confront the negative elements that continuously deteriorated their life, leading the way to an unprecedented strengthening of their institutional structures and cultural identity. In that same year, they obtained the juridical status of Resguardo, meaning that as an indigenous reservation, it is a collective property, which cannot be taken away by proscription, seizure or be 28

transferred. Hernando Chindoy Chindoy, the newly elected Governor of the Resguardo, was heading the initiative of recuperating the autonomy, dignity, sovereignty, and spirituality of these ancestral people, starting with establishing the Mandate for the Continued Existence of the Pueblo Inga. Based on his model, the various Inga communities in the wider region were organized politically and juridically through the creation of community councils called „minor cabildos“. At the same time, they created the Tribunal of Indigenous Peoples and Authorities of Southwest Colombia including the Awá, Cofán, Esperara Siapidaara, Inga, Nasa Uh, Quillasinga and Siona.

To this day, the Tribunal treated more than 600 cases of violations. They also promoted the Alliance of Indigenous Women of Nariño to support other indigenous peoples in their effort to reclaim ancestral land and get rid of drug traffickers and armed groups.

Currently, the Inga people are consolidating their national organization – the Atun Wasi Iuiai-AWAI, the Indigenous Territorial Entity of the Inga People of Colombia, developed as the result of advances made in territorial governance, according to the Inga Safeguard Plan built with the support of the Colombian government.

Decades of monoculture had left the mountainous communitarian territory in Aponte brown, depleted and completely dried out. First, the soil needed to be built up and made fertile again organically before embarking on the experiment of planting coffee at this high altitude, as well as generally revitalizing the environment with a great variety of fruit trees and other species. They managed to recuperate 2500 ha of affected land through the use of organic fertilizer and reforestation. This remarkable initiative and all products deriving from the arduous efforts runs under the label „Wuasikamas – Guardians of the Earth“, a trademark registered in 2017 for the global commercialization of their products, including the special high elevation coffee which won the UN Equator Prize.

To be the Guardians of the Earth is all the more important as the Inga live in an ecologically and hydrologically crucial region, also called the „Colombian Fluvial Star“. Located in the high Colombian Macizo in the Andes with its cold waterproducing Páramo ecosystem and Lagunas feeding the major rivers Putumayo, Cauca, and Caquetá, flowing through the cloud forest down into the lush Amazonian lowlands and the pacific coast of Nariño. The Inga territories cover the whole range of bioregions where the Andean and the Amazonian ecosystems converge, producing extraordinary biodiversity, particularly in plants, trees, and birds. During the period of poppy cultivation in these fragile ecoregions, hundreds of hectares of forest above 2000 m in altitude were cut down, destroying areas up to the water sponges of the Páramo. With the turn toward safeguarding the precious natural resources, the Inga became aware of the immense riches they are responsible for. The rewards are that the mountains have greened again and the flora and fauna are slowly restoring, the Andean bear, the tapir, deers and hundreds of birds have returned and the climate has become a little less extreme.

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EXPLORE THE UNKNOWN, BUILD KNOWLEDGE Anne Lacaton

THE STORY OF THE PROJECT In spring 2019, I discovered the Indigenous University project in the rainforest of Colombia during a meeting with Philip Ursprung, Dean of the Architecture department at ETH Zurich, and Ursula Biemann, artist. Ursula, having close ties with the Inga, wanted to submit the university project, in which she is involved, to ETH as an object for a design studio as well as a collaboration with the PUJ (Pontifica Universidad Javeriana, BogotĂĄ), with the aim of bringing the project out of its territory in order to increase its renown, open up exchange and encourage new points of view. This was a unique opportunity to develop and bring into being a radically new university.

She retraced the history of this indigenous people, describing an immensely complex context and the highly critical situation of the indigenous and their natural environment who are under serious threat. The drastic slashing of ancestral land that has been imposed on them and has dispersed them.

The idea of planning their future in such an unstable, chaotic context and striving to exit a situation where all seems lost, through an educational project and the creation of a university, as the vital project for the survival of their people and the forest environment appeared as an act of resistance and impressive mighty resilience. I found the project fascinating, thought-provoking, and incredibly optimistic.

Philip Ursprung asked me to work on the topic with students in my design studio.

I accepted without hesitation, along with the studio team, Simon, Ilona and Michel, we were extremely motivated to take part in the project.

Curiosity for the unknown, the force of the message, the prospect of a unique and extraordinary experience, the strong sense that this project united a range of key themes, contemporary and universal, here, in a particularly complex context and an extremely critical situation. It touched on major issues; the fragility and survival of nature and humans, ecology, climate, and more generally the project questioned the lifestyles of contemporary society, attitudes, inequalities and our relationship to the world.

The design studio project was immediately set up over two semesters - Autumn 2019 and Spring 2020 –, and also the academic collaboration with the PUJ in Bogotå and on the territory with the Inga and their official representative Hernando Chindoy.

A field study trip was planned to bring together students from the studios of both universities to meet the Inga, discover their territory, and to listen to them.

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The Inga came with concrete expectations for the project, formulated as follows: “the conception of an Indigenous University as well as the architectural planning and building of the campus in southern Colombia”.

The only program at our disposal was a site for setting up a campus, a few texts and films presenting general concepts for the university laid out by the Inga, and Ursula Biemann’s accounts.

Faced with this context, a process still at its outset, and our position in this project and this entirely unknown territory, my first step together with the studio team was to clarify our stance on the objectives and the form of the studio’s contribution, the attitude we would take in tackling the subject with the students, and the way to define our place in this highly ambitious project, with discernment and humility.

Our intention, far from seeking to displace or replace local skills, was not to produce concrete, ready-to-build projects, as the Inga probably expected – this did not seem appropriate to us, neither in the timing of the process, still at its beginnings, nor in our role in the project – but to offer studies, reflections, proposals, that may be useful to the development of the project by the Inga.

The results of this work are presented in this book.

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THE STUDIO’S OBJECTIVES The Indigenous University project was the opportunity to engage with a context whose conditions are completely different from the ones we know in Europe. For many of us, students and professors, this situation was totally unknown.

The objective of the design studio was therefore not to produce finalized architecture projects for the construction of the campus, but to put together thorough, comprehensive documentation, based on knowledge that it would be necessary to acquire. The studio would offer analysis, viewpoints and ideas that could serve as a foundation and contribute to the fine, detailed process of drawing up the university program, preliminary to the design and construction project, which the Inga would have to establish.

In this way, the studio needed to start off by building up knowledge on the basis of research and in-depth analysis of the Putumayo-Piemonte region and the site envisaged for the campus’ creation, namely on themes such as geography, climate, geopolitics, the educational system, the history of the Inga people, their culture, spiritual foundations and relationship to nature, agriculture, economy... anything that could foster knowledge and understanding of the subject and the territory.

The proposed work was to research, analyze, document, gather data, amass references, in close collaboration with the partner studio at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and the Inga indigenous people, with the goal of digging up information, establishing knowledge and shedding light on positions, reflections, questioning and ideas of what this university could be like. Proceeding with utmost freedom, a curious and open mind to widen perceptions and the field of reflection was the most useful contribution that we could offer the Inga in defining its project.

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The two partner studios in Bogotá and Zurich worked in parallel on the same topics, with a common schedule, sharing the same specific objectives: • To learn from indigenous communities about their conception of, and interaction with the territory, their needs, ambitions, and iconography • To help empower local communities and institutions in structuring a pertinent project which aims to promote the construction of a University or Studies Center • To conceive low-tech passive environmental solutions for an isolated low-income population, taking into consideration the pertinent geophysical and climatic conditions and the vernacular techniques and typologies • To generate materials through research, analysis, concepts, experiments, plans, 3D representations, diagrams, models and spatial programs that would be helpful for the future development of the project

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ATTITUDE Anne Lacaton & Jean-Philippe Vassal Tackling this subject raised the question of our role in this project.

What legitimacy could we claim in carrying out a project here, in a completely unknown territory, so removed from us, when we knew nothing about the people, the place, the climate or the geography?

Why would we know how to do? Or do better than the people over there.

What is our role and place as a school in such a project?

And yet there are no taboo subjects, we are free to reflect on any subject, anywhere, it is a question of attitude, ethics, knowing precisely what our place is, and what our limits are.

We can work on what we do not know, but the rule and ethical code is to always have the discernment to know where to situate ourselves and to be deeply and sincerely aware of who we are.

To proceed with the humility of the one who does not know and who has everything to learn.

Questioning our role in this project should not paralyze us or prevent us from being curious, open and enthusiastic, or from reflecting on the project proposed to us, or from making plans. Proposing does not mean imposing.

The Inga people invited us to reflect on their project because they were interested in a new outside perspective and the approach that we could bring from a distance, which could possibly enlarge their field of reflection. They expected us to offer a point of view, ideas, or even projects, which could eventually be useful for nourishing their debates, their studies, and their decisions.

It was important and respectful to respond to their invitation by bringing our contribution.

By working on their project, we were also placed in the situation of learning from them.

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The approach suggested to the students is the one we have when beginning any project: to accept not knowing, being lost, having to learn and to find a way to accept uncertainty and doubt, to use these to increase attention and discernment to appropriate the unknown and to turn uncertainty into a catalyst to learn, to accumulate, to look, with an open mind, without filters, to free oneself from habits without denying experience, to think freely, to question, to criticize, to look behind the question, to work rigorously to create oneself more freedom to commit, to be generous, to invent, to dream.

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METHOD To respond to this particular situation, it was a matter of placing oneself in a position of maximum openness in order to understand, step by step, the context and the objectives of such a project, and to envisage the most pertinent strategies and orientations. This led us to call into question the project approach and its usual linear sequence – program, analysis, intentions, project – which does not seem appropriate to us. It is not necessary to wait for everything to be defined before starting the project’s design.

Starting off with the project is a way to define and to fine-tune the program, just as the project itself will call new knowledge, new analyses, then new reflections and decisions that will modify it and make it evolve, and so on, and so on…The project is no longer considered as the endpoint of the process, but as the trigger for reactive, interactive reflection, constantly in progress.

In this way, the projects produced for the Indigenous University by the design studio are to be considered in this perspective, not as final projects concluding a process but as inciters and generators not only of ideas and strategies, but also criticisms and questions, useful for re-interrogating the approach, pinpointing the objectives, and developing the program until its final precision.

The students embarked on a phase of research and observation, knowledge development, data collection and inventory, as well as interpretation and understanding of the existing situation through their personal intuitive, sensorial and emotional perceptions.

They collected, very extensively, all the facts and data that they could find, then organized, classified, structured them, in order to establish a common resource base, available to the whole group, that was permanently added to and updated.

Prior to the voyage, their task was to accumulate the maximum amount of information, to ask questions, to check data on the spot, but also to formulate reactions, positions, viewpoints, that were constantly subject to change and requestioning.

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OBSERVING / INVENTORYING / REPORTING AN EXTREME CARE TO THE ALREADY THERE / NATURE, PEOPLE, SOILS, CONSTRUCTIONS, CLIMATE, ANY TREE, ANY RIVER, ANY WATER TRICKLE, EVERYTHING ALIVE… 39

From the 20th to the 25th October 2019, the 17 students of the studio in Zurich, alongside indigenous students, and those from BogotĂĄ, made a trip to the heart of the Inga territories, guided by Hernando Chindoy and with the help of Ursula Biemann. This intense and abrupt immersion into the reality of the community‘s context was preceded by four weeks of research and analysis. This research explored the different components of this fragmented and complex territory, that were previously unknown to the studio, such as: biology and biodiversity, economy, productive systems, climatic conditions and natural risks, infrastructures and urbanization, ethnic geography, indigenous social structures, cosmology, relationship to the territory.

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JOURNEY

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REFLECTIONS ON OUR JOURNEY TO THE TERRITORY OF THE INGA Raphael Blain, Philip Kaiser, Sophie Keel We began our journey to Villagarzón with a plane starting from Bogotá. During the flight, there was a very special moment where, while looking through the windows of the airplane, we couldn’t see anything but white clouds. In retrospective, one could interpret it as a way of showing us that we should leave all our expectations and all our ideas for the university behind. We were about to dive into a whole new chapter of our project.

Approaching our landing in Villagarzón, there is this one image that really impressed me: A flame above an oil tower in the middle of this green environment: Heavy raindrops fell on the window I was looking through. Something that is quite symbolic for this place, as we will learn later.

Later that day, we went to visit the centre of ASOMI (La Asociación de Mujeres Indígenas). A place dedicated to the women of five indigenous tribes. They live there together, practicing their traditions, cultivating their gardens in the Chagra de la Vida and sharing their knowledge. This place showed an interesting relationship between culture and nature. It presented an attempt of transforming and manifesting Indigenous traditions and forms into architecture. Our feeling is that they project many of their ideas and their values onto this place. The structures, and the way they are constructed, nevertheless raise the question of wether they are in harmony with their understanding of building and their traditional techniques – something we would like to investigate further.

After our lunch, we went for a short hike through the rainforest right behind this complex. In order to get there, we walked over two bridges and came by a little structure, which looked like a small pavilion. This raised the question of their relationship to the rainforest and how it is connected to the Chagra de la Vida. Is it a path they use daily? How much time do they spend in this forest?

On our second day, we were introduced to our new medium of transport – a very impressive school bus, which was heavily painted in green and red and had a platform on top, where one could find a place to sit.

Soon after we had left Villagarzón for our hike, the streets changed from asphalt to dirt. The buildings changed from bricks to wood constructions, and they started to show a different interaction with nature. The wood structures were elevated above ground and placed in a very elaborate way. The buildings made from brick seemed to have a very clear orientation, meaning that they were only plastered and painted on the facade facing the streets.

Crossing the river by boat was a very special part of this trip. It helped us to recover from the heavy vibrations and the impacts of the bus ride.

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After about 2.5 hours of traveling, we finally arrived at the start of our hike. The first couple of steps alongside the land of a campesino already indicated that this hike could turn into a very special and intense experience. Having made our first steps into the rainforest, we were welcomed by Hernando Chindoy and Taita Paulino’s sons and grandson. Hernando pointed out that we should appreciate, respect and take care of the path and that it is almost as if the forest is hugging our feet as a welcoming gesture.

What followed was a very impressive hike through extremely different surroundings, always changing and standing in heavy contrast to each other. From rainforest, through a gate trying to divide nature, to a deforested field and back into the forest again. Walking on cultivated land passing a small herd of cows, followed by a cocoa plantation and making our way downwards to the Rio Tambor to take a short break.

The small hut we walked by on our way to the river with a little pan of hot something on the stove somehow seemed to be left forever and occupied at the same time.

On our way back from the river, we took a turn to the right in front of the little hut – the hot something was still cooking. The path guided us through a different part of the cocoa plantation and back into the rainforest. After a while, one could hear the noise of a chain saw in the distance – a very irritating noise when being surrounded by this wonderful, green environment. Wandering further this noise became louder and one could assume that we were approaching the site where the lumbering was taking place. Being confronted with this kind of destruction in the middle of the rainforest, and having to find a way over and in between the cut-down trees to proceed on our path, while being guided by the self-proclaimed guardians of the earth, once again revealed the highly complex circumstances within the territory.

Leaving this place of destruction behind and carrying forward our hike, we would soon encounter a different kind of cultivated land in the middle of the rainforest; a coca plantation. Being told that we should proceed and not rest in this area because the peasant felt ashamed of his way of making a living, really put this experience into a saddening perspective. It was at that time when we started to realise the high diversity of threats to the rainforest.

Feeling like this hike would never end, we came across another obstacle in the form of a rivulet which, as we learned later, represents the frontier of the Inga’s sacred area in the rainforest. A frontier that is always moving and always changing. This sacred area, as we were told shortly after, is thought to be a plot for their project of the university – something that in our opinion is very hard to imagine, if one envisions the university to be an accumulation of rooms physically assembled by women and men.

Santiago mentioned the idea that the path could be seen as the university – this thought really inspired us. Following discussions with the Inga students revealed that there seems to be an ongoing change in the way they educate their children.

The integration of nature and the transmission of traditions and cultural values by exploring the territory, and through the direct contact with elders, are thought to 114

become key aspects, when thinking of how to educate future generations.

The rest of the hike contained a lot more trees and plants, some steep ascents and descents, another streamlet, cultivated land with fruit trees carrying very tasty and highly appreciated fruits that were introduced to us by the Inga. Finally, a swampy path leading us back to the dirt road which initially served as a starting point for our hike.

After being picked up by the bus, we drove to Piamonte. Everybody seemed to be very thankful to get a break and appreciated the food that was provided. The relaxed atmosphere was strangely disturbed by a huge oil truck driving by, which for a moment seemed misplaced and at the same time made me remember the context we were finding ourselves in.

Starting our drive home in the dark was a bit scary. While passing the river by boat, we were rewarded with an incredible view of the stars. They were shining so brightly that even the milky way was clearly distinguishable.

When thinking about this day, we found it really interesting to realise that we were really slowed down step by step. Meanwhile the connection with nature got stronger.

On our third day in the territory, we went to visit a Resguardo in San Miguel. The room where we gathered was relatively dark and the air inside was very hot and humid.

We learned more about the practices of the Inga, their way of education and their system of justice which involves punishment with the whip. Furthermore, we were informed about their tragic history in this area including them being forced to flee, in some cases even being killed.

Everybody seemed quite happy when we left for a little walk to the river nearby to take a break and to go swimming – something that showed the importance of happiness and joy, which are thought to be key values of their culture.

Our second stop on this day was a campus of a school for children of the Inga, which was partly financed by oil companies – something quite irritating to us. The building we visited provided a very large space where the whole group could be arranged in a circle. Some teachers started to introduce themselves and gave an introduction into their practices. Later we had the possibility to ask questions. Thanks to this, we were informed that the campus’ form and the plans for the buildings had to be changed in order to fit Colombian guidelines, leading to a discrepancy between the form of architecture and their form of teaching. This caused a lot of frustration on the side of the teachers.

Furthermore, it is not clear what some of the first eleven graduates are doing after they finished their education at this school.

When we asked for their opinion on a possible prototype and the possibility to build it on the same plot as the school, the teachers were quite excited – something that also leaves us questioning the site of the university.

After the things we had heard, some of our group felt really frustrated because it revealed that there really is a lack of professional perspective for these people.

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It seemed like the idea of the university was something so illusionistic, that we as architecture students felt confronted with problems too hard to solve. This experience gave rise to the question of how we as architects and students of architecture can be helpful in this process? Of all the things necessary for their idea, planning a building and thinking about constructing seemed so far-fetched – so why are we here?

Additionally, we had the feeling that the parties involved didn’t really listen to each other, and that it was mainly about sharing their aspirations without listening to what our side had to say. It was overwhelming in multiple ways.

The next day, we gathered in a relatively small space to present the work the students of both universities had done so far. Afterwards, we would have the possibility to ask questions that we had formulated. We arranged ourselves around a large table on which we had laid out our work in the form of booklets. Every group gave a short introduction to their work. After this exchange, John invited us to play a game they usually play with their children in order to teach them their language. Furthermore, we were introduced to the Tejidos as a way of telling stories and preserving knowledge.

Following this exercise, Anne Lacaton was given the opportunity to share her thoughts and ideas on the project. Compared to the day before, this really came as a relief. For the first time, it felt like everybody, including Hernando Chindoy, took their time to carefully listen to how we as a studio could approach this challenge, and what we imagine, could be our contribution.

After lunch, Anne Lacaton left the group and we went on with our discussions.

Hernando took the time to respond to our questions. The answers given were very elaborate. They partly revealed the core of the project. Namely the protection of their territory, the empowerment of their people and the development of a sovereign within this territory, strengthened by their own institutions. In this way about, the project is about a territorial claim and the Inga’s relationship to the territory.

The discussions with Hernando were accentuated by extreme rainfall, as if nature wanted to express the burden of responsibility the Inga have to bear.

There were many more things mentioned, which will be part of our ongoing work.

Even though this day was very informative and in some ways very inspiring, it left us with a lot of questions: Why are we as European students even part of this discussion? What can we bring to the table that they don’t already know? Whilst it is clear that we support the protection of the rainforest, how can we negotiate between our perception of the role of a university and their plans for a development of their own sovereign? What is the role of the architect? How critical can we be without starting to be too pessimistic?

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Our last day in the territory we spent with an excursion to the nearby Paramo. The impressive ascent into this cloud forest with its steep declivities and the frequent streams which had to be crossed, showed us a completely different side of the territory. It almost felt like driving on a mountain pass in the Swiss Alps on a foggy autumn day – with a different vegetation of course. In that sense it felt somehow familiar.

But there is a key difference between this environment and the Swiss Alps, namely that the water doesn’t have its source in glaciers, but is collected from the air and directly processed by this highly efficient ecosystem – something incredibly fascinating. It was something to remind us about the fragility of this ecosystem. We began to understand the importance of the Paramos as a source of life and as a sacred land for the Inga.

Returning to Villagarzón once again put this experience in perspective and revealed the immense diversity within this territory – way more extreme than in Switzerland.

After our flight back to Bogotá, we were invited to look at three social housing projects developed by the office of Santiago Pradilla and his partners. On our way, we went to see an art project by Doris Salcedo called Fragmentos. Part of the project was an unbelievably impressive movie about the demobilisation of the FARC and the processing of the guns that were collected. Their transformation resulted in floor plates for the exhibition space. This movie once again really clarified the whole complexity of the history of this land. Also, it reminded us about the delicate context of this project.

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AFTER THE TRIP Anne Lacaton, Simon Durand 27th October 2019 The trip was very rich and very interesting. We saw beautiful things and people, nature that was impressive and powerful, but also the great fragility of the natural and human environment, generated by the heavy degradation that dramatically affects the territory, the natural resources and eco-systems, all of which threatens the identities and minorities of the indigenous communities.

We came back with a lot of enthusiasm but also with many new questions and topics to discuss.

Even if we didn‘t have the answers to all of our prepared questions, we had learned.

Hernando told us important things about his vision of the territory and his conception of the University.

We need to remember them, analyse them, and reflect on them to better define how we are going to work, the direction we are going to give to the studio‘s work and the contribution we can make, in our place, to the development of the Inga community university project.

For Hernando, Inga University is their territory It is beyond the built University where nature is the place of learning University to protect their nature University to mark the identity of their community, to transmit, to make it last, to defend what constitutes a value, a common good, beyond their community He told us that the survival of their nature, of their community, concerns us as well, even if we are very far away We are finally in the situation where our work is much more upstream and precedes the program, where the project is not the final phase of a programming process, but on the contrary the project as a preliminary process that produces ideas and acts as a catalyst that will allow the Inga to define, to specify their conception, their intentions, the content and the program of the university.

This is an interesting situation to reflect on, where the architect is no longer the last participant in a linear chain (decision-programme-project), but on the contrary intervenes very early in a process of going back and forth between project and program.

The project allows the definition of a program which refers to a new development of the project, and so on until finalisation.

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This approach introduces a new temporality, a new chain of elaboration, where one can start the project or experiment, without waiting for everything to be programmed and decided, then analyse again, make the project evolve, or change it, until everything is in agreement.

What next? How to re-question and redefine our work, the objectives and what we can produce, to make a contribution to the Inga project.

We can work on a project(s) strategy based on our understanding and interpretation of what the Inga University can be, and on projects that they will analyse, criticise and which will advance thinking, which the Inga can use to clarify their intentions and define their program.

By considering without ambiguity that the projects we will make, in our place, with our qualities and our way of understanding and thinking, will not be projects of realisation, but triggers, inciters and catalysts, a matter of work and reflection at their disposal.

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PART II: THE UNIVERSITY

PROPOSALS Anne Lacaton After their analysis and documentary-research work, after the trip and all that they were able to learn and take in, the students were asked to reflect and put forward their own vision of the subject.

The results here present five approaches developed by each group, five strategies that are not meant to be compared with one another in the same way that none is exclusive in relation to the others. Five strategies that rally together, complement one another, superimpose one another without contradicting one another, and form a coherent overall proposal.

The proposals break away from the response of a single campus on the site envisaged by the Inga indigenous community, and offer multiple strategies, wide and open, that touch on the following themes: the concept of a university, the strategy for setting up the university on the territory, the relationship with nature, the climate, the already-present settings: the forest, existing villages, the town, self-sufficiency issues: food, energy, and autonomy in terms of resources, mobility, communication.

They prefigure teaching programs and the needs of the spaces used for the university‘s operation; they sketch out architectural and spatial proposals differentiated according to the environments.

Finally, they anticipate the development of the university project over time and a rolling schedule for its implementation.

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The proposals are to be taken as reflections, strategies and possible scenarios, strategies and possible scenarios, which may be surprising for the Inga whose process of reflection is already well underway, and which offer fodder for consideration, thought and debate, bearing in mind that: • the forecasts for the teaching programs, the disciplines studied and the conduct of studies, flowing from consideration of the texts, research work and intentions of the Inga, are to be viewed as tools, simulations, elaborated to gain as much understanding of the subject as possible and to offer concrete support to research, and hold no reference value, • the proposals for the university‘s sustainable development, which reflect a constant preoccupation and strong commitment within the studio, to support the integrity of nature, the climate, thrifty management of resources, and respect and development of the pre-existing, are to be deepened and fine-tuned, • the work on architectural and construction typologies, still far from inventing new styles in relation to local constructions, is to be viewed as a representation of the proposed strategies, necessary to the work being carried out. In the knowledge that these proposals still require considerable work and research to bring new and contemporary architectural and construction solutions in relation to the traditional constructions observed locally, often very simple, pared down, and built with a minimum of materials.

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WHAT IS TO COME Anne Lacaton As we hand our work over to the Inga indigenous people, we cannot help thinking about and imagining what is still to come.

What we have learned during these two semesters, what we know about: the intentions and motivations, the forces present, and the pre-existing resources of the territory, of the people committed to this project whom we met, the state of reflection and the work already produced, research and content already developed, indicates to us that the project, the human capacities, the skills are already there and constitute the beginnings of the university.

Our feeling is that the university already exists, informally. It is no longer just an intention, a future project; it is not yet visible, but it is already anchored in the territory and in the future of the Inga people.

We imagine that it can commence immediately by adopting a process with a progressive timescale, whereby the university exists, operates, experiments, while finding its program. The process of developing the programming, the elaboration of pedagogical and research programs, the choice of the site(s), the definition of needs for spaces and equipment, the setting of budgets and so on, can already be considered as being the university.

It does not seem necessary to us to wait for the end of the process to define the overall project in full detail, nor compulsory to create heavier structures that imply big budgets, nor mandatory for all rules to be fixed before opening the university and bringing it into existence. There is no model, no typology. The strength of the project is there today, in the readiness to start without waiting for theoretically perfect conditions, to produce something concrete which, even if modest, makes things tangible and irreversible.

Formalizing, materializing, concretizing the university‘s existence and making it visible could be done under simple, light conditions. This seems to us entirely possible for the community to implement, and immediately feasible.

The creation of a place seems to us to be an important foundational act.

This place would be marked and identified as the new indigenous university, it would give it an existence and visibility, and would establish a base for all initiatives, working groups that already exist and work on the university project, as well as organization in aid of the university‘s creation.

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This could be operational straight away, using existing places that offer free, available space and the opportunity for immediate occupation: in Villagarzón, or in the village of San Miguel, for example, there is a dynamic relationship with the existing school, as highlighted by some of the student projects.

This place shall not be presumed to be the university‘s future location, but an initial mooring point, concrete and active, a sign, a temporary station for the first stage of the university project.

With little investment, this place can offer a space and a base for the university to gather what already exists in patches, scattered, in fragments: • to establish a small permanent work structure in charge of collection, organization, communication, the creation of collaborations with other universities, and the setup of communication tools and a website, • to host the workshops of the Inga Education Team and the meetings of a steering committee: community, experts, researchers, friends…, contributing to the content and the process of elaboration, • to start organizing courses and seminars, • to welcome students and interns from all disciplines, on hand for the development, to carry out research, investigation or inventory work on specific themes, to build reports, • to collect and make available documentation, research and studies, • to act as a link with the territory and with the forest, • to debate, to exhibit.

It will constitute a logistical base for all initiatives, experiments, actions in the territory, from which the university project can continue to develop and be consolidated.

The Indigenous University in Southern Colombia is already there...

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STRATEGIES FOR A NEW INDIGENOUS UNIVERSITY • STORYBOARDS • PROJECTS 5

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STRATEGY 1: STORYBOARD

STRATEGY 2: STORYBOARD

STRATEGY 3: STORYBOARD

STRATEGY 4: STORYBOARD

STRATEGY 5: STORYBOARD

STRATEGY 1 Raphael Blain, Philip Kaiser, Sophie Keel, Ludwig Kissling

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UNIVERSITY AS A PROCESS: RECIPROCITY IN FAMILIAR PLACES

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UNIVERSITY AS A PROCESS Essential to this project is the understanding of the Inga University as a process. This strategy does not attempt to present a final version of the University but rather strives for the smart implementation of each next step in the process.

There is great potential for places within the territory to become part of the Inga University. There is no better way to learn and to prepare for life in the territories than to visit the different places and to interact with the local people.

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INSTITUTIONAL PROGRAM PLACES WITHIN THE TERRITORY SPATIAL INTERACTIONS

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RECIPROCITY The idea of reciprocity is very important in this strategy.

While the University can bring a collective idea, specific knowledge, and can be beneficial for the existing situation, the communities contribute with their strong connection to place, local knowledge and existing infrastructures.

Everyone who is motivated to learn can be considered a student. Students, like bees, not only gather what is valuable, learning and benefiting from the community; they also make a contribution to the growing process and the Inga culture as a whole.

Bees pollinate and get nectar

Plant attracts bees

Bees process nectar while plant carries fruits

Students University Preserved fruits for the whole community

STRATEGY 1: CONCEPT

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WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY?

WHAT IS MEANT BY TERRITORY?

A university is much more than a

The understanding of the territory

building. It is the constant exchange

goes way beyond its notion as a

between people, the production of

physical plot of land. There is no clear

knowledge and a perpetual process

boundary of where it starts and where

of change and development.

it ends.

A university can be compared to a

Mainly, it is about people living in a

plant. It all starts with a seed – a small

certain area. Their language, their

but very powerful idea. In this state

traditions, their way of living and

the plant is very fragile and a lot of

their culture in general takes root

care must be taken to protect it. It

in this area. Its dimensions cannot

is also a phase where one does not

be measured, because it is not only

really know what to expect.

about square meters or acres, but

As it grows, it begins to unveil its

rather about memories, feelings

beauty and slowly but steadily the first

and emotions. These roots cannot

leaves develop. This phase is very

simply be ignored but have to be

exciting and one can really observe

respected and cherished at all

how this organism becomes stronger

times. It is through this high regard

every day.

that the roots can bring both energy

The constant effort of taking care is

and resources into the process of a

then rewarded, as the plant starts

growing university. The connection of

to blossom. The plant is ready to

the people to this territory is the most

attract bees in order to develop its full

valued aspect of this process.

potential and to grow fruits for the first time.

144

WHAT CAN BE LEARNED?

WHAT IS OUR ROLE?

Learning is like a path. And there is a

As a studio we had the possibility to

never-ending amount of knowledge

reflect on our understanding of what

to be explored. In our exchanges with

we will contribute to this idea of an

the Inga people we gained a glimpse

Indigenous University.

of the very sustainable and intelligent

As a first step, the motivation of

system of the Chagra, learnt about

the studio is to study and learn

the importance of the Páramo system,

from the people involved, whose

listened to the beautiful way of telling

understanding of the context is clearly

stories. And above all we realised that

far superior.

there is another richness to be found -

It is not the right time to make

the richness of nature.

proposals that could be realised 1 to 1.

It is also not the time to specify simple solutions in the form of a building.

This is why we thought about the term „spatial interaction“.

Sometimes it is not necessary to intervene physically in a place, but instead to integrate with it in its current condition, thus interacting with the existing spaces. Sometimes it is only about the creation of awareness of a place. To intervene does not always mean to construct a building.

STRATEGY 1: CONCEPT

145

San JosĂŠ

Aponte

San Carlos Yunguillo Osococha

Tandarido

San Joaquin

Ticuanayoy

Inga de Condagua Sibundoy

San Francisco

San Antonio Musurrunakuna

Puerto Limon La Floresta Wasipungo Blasiaku San Miguel de la Castellana

San Miguel school

Chaluayaco Albania

FAMILIAR PLACES The culture, the history and the knowledge of the Inga is spread over the territory.

The potential for the university lies in the valuable resources of these places. This starting point includes the knowledge and ideas of the community at the core of the development of the Inga University.

The village of San Miguel de la Castellana and the school of San Miguel serve as case studies to test frameworks for communal participation. The University can start immediately, without new buildings - for example, in the existing school with a handful of students. The University can slowly grow during ongoing discussions and be able to cope with the different and overlapping temporalities of the project.

San Miguel San Antonio del Fragua San Rafael

Wasipanga

Calenturas

Alpamanga

Cusumbe

Villa Catalina de Puerto Rosario

STRATEGY 1: TERRITORY

147

11

10

11

13 15

8

7

9

4

5 6 8

1 3

148

2

14

12

SAN MIGUEL DE LA CASTELLANA

SAN MIGUEL SCHOOL

Existing potentials

Existing potentials

1 cabildo 2 kitchen 3 dormitory 4 church 5 classrooms 6 sanitation 7 veranda 8 chagra 9 sports field

10 sports field 11 classrooms 12 community room and kitchen 13 sanitation 14 washhouse, laundry 15 dormitory

STRATEGY 1: TERRITORY

149

FAMILIAR VILLAGE IN THE TERRITORY

CREATION OF FRAMEWORK TO INTEGRATE COMMUNITY

VISIT TO DISCUSS ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY

APPROPRIATION OF ADDED INFRASTRUCTURE

BY LOCAL COMMUNITY

EXCHANGE BETWEEN LOCAL COMMUNITY AND DELIGATEES

ONGOING PARTICIPATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS AFTER VISIT

FAMILIAR VILLAGES AS LABORATORY Familiar villages in the territory can serve as test sites for the University, where the project can immediately be implemented. As of now, local communities can welcome students and get involved in the process. Together, they can discuss and experiment what a university is today.

The idea of an Inga University came to life.

The idea is shared and discussed among a smaller circle of leaders.

Necessary frameworks for the engagement of the whole community are created.

With the support of the Inga community, the university takes a tangible shape. The first students start their studies.

The university develops, carries fruits and is beneficial to the whole Inga community.

More students find a place to study.

STRATEGY 1: TIMELINE

151

STRATEGY 2 Joël Amstutz, Seren Arber, Céline Berberat, Fabian Brunner, Sara Finzi-Longo, Alex Walter

2

152

UNIVERSITY AS A PATH: BEYOND CAMPUS

0

5

10

20 km

THE PATH The path is the backbone of the strategy for the University. The path reflects the process that has led to the design of the University and its application at a territorial level. The path has become the goal, an entity that is constantly

VERSION

NAL VERSION

developing, punctuated by a context, by pitfalls. This idea has greatly influenced all decisions, from construction to programs of study. On a more pragmatic level, various landmarks will be placed along the physical paths and roads that lead to the University, with the necessary adjustments to make the route accessible. An information centre in Villagarzรณn will generate presence and visibility, serving as a link to the University.

PROTECTING THE TERRITORY Indigenous culture and language inevitably depends on the territory. Therefore a large, contiguous and protected territory for the New Indigenous University is not only important in terms of a favourable location; this territory also serves to take on the inscribed knowledge and memory of the indigenous people, thereby strengthening their identity.

SELF-SUSTAINABILITY The university will generate an income by selling products harvested and/or crafted through different study programs.

Implementing internships in local surroundings will transfer knowledge to people outside of the University, leading the indigenous population towards a self-sustained life.

KNOWLEDGE TRANSMISSION Indigenous tribes hold important knowledge,

VERSION

NAL VERSION

which is transmitted orally from the elders to the next generation. After transcribing and thus saving this knowledge, students will focus on agriculture, medicine and knowledge of building construction. The goal then becomes creating spaces for this knowledge transmission: classrooms, shelters, bus stops...

154

TULPA – HEART AND SEED The University embodies the heart of indigenous knowledge. At the same time, the University itself has a heart. The Tulpa is a place to meet, to discuss, to exchange, to preserve and concentrate knowledge. It is a place for all types of events, such as classes, dining, rituals, presentations, theatre plays and concerts.

MODULAR CONSTRUCTION A simple, consistent but modifiable design principle will meet the requirements and uses of the University. The construction in its simple form - consisting of just a roof and a base can be fitted with walls or boxes according to the requirements of the building program. The structure is made from local materials, with its simplicity allowing self-construction.

RE-APPROPRIATING ARCHITECTURE The indigenous culture expresses itself through rituals, through thought, and partly through art. Architecture as an expression of culture was lost in the course of colonization and the industrial revolution. The architectural language of the university may now re-emerge as an expression of indigenous culture.

STRATEGY 2: CONCEPT

155

site III site II site I

Puerto Limรณn

Villagarzรณn

156

BEYOND CAMPUS The University does not simply consist of a campus hidden in the woods, rather it stretches out its feelers, often starting far away, where students are picked up to reach the facilities. The surrounding roads, footpaths, settlements and Resguardos all form parts of this bigger territory. The University goes beyond the built environment, which in the end constitutes only a small part.

Small interventions around the University help to strengthen its visibility and accessibility. Different landmarks will be placed along the route to the site, with necessary adjustments made to maximise accessibility. This concept can be adapted to different roads and cities.

Piamonte

cafĂŠ / information shelter bridge Tulpa dormitories agricultural facilties bird watching

STRATEGY 2: TERRITORY

157

158

Our group gathers in front of the café in Villagarzón. We hop on the bus and the driver immediately puts on Vallenato.

We are leaving the city. This same road would also take us to the VGZ airport, from where we could return to Bogotá.

In other places, the water is too wide for a simple bridge. We cross the river by ferry...

...after a while we approach a clearing. We are about to reach the heart of the University.

We continue along the edge of the clearing.

Here bamboo and other plants are cultivated, as well as cattle farming.

Upon entering the woods again, the soil gets muddier. But the trail has been taken care of and we don't slip.

Shortly after leaving Villagarzรณn we turn left at a signpost. In a shelter next to it, more students are waiting to be picked up.

Simple bridges help to cross streams. The University also helps to improve territorial infrastructure.

The clearing opens up, we have arrived. Our journey has already lasted several hours.

The Tulpa is the first construction that was built for the University. It is located on the already existing clearing.

The trail gets steeper. Our last stop will be the bird watching hide further up in the hills, marking the upper end of the territory.

A wooden structure looms into the air. From the top we can overlook the flatlands from which we came.

STRATEGY 2: TERRITORY

159

UNIVERSITY AS GROWING PROCESS Indigenous people hold important knowledge, which is passed orally from the elders to the next generation. In this process knowledge often gets lost. Introducing a new education system is the best way to prevent this from happening. As the University grows, different sites are built, with new buildings added or existing buildings used in a different way. start

FIRST YEAR Medicine and Building Knowledge Secondary courses: Indigenous

site I

Main courses: Agriculture, Traditional • Tulpa

History and Culture, Ceremonies Territory, Revitalization of Mother Earth, Arts and Crafts, Geography and Climate, Mathematics, Spanish and

site II

and Traditions, Indigenous Law,

SECOND AND THIRD YEAR Choice of subject for main course: Agriculture, Biology, Economy, Land

site III

Indigenous Languages

Management, Animal Biology and and Culture, English, Pedagogy, Traditional Medicine, Biology and Anatomy, Pharmacy, Spirituality and

forest

Production, Indigenous History

Rituals, Indigenous History and Knowledge, Building Materials, Building Physics, Geography and Climate, Urban/Community Design, Indigenous History and Culture, Mathematics, English, Pedagogy INTERNSHIPS In the Resguardos around the University

160

path and city

Culture, English, Pedagogy, Building

• path to site I

phase I

• kitchen • sanitary facilities • fountain

phase II

phase III

next phase

• pavillions

• viewpoint

• Tulpa: sleeping place becomes library

• dormitories for 30 students • sanitary facilities • fountain

• dormitories for 30 students • sanitary facilities • fountain

• dormitories for 30 students • sanitary facilities • community house • viewpoint

• Chagra

• classrooms • sanitary facilities • barn • fields

• building for livestock • expansion of the fields • pasture • viewpoint

• entrance

• path to site II and III • bridge

• path to birdwatching hide • shelter at waterfall • viewpoint

• path • shelters

• signposts • information center in Villagarzón

• shelters by the ferry

• bridge • shop extension in Villagarzón

• shelter • information center in Piamonte

60 students • 1 class in base year • 3 classes in specializations

90 students • 1 class in base year • 6 classes in specializations

30 students • 1 class in base year

STRATEGY 2: TIMELINE

161

STRATEGY 3 Luca Bronca, Tania Perret, Tobias Sandbichler, Annina Schoop, Yves Waeger

3

162

UNIVERSITY IN THREE CONTEXTS: CITY–RESGUARDO –FOREST

0

5

10

20 km

UNIVERSITY IN THREE CONTEXTS Three distinct contexts structure the ancient territory of the Inga today: forest, Resguardos and cities. These have been generated through the history of the place and are the result of political and social changes that affected the region and the country at large. These three contexts are fragmented by infrastructure, industry and privatisation, which creates a complex juxtaposition within the Inga‘s former territory.

Each of these contexts is part of the present daily life of the Inga people. Each of them has intrinsic and particular qualities which can be material or immaterial in nature. Each context offers potential to the University and so should also form part of it.

Some of these potential qualities are very specific, whilst others cannot only be assigned to one context.

164

city

resguardo

forest

potential spaces

existing spaces

new spaces

STRATEGY 3: CONCEPT

165

On a larger scale, the University consists of different locations belonging to the three contexts. The development of the University begins in the city. The city will keep its strategic and representational role, whilst over time other locations become part of the network. The students will shift between them.

FRAGMENTED TERRITORY Over time, the territory of Northern Putumayo has undergone several demographic, political and economic changes that have shaped today’s fragmented territory. It is possible to identify three contexts in which the Inga communities have moved and lived through these changes. Through the process of colonization and missions, Inga communities were pushed from their Casa – the forest – into top down defined territories, the so called Resguardos. As a result of recent drug conflicts and illegal appropriation of their land, many Ingas were forced to leave their legal territory for bigger cities. Today, the three contexts often are not clearly identifiable as they merge into each other or are separated by infrastructure, industry or privately-owned land.

CONNECTING THE THREE CONTEXTS As the University should be a representation of the Inga culture, people, and their development, the ambition is to connect all three contexts in order to remain authentic, preserve the past but also allow further evolution. The University should be developed into a sprawling and constantly redefining network of places, programs and people. It is about teaching a way of living and about bringing life into harmony with the surrounding environment. Each location has its own qualities and potential through which the diverse programs of the University are defined. The network created takes place mainly in the existing infrastructure, and is completed by specific components.

MOVING THROUGH THE TERRITORY Over the course of their education students will regularly shift between the University’s infrastructure of the three contexts in order to maintain a constant exchange with the other students, the local communities of each location and their homes. In analogy to the Inga’s traditional way of living and learning, every location consists of two components: Firstly, a representative space for gatherings, discussions and exchange and secondly, several classrooms which are all defined as spaces of knowledge and which are arranged around the central space on a bigger scale. Many of these spaces already exist, some might need an extension, or to be newly built, depending on the situation.

166

At the scale of one location, the University consists of one main building which represents the institution and fosters exchange. Analogous to the traditional ways of learning and living, the students will be educated in different spaces of knowledge.

GROWTH IN STEPS In order to react to changes and to start with a low budget the University should be able to grow in steps. A certain physical presence might be necessary for the University to blossom in the minds of the Inga people. Following this, the material and immaterial university can grow independently from one another, depending on the financial means and needs of the institution.

STEP 1: REPRESENTATION As a first step the University should be visibly present in strategically important locations in the area. It should work within the urban fabric of the region to gain acceptance and support within the different communities, but also to create a sense of unity and affiliation among the students of the University. This presence can range from a simple visual mark, to elaborate and symbolic spaces.

STEP 2: USING EXISTING SPACES The University now has a voice and a face in the region. It is not dependent on its own spaces, as its existence is marked and the idea of the institution is present in the minds of the people. In this second step the University can make use of existing sources and spaces. This will help to begin the project with minimal funding, to embed it within existing structures, and to foster exchange with local communities and institutions.

STEP 3: CONSOLIDATING OWN SPACES Once the University has established itself and grown to a sustainable state, it can start to materially consolidate its presence. In this third step the institution can start to build its own spaces according to its needs and imaginations.

STRATEGY 3: CONCEPT

167

3

1.5 hrs

7 0.5 hr

6

1

3.5 hrs

2 hrs

5

4

4 hrs

2.5 hrs 0.5 hr

0.5 hr

1 hr

2

168

city

resguardo forest VECTORWORKS EDUCATIONAL VERSION

0.5 hr

CITY 1 Villagarzón – The city as platform Villagarzón is the capital of the homonymous municipality, located in the foothills of the Andes at the end of the Mocoa Valley. Today the city is of strategic, political and economic importance to the area of Northern Putumayo. It therefore is symbolically important that the Ingas are culturally and politically represented there in order to both create awareness and participate in the discourse on the future of the area. In addition, there is a large amount of pre-existing infrastructure on which the Inga University may create a base to expand upon. This base would allow a fruitful exchange of knowledge and experience with non-Inga communities.

RESGUARDO 2 San Miguel de la Castellana – Strengthening the community The Resguardo San Miguel lays along the river Chalguayaco in the plain south-west of Villagarzón. The Inga community suffered heavily under the armed conflict of previous years which led to the displacement of many families. The area is mainly used for agriculture, which forms the basic income of the residents. Through the involvement of the University we hope to help San Miguel regain its life. By working with the community, knowledge can be shared striving together for a sustainable agriculture and a revitalisation of their culture.

3 Yunguillo – Regaining biodiversity by reforestation The Resguardo Yunguillo is located in the Valley of the Rio Caqueta, north of Mocoa. It consists of four Cabildos situated in the departments of Putumayo and Cauca. In 2015 the Resguardo’s size was increased from 4320 ha to 26716 ha. Yunguillo is interesting, both in terms of the different climatic zones and the resulting variety of flora and fauna it encompasses, but also the area’s strong political actions and commitment. Furthermore, the inhabitants show strong initiative to transform their Resguardo into a sustainable and striving community. We believe the University could participate in this ongoing change, learn from them and in return contribute their part.

FOREST 4 Wasipungo – Refuge close to the city 5 Mojomboy – Access to holy sites 6 Taita Oscar – Refuge in the holy forest 7 Piamonte – Access to Serranía de Los Churumbelos Auka-Wasi National Park The four chosen sites in the forest context are all located on Inga territory (partly collectively owned, partly privately owned) along the Serranía de Los Churumbelos Auka-Wasi National park which is their former territory. Therefore, the four sites form an invisible border which protects their ancient territory against exploitation and abuse and further allows them fast access to it. The forest allows them to reconnect with their traditional knowledge and way of living in accordance with their environment.

STRATEGY 3: TERRITORY

169

VILLAGARZĂ“N

8

Addition 1 main building representing the indigenous culture

1

Existing

4

5

2 rented classrooms in public schools and institutions 3 rented market stall in city market indigenous institutions (Cabildos, associations reused for university purposes (e.g. dorms, classroom, storage) 4 public and university libraries 5 town hall and office for interships 6 hospital for internships 7 shared public sports fields 8 public pools 9 agricultural fields 10 piscicultural farms

9

7 VECTORWORKS EDUCATIONAL VERSION

3 2 6

7

2

FOREST SITES Addition 1 shelter used as dorm and gathering space 2 services (sanitary facilities, small PV-system, water collection system)

3 VECTORWORKS EDUCATIONAL VERSION

Existing 3 forest

1 2

170

10

7

2

addition

existing

SAN MIGUEL DE LA CASTELLANA

6

Addition 1 communal area for university and locals 2 additional sanitary facilities and PV-system VECTORWORKS EDUCATIONAL VERSION

1

Existing

8

3

4

3 old school reused for university purposes (e.g. dorms, storage) 4 covered outside area for teaching 5 Cabildo for internship 6 classrooms in new school 7 kitchen 8 church 9 communal sports fields 10 agricultural fields

2 9 5

7

10

YUNGUILLO Addition 1 university building 2 tree nursery for reforestation

4

Existing 3 Cabildo 4 classrooms in existing schools 5 small Maloca 6 church 7 community hall and kitchen 8 communal sports fields

4 6 5

8

3

7

2 8 VECTORWORKS EDUCATIONAL VERSION

1

STRATEGY 3: TERRITORY

171

THREE COURSES The University is based on exchange between the students, the communities and their homes. In order to foster these interactions, it is eminently important to allow the students to move between all the locations with their intrinsic programs and qualities.

Three courses take place across the territory in a cyclical manner. The courses take place over seven sites with inherent material and immaterial qualities.

90

4 Wasipungo – Refuge close to the city

5

addition 56m2

I course

30

I

II course

30

II

III course

30

III

1 Villagarzon – The city as a platform

40

5 Mojomboy – Access to holy sites

5 5

5 5

5

addition 243m2 addition 56m2

existing 872m2

I

30

30

I

30

5

10

II

10

5

30

II III

10

2 San Miguel de la Castellana –

III

15

5

5

5

6 Taita Oscar – Refuge in the holy forest

5

5

Strengthening the community by planting together

addition 56m2

addition 300m2 existing 170m2 I

I

II III

15

15

5

10

5

II

5

10

III

5

15

7 Piamonte – Access to Serrania de Los

5

3 Yunguillo – Regaining biodiversity by reforestation

5

5

Churumbelos Auka-Wasi National Park

addition 272m2 addition 56m2

existing 157m2

I II III

172

I

15 15

10

5

II

5

10

III

5

5 5

5

A CIRCULAR CURRICULUM The curriculum of the University can be understood as a circular process. In this process the University forms part of the Inga people. It is one stage of their life and an integral part of their culture. The students enter the University from their communities. During their course they pass through the different contexts and their intrinsic knowledge, exchange and learn, and hand on their knowledge for the first time to new students. After their graduation they leave for their communities in order to contribute to the local discourse, passing on their knowledge, or taking on an active role for the university – whether at the university, in the city or in their hometown. indigenous community support ks wee

I course

ind i kno geno wle us dg e

indigenous community support we eks

tea chi ng

ind ige no us cul tur e

po litic sa nd rig en ht viro ne m me en t dic al s cie nce

ind i kno geno wle us dg e

k brea gic go da pe

we eks

we eks

ks wee

ry eo th

po litic sa nd rig en ht viro ne me me nt dic al s cie po nce litic sa nd rig en ht viro ne m me en t dic al s cie nce

e tic ac pr r na mi se

ind i kno geno wle us dg e ry eo th

r na mi se

e tic ac pr

ry eo th

indigenous community support

e tic ac pr

k brea

ks wee

e tic ac pr

ry eo th indi kno geno wle us dg e

pre pa rat ion cou rse

k brea

me dic al s cie nce en viro ne me po n litic t sa nd me rig ht dic al s cie nce en viro ne me po nt litic sa nd rig ht

a lom e dip ctic a pr

k brea

II course

III course

we eks

me dic al s cie nce en viro ne me po nt litic sa nd rig ht

ks wee

indigenous community support

STRATEGY 3: TIMELINE

173

STRATEGY 4 Dimitri Durst, Severin Jann, Valentin Ribi

4

174

UNIVERSITY OF NETWORKS: ALONG THE FOOTHILL OF THE MOUNTAIN

0

5

10

20 km

A university can be part of an answer to the current problems and at the same time preserve the cultural and biological richness. It is important to bring together the positive pre-existing attempts in the region to resolve these issues, and to see the University as an additional part of these efforts.

The University should find contemporary answers for an indigenous life under these new circumstances, while bringing together old traditions and new knowledge. Therefore, the University should act as a model for a way of life, for sustainability and autonomy.

With several locations, the University is able to be aware of territorial dynamics across the region, as well as teaching from a cultural based, practical and interdisciplinary approach.

The centres of these locations are easily bridgeable distances to each other.

Therefore, we can consider it a network of locations which builds the framework of the University.

Over time, more and more information will be added into this framework. The network will get denser and stronger and become a territorial player. As the indigenous communities are dependent on their own territory, this process is also a fight for empowerment and human rights.

A new way of life can be found where the forest is the cultural and daily centre. The goal is not to completely isolate from urbanized places, but instead to show an alternative way in which the values of nature and culture are taken into account in further developments, and held equal to economic concerns, better connections and comfort.

New concepts of life can enrich future visions and help to discuss today‘s problems in an open-minded way.

176

UNIVERSITY OF NETWORKS Existing structures play an essential role in the strategy of the University. These networks are activated and strengthened by their weaving into the university process.

At the same time many new links and layers are created, from which the Inga community can benefit.

The University should be part of a bigger cooperation with already existing actors in the region.

It is a test site for a contemporary way of living in the forest, with the forest.

The concept must follow the inseparable proximity of the indigenous culture to the forest, the oral narrative and the locus.

Over time the University can become a representative and territorial actor.

Due to a high level of self-sufficiency and closed cyclical processes the University acts in the same way it teaches.

The University starts small and establishes a framework for further developments and densification.

STRATEGY 4: CONCEPT

177

Several concepts form this understanding of the University. It should take advantage of the existing, be a model for life, evolve around the indigenous culture, achieve a high level of self- sufficiency, be structured as a network and thereby become part of the territory.

EXISTING PROJECTS AND POSSIBLE COLLABORATIONS The indigenous people of the region are already organized in associations and have established bilingual high schools. Moreover, there are several NGOs in the region, which fight for the indigenes’ culture and for nature concerns.

The University should be part of a bigger cooperation with already existing actors.

It can benefit from the existing structures and knowledge and in return offer rooms and infrastructure, as well as initiating common research programs. Members of the associations can be part of the professoriate at the University, which will further improve the exchange.

THE UNIVERSITY AS A MODEL OF LIFE The Inga community is confronted with the challenge of how to define their own cultural values in the present time. In exchange with other cultures, the University discusses sustainable ways of living nowadays, seeking long term solutions. The University forms a community that reflects on the old knowledge and culture, where the forest and the territory is a place to live within.

Living in one‘s own territory, processing experiences and rethinking possible issues this is the main focus of the University. It is a test site for a contemporary way of living, offering an alternative to the city-oriented way of life.

INDIGENOUS CULTURE AS A GUIDE FOR THE UNIVERSITY A university is a place to collect, create and maintain knowledge. The concept of this University must follow the inseparable proximity of the indigenous culture to the forest, the oral narrative and the locus. Knowledge is the basis for the responsible use of nature, appreciation of tradition and maintenance of culture. The University should be located where the knowledge is created and where it can best be transferred. It is spread over several locations, organized along the foothill in the forest near the national park. Each location has a focus on a main topic.

178

INDEPENDENCE AND EQUILIBRIUM The University should achieve a good level of self-sufficiency and closed cyclical processes. Water and soil are valuable resources and must not be polluted, waste should be brought back into the cycle of nature or be recycled properly. One element of the University will be a system of traditional agroforestry to produce food. There, the balance between the self-regenerating forces of nature and its use by humans must be found. The aim is not only to teach sustainability but to live in such a way.

This not only leads to a balance between people and nature, but is the basis for an independent way of life.

THE UNIVERSITY STRUCTURE AS A NETWORK The University starts along a path that connects important land of the Inga community. Along the path different centralities are created from which further connections to the territory are established that will provide basic services.

At the same time, a digital network is being established where events on site will be visible and parts of the University are registered. On the one hand, the website serves to organize university life, but on the other hand it also represents the richness of the territory. Partnership with local residents can also be organised with the help of a virtual map.

TERRITORIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE UNIVERSITY The knowledge of the territory traditionally acquired through walking, together with new media tools of community organization form the starting point of the university project. A collaboration with the inhabitants of the region will be key for the restructuring of the territorial logic. This is a process of not only learning from the territory, but over time inscribing layers of knowledge and meaning into it. By uncovering the biological variety and the wealth of nature, the University must react to, and represent these values accordingly. The University contributes to the recovery of ancestral land of the Inga.

STRATEGY 4: CONCEPT

179

ALONG THE FOOTHILL OF THE MOUNTAIN The University should be located where the knowledge is created and where it can best be transferred. The locations are therefore organized along the foothill near to the national park. Geology, accessibility and network considerations further define the placement.

ASOMI

Mocoa

Corpoamazonia CEA UMIYAC Villagarzón

Parque Nacional

AS ASNAY NAY 4

Puerto Limon San Miguel

Resguardo Inga Puerto Limon

Napoles

Agro-Forestal Guayuyaco Naturamazonas Fundacion ItarKa

holy land

G UAY UYAC O 2

NA B U E N O 3

Miraflor

Cabildo Resguardo La Floresta-Laespañola

path profile

440 m 290 m 0 km

180

4.5 km

6.9 km

10.7 km

IERA Yunguillo

O

Parque Nacional Natural Serranía de los Churumbelos

Institución Educativa Inga Yachaikury

holy land INCHIYAC O 5

TAMB O R 1 Piamonte

o Inga Rumiñawi

16.2 km

20.9 km 22.2 km

STRATEGY 4: TERRITORY

181

A new path connects the sites along the foothill. Indigenous knowledge is represented in the territorial interventions that are established along the path.

The students will be involved in the different areas and participate in cooperation with regional actors.

1 TAMBOR • rotational Chagras • plant knowledge • selfsufficency as a way of life

EXISTING

• sustainable agriculture

property and path

2 GUYUYACO • social organization • pedagogical knowledge and language • campesino integration projects • art and artisanal craft

THE PATH 3 NABUENO

renovation and connecting the sites

• reforestation project • territorial protection • ecological knowledge transmission • NGO integration

4 ASNAY • archive infrastructure

THE GROWING NETWORK

• reasearch and exchange

establishing interventions

• oral knowledge transmission • Taita and Mamita meetings

LANDSCAPE CONSIDERATIONS A location consists of several parts – zones of

5 INCHIYACO

untouched forest, zones for agroforestry and

• traditional medicine knowledge

a place for a common area. The common area

• medicinal plant knowledge

forms the basis for walks through the territory.

• health and spirituality

Several other elements of the University are

• reatreat

scattered in the forest.

1600 m 1200 m 800 m 400 m 182

agroforestry area

common area

untouched forest area

ANDES-AMAZON CORRIDOR The position of the University at the fault line of the Andes connects the Amazon basin with the mountains to ensure a biological corridor of the two ecosystems.

INDIGENOUS LAND Parts of the former indigenous land is protected under the Resguardo title. Reclamation of land

TERRAIN AND RIVERS

is an ongoing process that the University can

The path runs along the foot of the mountain,

support.

where the land is not too steep. At the rivers, centralities emerge, which carry the names

THE EXISTING NETWORK

of the rivers. These points must be within a

An indigenous University can reinforce the

bridgeable distance to each other.

synergies among the numerous actors in the area including NGOs with ecological agendas, social activists and educational institutions. This process forms a significant part of the project.

THE NETWORK On a local scale the University collaborates with its neighbouring inhabitants and their families.

Together with the Inga community and the

NATIONAL PARK AND OIL EXTRACTION

indigenous associations, social knowledge is

The University is located at the edge of the

increased. The schools promoting the Inga

national park. This gives quick access to this

language can contribute to the university

valuable ecosystem. At the same time, this

network. A cooperation with NGOs is envisaged,

creates a buffer zone against the nearby oil wells.

to contribute to the reforestation efforts and engage with sustainability issues.

CONNECTIONS The University is easily accessible from Villagarzรณn, where there is also an airport. There are several small villages in the immediate surroundings. Large parts of the University are also covered by the mobile phone network.

STRATEGY 4: TERRITORY

183

THE VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY With the help of a digital representation of the University the high diversity of species and local conditions can be shown. Information and events can be entered on the site, making them visible and communicable. Users can be guided by the website to find information and events. With many users on both sides, the website can become dynamic, much like the territory itself.

184

INITATING

COLLABORATIVE PROCESSES

The University could start before

The proposed web map is based

its building. A web map where

completely on open source programs

information on the existing territory

and data and can be administered

is gathered can be started and

by the community themselves. The

combined with the field of action of

developed map should be considered

the University. This web map has the

a working document, where new

capability to strengthen the existing

information can easily be added and

network and to structure information

adjusted.

and events in the territory.

STRATEGY 4: TIMELINE

185

STRATEGY 5 Rémi Jourdan, Shen He, Timmy Huang, Lan Tu, Qianer Zhu

5

186

UNIVERSITY: VILLAGE AND RAINFOREST

0

5

10

20 km

VILLAGE AND RAINFOREST The University performs across two sites: village and rainforest. Pragmatically it deals with two different construction scenarios. Moreover, it is worth thinking of indigenous knowledge in situ and thereby understanding the relation between knowledge and its location.

Village and rainforest are the places where the knowledge is expressed, practiced, and taught. Therefore students will rotate between the two sites and make full use of the opportunities to learn from both locations.

To make the University is to make a place for knowledge.

188

STRATEGY 5: CONCEPT

189

CONSTRUCTION AS PART OF THE UNIVERSITY The University performs in phases.

This not only applies to the semester schedule but also the construction of the University and the establishment of the institution. All University events intertwine with the recurring climate and calendar.

190

THE UNIVERSITY IN MULTIPLE SCALES The University is designed at three scales.

Flexibility is key to the project.

At territory scale: a wide range of site choices At site scale: adaptive ways to organize sites At construction scale: varied ways of using and changing the construction

STRATEGY 5: CONCEPT

191

VILLAGE SITE: SAN MIGUEL DE LA CASTELLANA VILLAGE community meetings and workshops

spatial qualities

proximity to the river

meeting

workshop

presentation

cultural events loose building structure

public square

carnival

dancing

music

daily life activities

existing space and facilities fishing

working in Chagra

cooking

elders' knowledge

handcraft

192

methods of working

history

RAINFOREST SITE: TAMBOR RAINFOREST legitimacy

being in a Resguardo

being in cooperation with external stakeholders geography

2 conditions: forest and clearing

river offers transport and food

secondary forest

primeval forest • sacred, symbolic • high level of biodiversity • no human intervention • should remain untouched city nearby brings chances

• forest in recovery • lower level of biodiversity • human once involved • less constraint

clearings caused by

accessibility

via footpath

via water

via road transport

• have to offer subsidy to recover the damaged ecology • potential: entrusting Indigenous University

infrastructure

waste

food

• various land ownership • coca plantation – potentially fumigated

energy

cattle ranching • land privately owned drainage

small scale agriculture illicit crops

oil and mining extraction

tree felling • land privately owned

water

STRATEGY 5: TERRITORY

193

POTENTIAL IN THE VILLAGE

participation in community life

learning from the knowledge of the elders

sharing and reusing infrastructure

a window for knowledge exchange

194

Restoring nature POTENTIAL IN THE RAINFOREST Restoring nature Restoring Restoring nature nature Restoring nature

ndary forest

ndary forest forest ndary ndary forest very ndary forest biodiversity very very nvolved very biodiversity tbiodiversity biodiversity very nvolved nvolved nvolved biodiversity nt t nt nvolved nt

riculture / Illicit crops

griculture Illicit crops crops riculture // Illicit griculture wnership / Illicit crops griculture / Illicit crops n - Potentially ownership wnership ownership on Potentially on -- Potentially on Potentially wnership on - Potentially

POTENTIALS POTENTIALS POTENTIALS POTENTIALS POTENTIALS

Agroforestry

Agriculture

Restoring nature by practising agroforestry & agriculture Exploring sustainable of production Restoring nature by by practisingway agroforestry agriculture Restoring nature practising agroforestry && Restoring nature by practising agroforestry & agriculture agriculture Exploring sustainable way of production production restoring nature by practising agroforestry and agriculture, Exploring sustainable way of Exploring sustainable way of Restoring nature sustainable by practisingways agroforestry & agriculture exploring ofproduction production Exploring sustainable way of production

Financial - being entrusted by extern stakeholders Financial -- being being entrusted entrusted by by extern extern stakeholders stakeholders Financial Financial - being entrustedby byexternal extern stakeholders financial – being entrusted stakeholders Financial - being entrusted by extern stakeholders

A way to claim indigenous territory way to to claim indigenous indigenous territory AA Away way to claim claim indigenous territory territory

Resource from nature A way to claim indigenous territory a way to claim indigenous territory Resource from from nature nature Resource Resource from nature Resource from nature

%HQH¿ W IURP GLYHUVH VSHFLHV IRU H J PHGLFLQH VWXG\ should be cautious in priemeval forest %HQH¿ W IURP GLYHUVH VSHFLHV IRU H J PHGLFLQH VWXG\ W IURP GLYHUVH VSHFLHV IRU H J PHGLFLQH VWXG\ %HQH¿ %HQH¿ W IURP GLYHUVH VSHFLHV IRU H J PHGLFLQH VWXG\ should be cautious infor priemeval forest benefit fromshould diversebe species for, example medicine study, cautious in forest should be cautious in priemeval priemeval forest %HQH¿ W IURP GLYHUVH VSHFLHV IRU H J PHGLFLQH VWXG\ Experiencing nature while taking care of the primeval forest should be cautious in priemeval forest

Experiencing nature nature Experiencing Experiencing nature Experiencing nature

ing operation

ring operation operation ring ring operation owned ring operation owned owned owned owned

Experiencing natureand & ancestral experiencing nature ancestralterritory territory Experiencing nature & ancestral territory Experiencing nature & ancestral territory Experiencing nature & ancestral territory Experiencing nature & ancestral territory

STRATEGY 5: TERRITORY

195

TIMELINE VILLAGE AND RAINFOREST

196

STRATEGY 5: TIMELINE

197

ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY Philip Ursprung Angelika Fitz Santiago Pradilla Hosie Olivier Dambron Teresa GalĂ­-Izard

SPACE, TIME, AND AUTONOMY: THE UNIVERSITY CAMPUS Philip Ursprung University students and teachers need space, time, and autonomy. Autonomy means that they follow their own rules, decide what they need to learn, what they want to do research on, which topics and methods and skills are relevant. They need protection and trust. Universities are investments in the future. Universities are neither immediately productive nor are they profitable over a short term. Universities are not factories. But they depend on people working in factories, they depend on accumulated wealth, and they depend on the societies protecting and respecting their autonomy.

There is no single origin of the university. The University of Bologna is considered the oldest university in Europe, founded in 1088. Its name stems from the Latin "universitas" (totality, universality), the universality of teaching and learning of all fields of knowledge. The European university can be related to the earlier cathedral schools, to the "scriptorium", the writing room in the medieval monastery, or to the Islamic madras. Most of the old European universities were located within the city.

They were protected by gates or walls, forming a city within the city.

The first university campuses in the modern sense were established in the United States in the late 18th century. The campus became the most effective model for the expansion of universities during the 20th century. The campus – from the Latin word "campus" (field) - is a foundation outside the city. Even more so than at universities that are located within the city, the campus students - and sometimes their teachers - form an academic community. They not only meet in the classrooms, but also during their leisure time. The informal exchange is as important as the actual curriculum.

Students learn most from each other, from the so-called horizontal learning. Away from their parents and their hometowns they have time to reinvent themselves.

Universities have changed over time. From exclusive institutions reserved for a privileged elite, most universities were democratized during the second half of the 20th century and became accessible to a large part of society. But some components that reach back a thousand years have remained almost unchanged.

Either located within the city or on a campus outside the city, universities do not blur with the city. Their purpose is to serve society and ideally their campuses are open to the public. Yet, they keep a distance towards the daily life of society, towards its traditions, its moral values.

200

Why? A university is not merely a place to reproduce knowledge and to discipline society. It is not a school. It is a testing ground for the unknown, for utopias, for alternatives. In a university there is always a lamp burning at night. The highest good of the university is academic freedom. It is a fragile good, exposed to political change and financial pressure. Teachers and students depend on others with the power to defend this freedom. Freedom is not the same as autonomy. But as long as academic freedom is granted, teachers and students must use their autonomy to its limits.

201

RAISING DOUBTS Angelika Fitz How could an indigenous university in Colombia develop? And what could architecture students contribute? When I received an invitation to a review in this studio of Lacaton Vassal at the ETH, I accepted with great curiosity, but also a certain amount of skepticism. When I arrived in Zurich in November 2019, I found the students insecure and timid. This was surprising because they were able to present comprehensive documentation and analysis on the major planetary issues of our time, on economic dependence and exploitation, on the consequences of the oil industry, on deforestation, loss of biodiversity, indigenous traditions and the struggle for land rights.

What has triggered this uncertainty? It was something that has become rare in the meantime, under the conditions of Covid-19: a long-distance trip, a visit to the site in Colombia. Until then, students could create their position from a safe distance. Distance and a solid terrain for your own position are the best conditions for projections. And projection is an indispensable part of any planning. The Indian writer Amitav Ghosh describes in his collection of essays "Dancing in Cambodia"1 how cultural projections become pornography if they are not irritated by shared experiences and concrete encounters. One such essay sees the man who would later become the Cambodian terror ruler Pol Pot as a student in Paris. He admires Robespierre and the French Revolution, but only sees the aspects that fit into his plan: disempowerment of the nobility - yes, human rights - no. The other pole in Ghosh's collection of stories is Auguste Rodin. In 1906 Cambodia's King Sisowath, his entourage, and a troupe of Cambodian classical dancers embark on a visit to France.

Rodin succumbs to the charm of the dancers, follows them on their tour and captures his fetish in numerous drawings.

Such projections easily collapse when you meet people on site, when you spend time together, listening and contemplating. When one gets to know other kinds of knowledge. In the exchange of the students with the Ingas, the territory became the earth. It became conceivable that people are no longer users and masters of this earth, but part of it. "We are the land. We are the soil. We are Biodiversity. We are one Earth family, deriving our common identity as earthlings from the Earth," writes scientist and activist Vandana Shiva. And further: "It is no accident that the word human has its roots in humus - soil in Latin".2 It did not take long for the students to experience their usual planning instruments as colonial strategies. The surface of the earth could no longer simply be planned. The university lost its universality.

202

Do what? In our book "Critical Care. Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet"3 Elke Krasny and I proposed an Ethics of Care. We have specifically drawn on a tradition of care theory as put forward by political theorist Joan Tronto. In 1991, together with Berenice Fisher, Tronto developed the following useful definition of care: “On the most general level, we suggest that caring be viewed as a species activity that includes everything we do to maintain, continue, and repair our ‘world’ so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, ourselves, and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web.”4 This would encourage architects to start with the given, in the midst of things.

Caring means to care about, to care for and, most difficult, to relate care giving and care receiving. How to receive and how to contribute knowledge? This became a central challenge for the students of this studio; this was a constant source of doubts.

Perhaps these doubts, this unease are the most important thing that the students have experienced in this studio. This experience could be a key to not only a humanistic but a planetary architecture in their future careers.

1

Amitav GHOSH: Dancing in Cambodia, At Large in Burma, Ravo Dayal Publisher 1998

2

Vandana SHIVA, „Law of the Land”, in: Boden für Alle, ed. by Angelika FITZ, Karoline MAYER,

Katharina RITTER, Architekturzentrum Wien, Park Books 2020 3

Angelika FITZ, Elke KRASNY, Architekturzentrum Wien (ed.): Critical Care. Architecture and

Urbanism for a Broken Planet, Cambridge/MA: MIT Press 2019 4

Joan C. TRONTO and Berenice FISHER, “Toward a Feminist Theory of Caring,” in Circles of Care:

Work and Identity in Women’s Lives, eds. Emily K. ABEL and Margaret K. NELSON (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), p. 40 203

HOW DO WE GROUP THE STARS? Santiago Pradilla ON THE TRADE OF THE ARCHITECT; BEFORE THE EGG, CAME THE CHICKEN! How does an architect work without an architectural program and without a lot?

Generally speaking, architects are commissioned with a specific design to build in a precise place with a specific program. Less often, it turns out that the client has the place, but does not know what kind of building to put in it. Or, on the contrary, it might be that the client knows what they want to build but doesn’t know where.

None of this is the case with the indigenous university. Many architects were invited to conceive a surprisingly open project. The Inga people gave us sufficient information to fall in love with a very abstract idea: to conceive this “university” of the rainforest. A question of imaginaries and identities, grand Taitas and youth, a question of language, rights and territory, and then it leaves all the options of implementation and scale completely open with very few pointers with respect to the architectural program.

There are many questions that need to be addressed from other areas of knowledge, and it is in this sense that, to my way of thinking, the five “attitudes” proposed by the ETH students are particularly interesting. It is surprising the incredible care with which they came up with tools and arguments to define scales and forms of implementation, though at once highly attentive not to become obsessed with a whimsical building.

From the optic of architecture, we reflect on the university, on educational models, environmental issues and politics, among others, but at the same time respecting the space of these other disciplines. One year thinking about and designing a profound idea; with a lot of patience and humility, simplifying and consciously eschewing that moment when the architect takes a finished architectural design from up their sleeve, refusing the moment of “genius” like when Le Corbusier arrived at the lakeside and whipped out the plan of the magnificent house designed for his parents.

If the formal design of the building is the egg which is to then be photographed for magazines, perhaps here we should turn our attention to the chicken. In this case the egg that will eventually be laid does not matter. A wonderful meeting between the indigenous world, Ursula’s art and Anne Lacaton’s expert workshop.

ON THE LOGIC OF THE RAINFOREST; HOW DO WE GROUP THE STARS? In an endeavour to visualize these five attitudes, five different ways of insertion within the territory, which is the most appropriate? One could imagine that we would come up with the answer by thinking about the client, in this case the Inga community and its needs. However, that exercise was not as straightforward as it might seem.

Trying to put myself in their shoes, trying to understand why these settlements are so dispersed in certain places and not in others, I realized that I could not see any visible pattern at first sight. For some reason, I imagine the sensation of looking at the vast starry sky at night and someone explaining which stars belong to which constellation.

204

But I inevitably also see all those other stars that are not part of the specific figures, and I think about the settlements of those other four indigenous communities that are equally disperse and also inhabit this vast territory. I see the settlements of white people, the oil wells and even those makeshift camps for the deforestation of the rainforest. One could not identify any particularly representative pattern … it is surprising that these stars exist and equally surprising that people live in each one of these remote places.

And then returning to our Inga constellation, it is clear that the Inga settlements are very different from each other: there are settlements in temperate zones, others in cold regions, and consequently in each settlement there are very different fauna and flora, other medicines, other food and another kind of architecture. So, why do all these mutually remote points make up the greater Inga community? One could imagine that it is simply a question of shared language but perhaps there are also similar forms of relating with bodies of water, with music, traditions and festivals. The territory inhabited by the Ingas is 4.27 times the size of Switzerland; and then the university has the challenge of becoming the neuralgic core, a meeting place where the options for implantation are infinite. Logical-deductive argumentations lead us to these five possible implantations. Which one will the wise elders choose when analysing them with the aid of Yagé from a non-western “logic”, the gut feeling; the wisdom of the unfathomable?

IN COLOMBIA WE GREW UP WITH THE STORY OF THE THREE LITTLE PIGS The buildings in the countryside in Colombia tend to become more homogenous all the time. Requiring great expenditure of effort, cement and steel are transported long distances to the most remote places where a concrete house will eventually be built.

Over the last thirty years this tendency has accelerated in the country, where now only the poor do not have a cement floor.

The mass media only show „peasant houses“ when they are talking about poverty.

And so in deserts, snow-capped mountains, Páramos, by the coast or in tropical rainforests, everyday people are transforming their habitat by building with the very same materials as used to build the poor suburbs of Bogotá. Everybody wants the same cement house which has nothing to do with the climate or the place.

This leads to major contradictions.

We all pursue the same progress and in doing so lose our greatest treasure: diversity.

A humble man from a remote area where roads don’t reach summed up my concern when he stood up in a meeting and said: “Architect, you know... we all grew up with the story of the three little pigs, making us believe that anyone who was building with straw, clay or wood are just lazy and that the only person of real worth is the one who works hard and even if it takes more effort builds in concrete.“

205

SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH PASSIVE DESIGN Olivier Dambron There exists a social stigma within emerging countries around the tropics that gives rise to misleading expectations on how forms of progress can take place. The way of life of indigenous populations is greatly impacted by the dominance of the western world as its notion of progress often points away from local heritage. In fact, implicit knowledge from the vernacular on the relation between climate and building is often disregarded instead of being consciously applied in the design of new buildings.

Furthermore, energy intensive means to reach comfort such as AC, are commonly perceived as a mark of rising living standards. In consequence, there is a noticeable decline in the indigenous communities’ tolerance for their own environment which in turn, weighs on the development of an authentic actual culture.

In this light, designing a university building for the Inga indigenous people is a sensitive subject for which the Studio Anne Lacaton of ETH Zurich has cooperated with the Javeriana University in Bogota to further connect with the Inga of the Southern Colombian rainforest. It is against this background that the studio developed a large body of work which was carried out with a bottom up approach to building knowledge and adopting new attitudes. Five lines of work have been brought to light by the projects to harness existing potentials and propose adapted ideas.

The projects integrate bamboo as a remarkable local material to the Colombian rainforest, which can constitute the building elements of structures, such as walls, roofing, flooring, ceilings, frames, shading devices and furniture. Means to grow, harvest, and treat bamboo on-site were explored for self-sufficiency. Furthermore, bamboo is inexpensive - if not free - and found abundantly as it regrows fast after harvest and matures for construction within only three years. It is a thermally lightweight material that sequesters carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and presents the tensile strength of steel for the compressive resistance of concrete.

Bamboo constructions last over several decades if well treated and protected from the weathering effects of sun and rain. The studio deepened its understanding of sustainable bamboo construction techniques and integrated the material diligently into the projects. As more sustainable contemporary examples of tropical architecture make good use of bamboo, the popularity of this material shifts further away from being stigmatised as the “poor man’s timber”.

With sustainability as one of the core design considerations, the studio strived to improve the physical performance of the university through passive design.

Students analysed the local microclimatic conditions of the site to define the relevant bioclimatic strategies for the warm and humid climate of the region of Putumayo.

206

These were integrated into each line of work by the students as provisions to improve naturally the quality of indoor spaces, to minimize dependence on energy and ensure the thermal and visual comfort of the future users. The qualities of existing buildings are proposed to be reused and new interventions are thought to have minimal impact. The University’s facilities are well spaced and largely open to allow air to flow and to relieve excess heat. Buildings are carefully oriented for solar control by limiting wall exposure and enabling easy shade. Constructions are elevated onto stilts for air circulation below, for protection from the humid ground and also from surrounding wildlife. Building heights are informed by the surrounding levels of obstruction to gain exposure to upper winds for greater natural ventilation. Roofs are double-layered with an air gap to insulate the indoor from the hot corrugated steel. They are also pitched to facilitate water drainage while extended overhangs keep wind-driven rain out. Openings are large with well-adjusted overhangs to ensure adequate daylight levels in classrooms while controlling disturbing glare. Lightweight materials such as bamboo or wood are used to prevent heat accumulation and therefore overheating.

Adaptive opportunities are made accessible for occupants to control their own comfort with movable screens or retractable shading. Woven facade screens provide layering to control privacy, insect intrusion and air quality.

In this book, the Studio of Anne Lacaton transfers knowledge from half-way across the globe and brings to light how compelling and sustainable forms of progress can be rooted in the cultural and natural heritage of the Inga people.

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A FIRST EXCHANGE OF IDEAS BETWEEN THE INGAS AND ETH Teresa Galí-Izard SENSIBILITY AND CAUTION The study is a first step, taken with sensibility and caution, in search of new ways of collaboration between institutions which are remote from one another and with very different characters, but which share the common goal of the production of knowledge.

LEAVING THE ROAD TO TAKE THE PATH The students’ projects begin with an explanatory video that clearly underscores their empathy with the goals and ambitions of the Ingas. The students’ intention to position themselves in the postcolonialist context was well expressed in this opening exercise. However, their positions were much more difficult to express in the development of the proposals, which in some cases were overly circumspect in their non-interventionist, low-risk or celebratory approaches. What became obvious was the difficulty in overcoming the situation of collapse or paralysis owing to the history of violence, inequality, injustice and over-exploitation. Is it really possible to shut out the recent and historic past of domination and abuse? What is the path that avoids the shortcomings of modernism and the colonization of ways of life by Western societies? What are the strategies to get around the time required for reconciliation?

REUSE The idea of recycling, reusing and making the most of the resources of the place was also very much at the fore. It is obvious that the students had internalized the idea of responding to environmental criteria concerning materials and resources.

Doubtlessly influenced by their excellent teachers, their approaches were always predicated on judiciously integrating the pre-existing conditions of the site. The reuse of buildings or the urban fabric was a common aspect in the majority of the proposals. The focus on details, joints, assemblage and construction methods underscores the importance of these factors in the creation of architecture.

The study shows that there is great potential and a vast terrain to explore in the hybridization of traditional methods, local resources and cutting-edge technology.

SYSTEMATIZING SPACE AND TIME One way of approaching complex exercises is systematization. The proposals systematically address the territory by proposing the same methodology in different places, at different times and spatial scales.

Systematization through abstract parameters generates information which often enables the appearance of unexpected relationships. It is an objective and serious methodology for the production of knowledge.

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THE SOIL The soil absorbs the roots, the fallen leaves and land organisms of the extremely active forest and also the water reserves of the plentiful rainfall. It is a resource which is difficult to express in its incipient urban form and was probably the element missing in all the proposals. How continuous is the soil horizontally and vertically? Who inhabits it and who does it belong to? The soil on which inhabitants tread is not contained. Its living forms are continuous and uninterrupted. A constant coming and going between places of production and inhabitation generates dispersed and seasonal forms of dwelling which are difficult to stabilize. The soil is still at the mercy of the exploitation of its external and internal, irregular, intermittent and unstable resources.

FLOWS AND EXCHANGES The intermediate scale was the most complex to develop. It was difficult to integrate the urbanization and organization of buildings in an environment marked by criteria distinct to those of European urbanism.

Frugality and unstable temporalities are surely essential for a proper understanding of the keys to occupying this territory. The violent past created strange and hidden dynamics of occupation and eviction that are still present in their invisibility. The basic infrastructures that traditionally feed the urban condition with continuous flows are also irregular and unstable, probably due to their interrupted evolution in time and their devolution. Additionally there is the influence of the intensity of the natural processes that radically erase the traces of human interventions. The most original proposals by the students understood this condition and proposed new hybrid infrastructures: a path, at the foot of the slope as a spine for new forms of organization, or a clearing in the forest, responded coherently to the powerful geographical conditions, the most lasting in the unstable context of this place.

ETHICS AND DESIGN What do we learn in Europe from the resistance of the Ingas?

What do we learn from their knowledge and ways of relating with the environment which are so different from ours? The answer probably has to do with reciprocity and the celebration of specific moments. The answer probably lies in deciphering the values and shortcomings of our ways of life in the context of the Ingas and vice versa, the celebration and recognition of the shortcomings of the ways of life of the Ingas in our context. It is an exercise in empathy in a context of freedom.

The next step in the research process will probably involve the definition of a new shared language that will integrate all the living beings that inhabit the place, a new interdisciplinarity, a visualization of the potentials and the restrictions of the territory in the context of the current environmental crisis. It will also see the creation of methodologies for the inclusion of diverse agents and the identification of existing and future relationships beneficial for this place.

209

210

211

PART III: CATALOGUES

AGROFORESTRY → 216 AMBI WASI → 216 ASOMI → 216 CABILDO → 216 CHAGRA → 216 CLIMATE, HUMID TROPICAL → 217 COSMOVISION → 218 DEFORESTATION → 218, 238, 246 DIVICHIDO → 218 DRUG TRAFFICKING → 218 EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS →218 FOREST → 219, 236, 242 FOREST, PRIMEVAL → 219 FOREST, SECONDARY → 219 FUMIGATION → 219 GUADUA BAMBOO → 219 INDIGENOUS ASSOCIATIONS → 219 LANDSLIDE → 220 MALOCA → 221 MINGA → 221 MOBILE PHONE COVERAGE → 221, 252 MOCOA FAULT → 222 MOCOA MEETINGS → 222, 230-233 NATIONAL PARK → 223 NIÑA, LA → 223 NIÑO, EL → 223 OIL EXTRACTION → 223, 240, 241, 250 PÁRAMO → 224 PATH → 224 PLAN COLOMBIA → 224 PLAN DE VIDA → 224 RESGUARDO → 225, 239, 248 SAN MIGUEL DE LA CASTELLANA → 227 SEISMIC ACTIVITY → 227 SPIRITUALITY → 227 SYMBIOSIS → 228 TAITA → 228 TULPA → 228 VILLAGARZÓN → 228 WUASIKAMAS → 228 YUNGUILLO → 229

GLOSSARY

AGROFORESTRY

CABILDO

Following the US National

“A cabildo was a Spanish colonial,

Agroforestry Center, agroforestry

and early post-colonial, administrative

“is the intentional combination of

council which governed a

agriculture and forestry to create

municipality.”

productive and sustainable land

This name is still used by Indigenous

use practices. These practices take

people to designate a meeting space.

advantage of the interactive benefits

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabildo_

from growing trees and shrubs

(council)

together with crops and/or livestock.

Agroforestry has its roots in tropical

CHAGRA

food production systems.”

The Chagra is a kind of home

AMBI WASI

consumption, but it also stores the

An Ambi Wasi is a communal-house

knowledge of the indigenous people.

type of indigenous people. It is

In the form of communal work where

usually located in a small clearing

they can learn from each other,

in the forest. Normally Ambi Wasi

they build the chagra. The transfer

is constructed as a large roof with

of knowledge happens during the

timber and thatch. The interior is mix-

experience of working in the chagra

used for living, communal and ritual

and the experience of nature.

activities.

“The Indians are extremely selective

ASOMI

216

garden. It produces food for self-

in choosing the place of their chagra.

They look for the right type of soil and

The Association of Indigenous

clean it from primary forest which

Women “La Chagra de la Vida”

must have a little understorey and

- called Asomi, is a grassroots

relatively few surface roots. The soil

organization located in the

should be between sand and clay.

department of Putumayo. Created

Sand is good for yucca and other

in 2004 and legally incorporated in

tuberous plants while clay favours

2007, it promotes the recovery of

plantains, coca and fruit bushes.

the cultural identity, knowledge and

The garden areas form a relatively

traditional practices of indigenous

small part of the territory. [ibid.]

women.

According to the Article Guardians

The center has also become an

of the Amazon a family of 14 Yucuna

important place for the development

Indians used at least 16 types of

of the indigenous university

ecosystem to furnish them with

as a location for meetings and

basic necessities. Like orchards (2-3

discussions.

ha close to Maloca), nearby forest

https://agil298.wixsite.com/asomi/asomi

and distant forest. The chagras

→ CHAGRA / MOCOA MEETINGS

of this family, at various stages of

regeneration, covered 100ha of forest, of which some 40ha were suitable for growing crops. They know many diff erent kinds of soils, the primary ones are tierra arenosa negra (very good earth, not easily exhaustible), tierra arenosa blanca. They know different kinds of clay like colorada, white clay and yellow clay. And have also different classes of mud: color rojo, color blanco, color amarillo, color azul oscuro. Some of which are often used for painting as well.�

ANDOQUE, Iris, CASTRO, Hernando: La Vida de la Chagra. Tropenbos Internacional Colombia 2012 Figure: Steps in the creation of a Chagra, ibid.

CLIMATE, HUMID TROPICAL Colombia is located on the northwestern part of South America, touching both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. It is divided into 5 natural and climatic regions.

The Amazonian region is affected by constant heat and precipitation.

Along the Andes the precipitation is particularly high (see VillagarzĂłn below) compared to the basin of the Amazon.

As everywhere in the world, climate change affects and alters existing ecosystems and the way people have been living over the last hundreds of years. Some of the long term consequences are hard to predict while others are already present in everyday life. Summarised, the intensity of more humid and less 217

humid periods has increased, leading

COSMOVISION

to more extreme seasons. For the

→ SPIRITUALITY

next few years a higher annual average of temperature and rainfall

DEFORESTATION

is predicted. Consequences include

Deforestation is a complex issue,

natural catastrophes, crop failure,

with many different actors. Economic

displacement of flora & fauna and

motivation, unawareness of the high

a decreasing quality of life. While

value of the ecosystem, as well as a

indigenous groups already suffer

lack of economic alternatives are the

from stigmatisation in today‘s society

drivers of this development. Year after

they are also affected the most by

year, large areas of forest are being

climate change. Over time these

cleared in the region and the soil is

groups have lived in a sensitive

beginning to erode.

equilibrium with their environment,

→ 238, 246

which today must be quickly redefined and rearranged. Over the last few

DIVICHIDO

years strong initiatives have been

Divichido is a form of working where

formed by indigenous groups to fight

labour is exchanged. When a family

the causes of climate change and

needs help for a project, it can

the interference into the delicate

“borrow” labour from other families.

ecosystem of the Amazon.

To pay this debt, the extent of the land

Villagarzón, taken as representative

worked is measured and the debtor

for the region in general, has an

must work the same amount of land

annual precipitation of 5027.6 mm

on the property of the person to whom

(compared to Zurich: 1053 mm) and

it is owed.

an annual mean temperature of

→ MINGA

around 24° C (compared to Zurich: 9.4° C). The monthly precipitation is

DRUG TRAFFICKING

of around 400 mm, constant over

→ PLAN COLOMBIA

the year with a peak between April The monthly mean temperature

EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

behaves more or less conversely. It

Local educational institutions can be

is almost constant over the year with

imagined as important partners of

a slight decrease of 2° C during the

the university . The institutions have

rain period. During the day, the sky is

the potential to share space and

almost permanently cloudy.

knowledge. The existing billingual

→ LANDSLIDE / MOCOA FAULT / NIÑA, LA;

Inga highschools developed

NIÑO, EL / PÁRAMO / SEISMIC ACTIVITY /

innovative pedagogical concepts as

VILLAGARZÓN

the Ethno-pedagogical Project.

and July when it reaches 600 mm.

218

FOREST

area with gaseous pesticides—or

→ 236, 242

fumigants—to suffocate or poison

FOREST, PRIMEVAL

the pests within. Aerial spraying of glyphosate herbicide, one of the

“A primeval forest is a forest that has

most controversial methods of

attained great age without significant

coca eradication, has taken place

disturbance and thereby exhibits

in Colombia exclusively because

unique ecological features. It includes

of that government’s willingness to

diverse tree-related structures that

cooperate with the United States

provide diverse wildlife habitat and

in the militarized eradication of

increase the biodiversity of the forest

coca after signing Plan Colombia in

ecosystem.”

2000. Coca eradication is a strategy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old-growth_

promoted by the United States

forest

government starting in 1961 as part of

FOREST, SECONDARY

its failing “War on Drugs” to eliminate the cultivation of coca, a plant whose

“A secondary forest (or second-

leaves are not only traditionally used

growth forest) is a forest or woodland

by indigenous cultures but also, in

area which has regrown after a timber

modern society, in the manufacture of

harvest, until a long enough period

cocaine.”

has passed so that the effects of the

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumigation

disturbance are no longer evident. It

→ PLAN COLOMBIA

is distinguished from an old-growth forest (primary or primeval forest),

GUADUA BAMBOO

which has not recently undergone

Guadua is a tropical species of

such disruption. Secondary forests

bamboo endemic to South and

tend to have trees closer spaced

Central America. Its rapid rate of

than primary forests and contain less

growth, renewability, high level

undergrowth than primary forests.

of CO2 fixation and storage, wide

Secondary forests typically were

diameter, long-length, and durability

thought to lack biodiversity compared

are distinctive and highly desirable

to primary forests. Usually, secondary

features which can benefit the new

forests have only one canopy layer,

built environment.

whereas primary forests have

Currently, Guadua construction

several.”

is characterized by a degree of

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_

uncertainty and depends on the

forest

quality of handicraft.

FUMIGATION “Fumigation is a method of pest

INDIGENOUS ASSOCIATIONS

control that completely fills an

Indigenous communities have already 219

established several associations.

and human impact. They often go

Those associations can play a major

hand in hand.

role in the building of a university.

Heavy rain leads to high saturation of

Including these organisations

the soil. If the soil is not consolidated

can help the university to become

well enough by vegetation due to

known and gather the existing but

deforestation or an arid period

fragmented knowledge required for a

the ground can start to slide. The

comprehensive study program.

relatively thin layer of humus and the fault activity in the area are further

LANDSLIDE

factors contributing to the problem.

The area of Northern Putumayo

→ CLIMATE, HUMID TROPICAL / MOCOA

and the Andean region in general

FAULT / NIÑA, LA; NIÑO, EL / PÁRAMO /

is exposed to increased risk of

SEISMIC ACTIVITY

landslides and resulting debris flows.

Figure: Erosion, or: why the preservation

In theory, landslides occur when the

of the rainforest is so important – the soil

top layer of soil slides off the hard

perspective

subsoil due to too little frictional force. Three major drivers should be taken into account when discussing this. There should be a differentiation between the climatic, geologic

Erosion or: why the preservation of the rain forest is so important - the soil perspective In Colombia erosion occurs to an alarming extent

2. but also offsite environmental effects occur

3.

Sediments delivered into waterways frequently have detrimental effects on industry, navigation, agriculture & wildlife.

4.

They also reduce useful life in the reservoirs.

Example: Anchicaya Dam, after 10 years 3/4 filled with sediments.

5.

Soil sediments that include pesticides from agricultural lands affect fish production

1.

It is cause for reduced productivity

6.

The loss of rooting depth because of erosion is irreversible because the rate of soil formation is very slow.

Under those conditions 200 to 1000 years are required for 2.5 cm topsoil.

220

7.

Loss of rooting depth is cause for soil degradation which causes compaction, crusting, water imbalance and impeded gaseous exchange. Also loss of organic matter (important source of nutrients)

8.

With a gradient of 8% or higher there's a high risk of heavy landloss caused by erosion, also landslides can occur.

8%

MALOCA The Maloca is the primary manifestation of indigenous architecture in Colombia. The architecture is simple, but profound, not intended to praise the empire or a leader, but to enter into dialogue with nature, to respond to its goodness and to use its resources. It is the work of mobile societies and the concretization of shamanic thought to create a refuge for life.

There are Malocas for ceremonies led by shamans and singers, others

Figure: Interior organization of the Maloca,

for warriors, for slaves and prisoners

in: NIÑO MURCIA, Carlos: Territorio

or simply for living. The Maloca is

chamánico. Instituto Colombiano de

at once home, village, cemetery,

Antropología e Historia, 2015

temple and model of the cosmos as well as a sundial and a calendar. Its

MINGA

structure reflects the universe and

The Minga is non-monetary collective

is at the same time a microcosm in

work of benefit for the community

which every human being has a place

in exchange for food and drinks.

according to his social position, age

Typically, it consists of cultivating the

and gender.

Chagra. Bigger mingas like building

The Maloca has no interior walls, but it

streets, bridges, canals or houses and

has very defined areas and symbolic

also protesting are usually organized

spatial separations. The interior is

by the Cabildo, the local indigenous

divided according to social rules and

authority.

hierarchies, as well as for ritual and

→ DIVICHIDO

daily life. The centre is marked by four Then there is a circular community

MOBILE PHONE COVERAGE

around the centre and the house zone

Not all parts of southern Colombia

on the periphery. The western part of

are covered by a mobile network.

the Maloca is female and the eastern

However, along the main roads and in

part is male. Thus work is carried out

most towns there is a good network,

according to gender in each side: the

usually with several providers. These

man east repairs his weapons and

networks are established via mobile

tools to the east and makes coca.

radio masts and extend into the

The ground is female, therefore all the

surrounding area.

male objects are hung up.

→ 252

main posts that mark the sacred area.

221

MOCOA FAULT As a part of the Eastern Frontal Fault System, the Mocoa Fault crosses the town of Mocoa and northern Putumayo along the Andes. The area is only affected by weak earthquakes and belongs to the moderate seismic risk region of Colombia. The South American plate pushing northwestwards is causing an uplift of the terrain at the end of the Mocoa Valley and along the fault in general.

In the case of Mocoa it slowly levels the valley. This increases the risk of

222

flooding across the whole valley.

MOCOA MEETINGS

A fault is a planar fracture or

In parallel to the field trip by the ETH

discontinuity in a volume of rock

studio to the territory in October

across which there has been

2019, Inga leader Hernando Chindoy

significant displacement as a result

and Ursula Biemann organized a

of rock-mass movement. The Eastern

kick-off meeting at the indigenous

Frontal Fault System separates

center ASOMI near Mocoa, capital of

the region of the Andes and the

Putumayo. During four intense days,

region of the Amazonas, crossing

the thirty participants from the Inga

Colombia from Ecuador in the south

and other indigenous community

to Venezuela in the north. It forms the

members, as well as scholars from

boundary between the North Andes

the four partner Universities –

Microplate and the South American

Javeriana, the National University of

Plate.

Colombia, the Pedagogic University,

The Fault System is one of the

La Salle, the Humboldt Institute of

most active in Colombia. The

Colombia and UNESCO brought

South American Plate is moving

their diverse positions and ideas to

westwards, colliding with the more

the table to generate a collective

dense Nazca Plate. This Nazca Plate

understanding of the nature

moves eastwards and is therefore

and educational program of the

subducting under the South American

Indigenous University. The outcome of

Plate (77 mm per year). The Andes

the meeting was a manifesto signed

developed as a result of that collision.

by all participants and the

→ LANDSLIDE / NIÑA, LA; NIÑO, EL /

creation of a bilingual audiovisual

PÁRAMO / SEISMIC ACTIVITY

online platform – Devenir Universidad

Figure at: https://www.idiger.gov.co

– documenting the process.

SGC, 2017; Paris, 1999

→ 230-233

'XULQJ 'XULQJ HO HO 1LxR 1LxR WKH WKH WUDGH WUDGH ZLQGV ZLQGV ZKLFK ZKLFK DUH DUH XVXDOO\ XVXDOO\ UHVSRQVLEOH UHVSRQVLEOH IRU IRU D D FRQVWDQW FRQVWDQW ZDWHU ZDWHU WHPSHUDWXUH WHPSHUDWXUH DORQJ DORQJ WKH WKH FRDVW GHFUHDVH DQG WKHUHIRUH WKH ZDWHU WHPSHUDWXUH LQFUHDVHV 7KLV OHDGV WR D KLJKHU HYDSRUDWLRQ RI WKH Z FRDVW GHFUHDVH DQG WKHUHIRUH WKH ZDWHU WHPSHUDWXUH LQFUHDVHV 7KLV OHDGV WR D KLJKHU HYDSRUDWLRQ RI WKH Z JHQHUDWHV PRUH FORXGV DQG WKHQ FDXVHV DERYH DYHUDJH SUHFLSLWDWLRQ RYHU WKH $PHULFDQ FRQWLQHQW It rains JHQHUDWHV PRUH FORXGV DQG WKHQ FDXVHV DERYH DYHUDJH SUHFLSLWDWLRQ RYHU WKH $PHULFDQ FRQWLQHQW It rains a aw w in in the the Amazon Amazon part part of of Colombia Colombia the the years years in in which which this this phenomenon phenomenon happens. happens.

NATIONAL PARK The National Parks are created by the state of Colombia to protect nature.

There are six categories of protected areas. The National Parks belong to category II, in which it is forbidden to live or use the resources.

If indigenous territory which is not protected by law lies in the National Park, the indigenous people la niĂąa have to

“Warm water pool approaches the South

leave their territory.

American coast. The absence of cold

→ RESGUARDO

la niĂąa

/D 1LxD LV WKH UHYHUVH SKHQRPHQRQ RI (O 1LxR It /D 1LxD LV WKH UHYHUVH SKHQRPHQRQ RI (O 1LxR It leads leads to to higher higher precipitation precipitation in in Indonesia Indonesia and and Aust Aust causes causes below below average average precipitation precipitation on on the the American American continent. continent.

upwelling increases warming.�

NIĂ‘A, LA; NIĂ‘O, EL El NiĂąo and La NiĂąa are two climatic phenomena which take place in the Pacific Ocean between the Indonesian/Australian coast and the American coast. They alternate and occur every 3 to 4 years.

The trade winds are usually responsible for a constant water temperature along the American

KWWSV HQ ZLNLSHGLD RUJ ZLNL (OB1LxRÂą6RXW KWWSV HQ ZLNLSHGLD RUJ ZLNL (OB1LxRÂą6RXW

“Warm water is farther west than usual.�

coast. During El NiĂąo these winds

OIL EXTRACTION

decrease and therefore the water

The transition zone between the

temperature decreases. This leads

Amazon basin and the Andes is

to higher evaporation and an above

geologically very interesting and has

average precipitation on the American

many mineral resources, including

continent, especially along the

oil. The oil can be produced onshore,

equator.

which is simple and conventional. To

La NiĂąa is the reverse phenomenon

do so in Colombia, one requires a

of El NiĂąo. It results in higher

concession for the production area.

precipitation in Indonesia and

The National Hydrocarbons Agency

Australia and causes a more arid

is responsible for the division of

period on the American continent.

the land into extraction areas and

→ CLIMATE, HUMID TROPICAL /

the distribution of the concessions.

LANDSLIDE / MOCOA FAULT / PĂ RAMO /

In national parks no production

SEISMIC ACTIVITY

zones are created but they override

Figures: El NiĂąo and La NiĂąa conditions,

any other national boundaries or

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Niùo–

ownership.

Southern_Oscillation

→ 240, 241, 250 223

PLAN COLOMBIA In the 1980s the conflict’s levels of violence increased steeply as a result of the beginning of drug trafficking. Worldwide demand of psychoactive drugs during the 1960s and 1970s eventually increased the production and processing of these

PÁRAMO

$1500/kilo in jungle labs and could

Páramo is the name for high mountain

be sold on the streets of the US for

ecosystems in the region of the

as much as $50,000/kilo. Organized

Andes. The cloud forests, as they

crime in Colombia grew increasingly

are also called, provide an extremely

powerful in the 1970s and 1980s

sophisticated network to process

with the introduction of massive

water collected from thick fogs and

drug trafficking to the United States

rain. By serving as storage which

from Colombia. These funds helped

slowly releases the water it prevents

finance paramilitaries and guerrillas,

floods in wet seasons and droughts

allowing these organizations to buy

in dry seasons. The steady flow of

weapons for the civil war.

clean water is the source of life and

Since the establishment of the War

absolutely essential for all species in

on Drugs, the United States and

the region.

European countries have provided

As destruction of the Páramo soils is

financial, logistical, tactical and

considered irreversible, it is of great

military aid to the government of

importance to protect and conserve

Colombia in order to implement plans

these fragile ecosystems.

to combat the illegal drug trade. The

→ CLIMATE, HUMID TROPICAL /

most notable of these programs

LANDSLIDE / MOCOA FAULT / NIÑO, EL /

has been the Plan Colombia which

NIÑA, LA / SEISMIC ACTIVITY

also intended to combat leftist

PATH

organizations, such as the FARC guerrillas, who have controlled many

Walking the territory of the Inga

coca-growing regions in Colombia

People is a chance. The spiritual

over the past decades.

connection they have with nature

→ FUMIGATION

inevitably leads to a singular

224

in Colombia. Cocaine is produced at

respect everyone has to have. Their

PLAN DE VIDA

understanding of a path not only

The Plan de Vida is an initiative by

relates to an experience but also to

indigenous tribes and other minorities

the love which nature gives us as a

to show their way of living in one

welcome gesture.

written document. The reflection gives

insight into their self-organization and

talk about their culture, their economy

initiative, their feelings and concerns

and how they educate the young

and their demand for change.

generations finding a way between

It is elaborated in a participative

indigenous knowledge and state

process by the elders of the

initiated teaching programs.

community and is used as a

In the second part of the Plan de Vida,

manifesto which presents objectives,

the community outline their problems

strategies and short, middle and long-

in culture, family, education, economy,

term goals.

politics, infrastructure, environment,

The Plan de Vida often forms the

health and law. For each of the

basis for negotiations with the

aspects they have defined possible

government.

solution approaches and already

The Inga’s Plan de Vida stresses the

planned or started projects that

strong link between the community

address them.

and education. The community and its culture is being transmitted

RESGUARDO

through education on different

“A Resguardo is a legal socio-political

levels starting from the relationship

institution of Spanish colonial origin

between parent and child, leading

in America, made up of a recognized

to collective community activities,

territory of a community of Amerindian

ethno-education, native language and

descent, with an inalienable,

cultural events.

collective or communal property title, governed by a special autonomous

e.g. YUNGUILLO

statute, with its own cultural patterns

The expansion of the Resguardo‘s

and traditions. This institution was

territory in 2013 and 2014 allowed the

maintained by independent republics

town councils and the communities

of the Spanish Empire and is fully

to think about updating the Plan de

recognized in Colombia.”

Vida in order to manifest the changes

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resguardo_

that have taken place within the

ind%C3%ADgena

community and the territory and to formulate new visions.

Nowadays, a lot of indigenous people

In the first part of the Plan de Vida,

live in Resguardos, where their culture

the community reflects on their

is protected by law. The idea of

identity and territory. They document

Resguardos comes from the Mexican.

their history, define their origin and

In 1535 the Mexican state isolated

describe who they are. They clearly

the indigenous people in protected

explain their values, the principles

villages. Each of the Resguardos has

that are followed in their community

a square and a church. The idea was

and how these form the foundation

to have the labour at one place, where

of their self-governing. They further

the state can control them. Between 225

1970 and 1980 there was a successfull

joint and common forms of property.

movement and 300 Resguardos has

• Article 63: Property for public use,

been legally recognised.

natural parks, communal lands of

“The recognition of territorial

ethnic groups, Resguardo lands, the

rights has been the basis of the

archaeological heritage of the nation,

development of all other rights.

and other property as determined by

Besides the recognition of property

law, are inalienable, imprescriptible

that is conferred in virtue of the

and non-seizable.

importance of the territory for the

• Article 68: Individuals can found

physical and cultural survival of the

educational establishments. The Law

indigenous people, the Resguardos

will establish the condition for their

constitute a manner of organisation,

creation and management.

representation and political practice.

• Article 171: The Senate of the

The Resguardos are also a means

Republic will be composed of 100

of strengthening of the autonomy

elected members from the national

as it is expressed specially in the

constituency. There will be an

articles 171 and 287. The constitution

additional two senators elected from

defines that the State will protect and

a special national constituency by

promote common and joint forms

indigenous communities. [...]

of property (article 58), which opens

The special constituency for the

up the possibility for a recognition

election of senators by indigenous

of collective territorial rights for

communities will be governed by the

others besides the indigenous

electoral system. Representatives

people. Important to mention is that

of indigenous communities who

indigenous territory does not have the

aspire to form part of the Senate

same status as Resguardos. They are

of the Republic should have held a

not protected by law.”

position of traditional authority in their

van der HAMMEN, Maria Clara: The

respective community, or have been

Indigenous Resguardos of Colombia,

leader of an indigenous organization,

International Union for the Conservation of

and their quality will be vouched for

Nature and Natural Resources 2003

by certification of the respective

→ 239, 248

organization, approved by the Ministry of the Government.

226

POLITICAL CONSTITUTION OF

• Article 287: Territorial entities have

COLOMBIA OF 1991, extracts

autonomy in the management of

• Article 58: Private property is

their interests, within the limits of the

guaranteed, along with other rights

Constitution and the law. They will

acquired in agreement with civil laws,

have the following rights:

and these cannot be ignored nor

1. To be governed by their own

affected by by subsequent laws. [...]

authorities.

The state will protect and promote

2. To exercise competencies that

correspond to them.

SPIRITUALITY

3. To administrate resources and

The earth, the land and the territory

establish taxes necessary for the

are part of one creator, but each has

fulfilment of their functions.

its own spirit. So, if the indigenous

4. To participate in national income.

people want to use something from

SAN MIGUEL DE LA CASTELLANA

nature, they always have to ask the spirit for permission first. Everything in the universe is bound together. This

The Resguardo San Miguel lays along

becomes clear in their history of the

the river Chalguayaco in the plain

creation of the humans.

south-west of Villagarzon. The Inga

According to the Emberas, all human

community has suffered heavily under

beings were carved from wood and

the armed conflict of the past years

were guided by Dabeiba, the Embera

which led to the displacement of

goddess. Dabeiba taught the Embera

many families. The area is mainly used

about agriculture, basket weaving and

for agriculture which also forms the

ceremonial body painting.

basic income for the residents.

The Guahibos have a similar story:

SEISMIC ACTIVITY

Kuwai needed several attempts to create humans. First, he made them

Due to its location at the boundaries

out of clay. But the clay crumbled in

of different tectonic plates Colombia

the rain. Then he tried it with wax. But

is a seismically active country with

the wax melted in the sun. On his third

regions of high seismic risks. The

attempt he used wood and a mystical

areas exposed to the highest seismic

rat gave the human the genital organs

risk are the Pacific Coast and the

and the power of procreation. Not

mountainous region of the Andes.

only humans, but also every animal

A chain of 15 volcanoes stretches

being was created by the same god,

from North to South along the Andes.

with each of them connected to each

Only five of them are active and may

other. After their death, their souls

influence the seismic movements

travel back to the creator.

of the surrounding area. The closest

The Inga use the Yagé-Plant to make

volcano to Villagarzón is the ‘Volcan

a hallucinogenic drink which connects

Galeras’. It is considered quite active

them with the spiritual world. The Yagé

(last eruptions in 2009 and 2010)

plays an important role in the creation

but due to its distance of 100 km to

of the world, too. According to the Inga,

Villagarzón it is not considered a risk

the Yagé broke through a flower, which

for that area.

turned to a sun. After that, the children of

→ CLIMATE, HUMID TROPICAL /

the sun fell out and started to play music.

LANDSLIDE / MOCOA FAULT / NIÑA, LA;

All living beings (human, animals and

NIÑO, EL / PÁRAMO

plants) who heard the music obtained the same spirit and knowledge.

227

The shaman is in charge of having

TULPA

established a good relationship with

The territory of the Inga is made up of

the spiritual world. They are selected

three main spaces where the different

by a goddess, which has a form of a

activities and rites take place. These

snake. This happens when a child is

are the Chagra, the Tambo and the

suddenly dragged down into a river by

Tulpa. The Tulpa refers to the ultimate

a snake yet survives. Then the child

heart, to the fire. Spiritually the Tulpa

can be taught by the older shaman.

is an important place where an

By drinking Yagé during a ceremony

exchange takes place with elders,

the shaman can enter the spiritual

where wisdom and knowledge are

world.

bequeathed.

Shamans have their own medical garden. It is believed that gods have

VILLAGARZÓN

given the medical plants to the people

Villagarzón is the capital of the

so that they can heal themselves.

homonymous municipality located

Each plant has a spiritual owner. So,

along the foothills of the Andes at

the shamans have to ask the owner

the end of the Mocoa Valley. Today

for permission before they can use

the city is of strategic, political and

the plant.

economical importance for the area

SYMBIOSIS “Symbiosis is any type of a close

WUASIKAMAS

and long-term biological interaction

The cooperative of Wuasikamas

between two different biological

(Guardians of the Earth) is a self

organisms, be it mutualistic,

initiated project of the indigenous

commensalistic, or parasitic.”

community in Aponte. It has been a

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiosis

path out of the drug business into a

TAITA The Taita is a well respected elderly Indigenous leader, who received the knowledge of traditional medicine and is one of the only people able to practice it, and lead the most important rituals of the indigenous community.

As a shamanic leader, he focuses also on making the tribe, community, or world better by providing meaning and purpose. Indigenous communities rely on shamans for their wisdom and healing abilities.

228

of Northern Putumayo.

more sustainable way of making a living, organizing the community and treating the environment.

YUNGUILLO The Resguardo Yunguillo is located in the Valley of the Rio Caqueta north of Mocoa. It consists of four Cabildos situated in the departments of Putumayo and Cauca. In 2015 the Resguardos size was increased from 4320 ha to 26716 ha which makes it interesting in terms of its different climatic zones and the resulting variety of flora and fauna, as well as its strong political actions and commitment. Furthermore, the residents show strong initiative to transform their Resguardo into a sustainable and striving community.

229

MOCOA MEETINGS

the State resulted in fragmenting and

In parallel to the field trip by the ETH

erasing our culture. That’s why we came

studio to the territory in October

together in 2007 to create our own form

2019, Inga leader Hernando Chindoy

of education, starting with a process of

and Ursula Biemann organized a

systematizing what the elders, parents,

kick-off meeting at the indigenous

leaders, healers, and authorities were

center ASOMI near Mocoa, capital of

telling us. We have been implementing this

Putumayo. During four intense days,

education project in our high schools for

the thirty participants from the Inga

many years and we want to build on this

and other indigenous community

experience. We never divided education

members, as well as scholars from

into the conventional timeline of primary,

the four partner Universities –

secondary, and university. Education for us

Javeriana, the National University of

is an integrality of life. Our proposal is to

Colombia, the Pedagogic University,

form leaders. More than leaders, integral

La Salle, the Humboldt Institute of

human beings who live a good life and

Colombia and UNESCO brought

continue to connect with the universe, with

their diverse positions and ideas to

this society, and the world.

the table to generate a collective understanding of the nature

WAIRA NINA JACANAMIJOY

and educational program of the

In our cosmovision, the territory is

Indigenous University. The outcome of

practically the maximum instance of

the meeting was a manifesto signed

learning. The Inga educational project is a

by all participants and the creation of

path, a ñambi. This is how we walk with our

a bilingual audiovisual online platform

knowledge. We created a system of four

– Devenir Universidad – documenting

axes, or fields of learning, where each axis

the process.

has its own pedagogy. The axis Language & Meanings, for instance, consists of reading

230

FLORA MARCAS

reality, renewing memory and constructing

There is a great diversity of thought

meaning. The objective is to strengthen the

present here, academic modes of thinking

socializing function of the Inga language

as well as the scientific, cultural, spiritual

and idioms. Our weaving patterns are also

and pedagogical thoughts that we

a form of text that can be read, and there

indigenous peoples have been weaving

are other icons, dreams, animal footprints,

throughout history. We greatly value

songs or computer languages that can be

the support and initiatives you want to

registered, acquired and interpreted. But it

make. But we see it as very important to

also includes appropriated languages such

start from where we stand. Because the

as Spanish. We are not locked in our own

University is not something separate from

vision, we are integrating and recognizing

what we Inga people have been building

the importance of other cultures for the

in our community for many years. The

sharing of knowledge. The other three axes

imposed education we experienced by

in our education system are Cosmovision

& Territory, Social Organization & Historical

participating in the institution, so that

Memory, and Medicine & Ancestral

the students will not have to leave the

Spirituality.

territory to become someone else’s employee. The institution itself can be an

IVÁN DARÍO VARGAS

organism of productivity of the community,

Let‘s suppose that the world is divided

providing services that generate economic

in two, an indigenous world and a non-

resources but also enhance the capacity

indigenous world. To start weaving the

to interact with the society. Research will

practices of learning that are common to

be anchored in practices in the territories.

those two worlds, it would be interesting

One such practice could be ecological

to think about their form. In the Western

restoration. What distinguishes this

university, the word research implies going

university-enterprise from others is that

to the library or going online to search for

it has a great biopolitical responsibility in

the tools and sources that will help finding

the protection of life, in the protection of

answers to one’s research question. The

the ecological and genetic heritage, in

indigenous people answer their questions

the protection of the memory of peoples,

in ways that involve not only reading texts.

languages and their ancestral knowledge.

One of their ways of learning to investigate is by going to the chagra and recognizing

RUBIELA MOJOMBOY

the diversity of plants, for instance. That

We have lived in our territories for thousands

is a way of learning as important and

of years, we come from a millenary

meaningful as this other way of learning. We

knowledge. We have to go back to history,

could look where our methods of learning

recollect our own knowledge and put it on

converge and where they don’t. Because it

the table. I ask you to consider not setting

is in those differences where the possibility

an age limit for higher education. Because

of nourishing each other appears.

you see, I am sixty years old and I would like to study. As long as I am alive, I am studying.

ÁLVARO HERNÁNDEZ BELLO

Right here in this room we are learning.

The institution should go beyond reproducing and teaching knowledge,

FLORA MARCAS

it must be, first and foremost, a center

Are we talking about a university where

where research is carried out and shared.

people are locked in classrooms?

Not research that seeks knowledge for its

Because we don’t see it that way. What

own sake, but research that is of service. It

is the infrastructure going to be like? Are

could even be useful for the support of this

we going to build a big building or rather

educational institution.

something that we really need? Because the education is definitely going to take

MARÍA BELÉN SAEZ

place in the territory.

We see it as important to generate sustainability for the community and

Photos:

to those working, learning, teaching or

Ursula Biemann. Courtesy of the artist.

MOCOA MEETINGS: TRANSCRIPTS

231

232

MOCOA MEETINGS: STILL IMAGES

233

CONSTELLATIONS → 254, 255 DEFORESTATION → 238, 246 FOREST → 236, 242 JOURNEY → 40 MOBILE PHONE COVERAGE → 252 OIL CONCESSION ZONES → 241, 250 OIL WELLS → 240, 250 RESGUARDOS → 239, 248 RIVERS → 237, 244 SATELLITE IMAGE → 16, 40, 128 TOPOGRAPHY → 236, 237, 242, 244

ATLAS

FOREST AND TOPOGRAPHY

→ 242 EQ

forest hillshade 236

0

100

200

400 km

TOPOGRAPHY AND RIVERS

→ 244 EQ

0-6000 m o.s.l. river hillshade 0

100

200

400 km

237

DEFORESTATION

→ 246 EQ

forest 2000 streets deforestation 2000-2018 238

0

100

200

400 km

RESGUARDOS

Bogotá

→ 248 EQ

resguardos urban areas streets

0

100

200

400 km

239

OIL WELLS

→ 250 EQ

oil belt oil wells 1940-2019 pipelines streets 240

0

100

200

400 km

OIL CONCESSION ZONES

→ 250 EQ

area available area assigned national park streets 0

100

200

400 km

241

FOREST AND TOPOGRAPHY

242

forest hillshade

0

5

10

20 km

TOPOGRAPHY AND RIVERS

244

0-6000 m o.s.l. river hillshade inclination > 35% flooding La NiĂąa 1998 0

5

10

20 km

DEFORESTATION

246

forest 2000 streets deforestation 2000-2018 0

5

10

20 km

RESGUARDOS Yunguillo

Aponte

Pasto Sibundoy Valley

Mocoa

Villagarzรณn

Puerto

San Miguel de la Castellana

Orito

248

Florencia Parque Nacional Natural Serranía de los Churumbelos

Piamonte

o Limón

Puerto Guzmán

resguardos urban areas streets

property buildings 0

5

10

20 km

OIL WELLS AND OIL CONCESSION ZONES

250

oil wells 1940-2019 pipelines area available area assigned national park streets 0

5

10

20 km

MOBILE PHONE COVERAGE

252

0

5

10

20 km

CONSTELLATIONS

254

255

CLIMATE ANALYSIS → 258 CYCLIC SYSTEMS → 272 EXISTING POTENTIALS → 266 LIGHT FOOTPRINT → 268, 270 PASSIVE DESIGN STRATEGIES → 260 REUSE AND TRANSFORMATION → 264 SELF-SUFFICIENCY → 274 SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGIES → 276

SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGIES

CLIMATE ANALYSIS Villagarzón has a tropical rainforest climate which is typically hot, very humid and wet, and is designated „Af“ by the Köppen climate classification.

The solar radiation levels are high all year long. Strategies to shade all parts of the buildings and its surroundings are fundamental to ensure thermal comfort.

An important diffuse radiation component indicates frequent cloud cover and significant humidity levels that average at 78%. Ensuring effective air flow indoors is required to remove the feeling of dampness and to cool down the spaces and occupants. The high humidity levels may induce significant radiation diffraction and easily cause disturbing visual glare.

Wind speed is moderate with an average of 1.9 m/s relatively constant all year round.

Minimising obstructions is key to ensuring good airflow around and inside buildings.

The mean air temperature is 24° C, remaining at a comfortable level near the lower limit of the comfort band. The mean maximum temperatures rise to 30° C and reach the upper limit of the comfort band. Passive strategies need to focus on mitigating overheating indoors.

The diurnal variations of temperatures are narrow which indicates that heavyweight materials would not be able to cool down significantly overnight, thus indicating that lightweight materials are more suitable here.

Precipitations are significant with peaks reaching 300 mm. Water evacuation will

to be accounted climate ofneed Villagarzon - Colombia.for, as well as wind driven rain.

temperature (oC) precipitations (cm) wind speed (m/s) solar radiation (100xWh/m2)

VILLAGARZÓN

humidité relative (%)

tempérée

40oC

100

87.5

35

relative humidity 81% 75

30cm

30

30oC 74%

o

mean maximum C thermal comfort band 62.5

25oC

25

23oC 24oC

diurnal range of temperature

mean oC 50

20 mean minimum oC

37.5

15

precipitations 11cm 25

10

total radiation 12.5

5

difuse radiation 1.9m/s

wind speed

0 Jan

258

Fev

Mars

Avr

Source: Atmos lab, Olivier DAMBRON

May

Jun

Jul

Aou

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

0

N

0.39 % 1.88 m/s

0% 2.6 m/s

N

0% 0 m/s

0.38 % 1.7 m/s

10o

0% 0 m/s

NW

NE

20o 30o 40o 50o 60o 70o 80o 90o

W

21 Jun 21 May/Jul

16

15

14

13

12 11

0.23 % 2.91 m/s

21 Apr/Aug

E

21 Mar/Sep

17

0.59 % 2.14 m/s

10

1.77 % W 1.83 m/s

1.63 % E 1.92 m/s

21 Feb/Oct 09

08 07

18

06

21 Jan/Nov 21 Dec

2.31 % 1.96 m/s

6.29 % 2.15 m/s

SW

SE

4.45 % 1.92 m/s

14.45 % 1.92 m/s

12.44 % 1.94 m/s

S

S 25.75 % 1.89 m/s

26.85 % 1.89 m/s

Annual mean wind speed = 1.92 m/s Calm for 2.47% of the time = 216 hours.

SUNPATH

WIND ROSE

The sun is high in the sky at this

The predominant wind blows from the

latitude and shines slightly from the

south-southeast direction for more

north in June and slightly from the

than half of the time at an average

south in December.

wind speed of 1.9m/s. Building

Mornings and afternoons are exposed

layout should be spaced so as not to

to lower angles. Long axes of

obstruct the moderate wind speed,

buildings are best oriented East-West

and the design of openings should

limiting the exposure of the smaller

take advantage of this orientation.

facades to lower sun angles and also make shading easier on the North and South facades. Vegetation size and location will help create an effective shading strategy while allowing air flow.

259

PASSIVE DESIGN STRATEGIES

BLOCK LAYOUT

ROOFS

• allow for air movement from predominant

• long overhangs for sun and rain protection

winds

• shaded buffer spaces around the building

• allow for mutual overshadowing from

• light structure with low thermal inertia

intense afternoon sun

• bright colored to reflect solar radiation • cavity and air movement between roof and insulated ceiling is essential to avoid overheating

N W

E S

ORIENTATION

WALLS

• narrow elongated E-W axis is favourable

• lightweight with low thermal inertia as

to minimize exposed facade and makes

temperature fluctuation is not enough to allow

shading simpler

it to cool • shaded or made reflective • permeable, moveable, operable for noise, smell, privacy, security

FLOOR LAYOUT

RAISED BUILDING

• long, narrow, open plans with single row of

• stilts or pilotis insulate from dampness

rooms allow for maximal air flow penetration

• shades the ground below • allow air to flow above and below to cool off • safety from potential floods or wildlife

OPENINGS

VEGETATION

• ideally large, shaded, located on N-S

• high trees provide shade and allow winds

facades

through

• glazing ratios can be low due to high

• low bushes help cool down the surrounding

daylight intensity

ground temperature

• glazings need to have low solar factors

• bushes to the west block intense afternoon sun • bushes need to be pruned not to block winds

260

Source: Atmos lab, Olivier DAMBRON

2

3

1

6 5

4

e.g. IMPROVEMENT OF EXISTING BUILDING 1 horizontal ventilation throughout the building 2 stack effect for natural ventilation 3 trees for sun protection and ventilation at body height 4 raised building for cooling and durability 5 rainwater collection system 6 use and extension of solar panels for energy autarky 261

e.g. CONSTRUCTION OF NEW BUILDING

DOUBLE PITCHED ROOF

TALL VEGETATION • nearby tall vegetation to shade while allowing air flow

• divides solar exposure and mitigates indoor overheating • light colored roof to reflect solar radiation

RAINWATER • collecting rainwater for showers, laundry and irrigation • pitched roof to facilitate rainwater drainage

LIGHTWEIGHT MATERIALS • prevent overheating

FLEXIBLE SPACE SPACED BUILDING LAYOUT • minimize air flow obstruction

GREYWATER • biodigesting greywater

262

• free floor plan for flexible use • adaptive elements

SUN SHADING • sun shading with porch and additional elements

TOP OPENING • evacuate heat accumulated inside • cool down hot roof

EXTENDED OVERHANG • provide wide shade around the building • shade the indoor spaces • protect users from disturbing visual glare • protect indoors from wind-driven rain • protect the bamboo elements from direct sun and rain

ADAPTIVE OPPORTUNITIES • allow occupants to adjust elements for their thermal and visual comfort

OPEN FRAME TYPOLOGY • allow effective cross ventilation at body height to refresh occupants • provide generous daylight levels

BUILDING ON STILTS • detaching bamboo culms from the ground • facilitating the protection of bamboo culms through the roof’s overhang to allow for more daylight and less view obstruction • air circulation below • protection from the humid ground • protection from surrounding wildlife • protection from floods

263

REUSE AND TRANSFORMATION Reuse and transformation allow the potential of the existing structure to be used, VECTORWORKS EDUCATIONAL VERSION

extending it where necessary. It is possible to imagine multiple uses within the same structure, emphasising the importance of flexibility for new structures. After a careful analysis of the capacities of the existing structure new uses can be introduced with the necessary adaptions. This prolongs the life of a building, therefore saving its economic, social and sustainable values for society, e.g. on building scale:

VECTORWORKS EDUCATIONAL VERSION

As more members of the community come to visit and to participate in the process of a new Indigenous university there could be the need for a new canteen in the village.

0

10

reuse and transformation to canteen with new kitchen

A publicly accessible exhibition space could provide the possibility to share information about Inga culture.

There is also the possibility to extend the existing structure to allow for more classrooms. reuse and transformation to exhibition space

VECTORWORKS EDUCATIONAL VERSION

transformation and extension to more classrooms

264

VECTORWORKS EDUCATIONAL VERSION

VECTORWORKS EDUCATIONAL VERSION

The existing building offers enough space for four additional rooms. In order to have a bright corridor the roof plates can be exchanged for a translucent material.

0

10

transformation to more sleeping rooms

If the community of San Miguel finds an alternative space in which to host visitors we propose leaving the building as it is and continuing to use it. During our stay in San Miguel we found shade in this covered outside space. transformation to dormitory with veranda

If the sleeping rooms are not used by visitors they could provide up to 32 beds for the children of San Miguel. The additional veranda allows space to gather in front of the rooms.

VECTORWORKS EDUCATIONAL VERSION

sometimes do nothing

265

EXISTING POTENTIALS Using existing potentials—revealing existing qualities, reusing existing spaces, and adding only what is necessary—is a sustainable strategy prior to any new construction and requires a careful analysis of the existing situation. As a method it can be used in any context: rainforest, city, village... This spread contains exemplary considerations for the village of San Miguel de la Castellana where existing spaces could be immediately shared between the local community and the university e.g. as communal spaces or classrooms.

reusing existing densifying

extension

extension playground

public space reusing existing reusing existing

Ambi Wasi

266

Tulpa by the river

IMPLEMENTATION ON SITE: SAN MIGUEL DE LA CASTELLANA

Chagra

compost

mensa

Chagra

toilet

solar panels classroom

new public space by the dormitories

Chagra

archive

workshop

267

LIGHT FOOTPRINT In the context of the rainforest it becomes evident to keep interventions minimal,in order to protect nature or to save unnecessary efforts. Using existing clearings, building elevated structures, and keeping equipment light is sustainable, and anticipating successional regrowth further dynamizes the experience of a university in and with nature. The following two spreads contain exemplary considerations for a light footprint on the Tambor site to make it inhabitable without leaving irreversible traces.

tree school Chagra

small scale, diverse land use

solar panels

toilet

compost

elevated structure

mini playground planting along the trail water reservoir

anticipating successional regrowth

toilet as part of waste management

268

IMPLEMENTATION ON SITE: TAMBOR (1)

placing living unit at the border to experience regrowth

medicinal Chagra

roof rainwater collection medicinal centre

dormitory groups

269

WATER The water supply is provided by natural springs in the mountain brought down through bamboo pipes. The grey water should be handled in an organic way by cleaning basins after use.

WASTE The waste management deals not only with kitchen waste. Even more important is the management of excretions from the toilet system. This, combined with all the other biological waste, can be used as fertilizer. To ensure a safe, toxic free fertilizer, it should be stored first in barrels for four weeks and subsequently as covered compost for six weeks. Regarding the process time of ten weeks, the total biological waste can be restored in the natural process without any threat of harming nature.

270

IMPLEMENTATION ON SITE: TAMBOR (2)

ELECTRICITY According to statistics of Colombia one square meter of photovoltaics is sufficient to provide the average energy consumption of one person.

271

CYCLIC SYSTEMS When building in nature and with nature we encounter different cycles. These range from daily cycles to cycles of over a hundred years. Particularly in the case of long processes, it is important to close these cycles in order to have a lasting effect.

over 50 years

after 20 years

Chagra cycle in secondary forest

abandonment and relocation after 10 years

CHAGRA

selection of the place for a new chagra

planting, weeding and harvesting for 2-4 years

A chagra is meant to move every two to four years. The undergrowth is cut and burnt as fertilizer and the area is used as a Chagra. After the area is abandoned, nature and spirits can grow back. This system delivers fruits and vegetables.

A chicken house and fish farm expand the range of foods on offer. Further food should be produced through cooperation with neighbour farmers.

272

using fire in a controlled way 1 week

harvest bamboo after 3-4 years

degradation into soil 3 months

in the sun in upright position 4 weeks

deconstruction 5 days

lifetime of construction by appropriate design 80 years bamboo construction

treatment against later insect damage 10 days

final drying 4 days building process 3 weeks

BAMBOO CONSTRUCTION

planning process 6 months

The means to grow, harvest, and treat it on-site were explored for self-sufficiency.

Furthermore, bamboo is inexpensive—if not free—and found abundantly as it regrows fast after harvest and matures for construction in only three years. Bamboo constructions last over several decades if well treated and protected from the weathering effects of sun and rain.

273

SELF-SUFFICIENCY Every location has a maximum of possible inhabitants which is determined by the degree of self-sufficiency and the use of nature.

Every inhabitant needs 2000 m² of agroforestry land in addition to the space required for living. For each square meter of used land there should be ten times the space of natural environment. If we want to achieve a high degree of self-sufficiency, there must be at least 20‘000 m² of land per person. For a center size of 30 inhabitants 600‘000 m² are needed.

274

GROWING PROCESS e.g. TAMBOR SITE

CONSIDERATIONS FOR A SELFSUFFICIENT UNIVERSITY EXISTING STRUCTURES • start on existing clearings • use existing buildings • renew paths

existing

VEGETATION • maintain old trees for shadow • cut undergrowth for cooling • plant additional fruit trees

GROUND • build stages for heavy rain

one house campus – events

• use river gravel for paving • take care of the valuable soil

ORGANISATION • gathering zones as core element • open teaching spaces and gardens • semi-private living and leisure zones

BUILDINGS minimum inhabitants – 10 inhabitants

• multifunctional spaces • extendable structures • adapt to forest and climate

SUPPLY • water from nearby springs • photovoltaics for electricity gain • closed waste cycles, treat used water

growing step – 20 inhabitants

maximum inhabitants – 30 inhabitants 275

VECTORWORKS EDUCATIONAL VERSION

SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGIES: VILLAGE

ERSION

learning from elders

using existing infrastructure

cooperating with institutions

reusing existing spaces

participating in community networks

densifying the village

D > 2-3H

D > 2-3H VECTORWORKS EDUCATIONAL VERSION

scattered pattern

flexible new spaces

lawn unshaded pavement ]PKL Z\ɉJPLU[ HPY JPYJ\SH[PVU I\PSKPUNZ ZOV\SK IL 44 °C 66 °C ;OPZ HSSV^Z HPYÅV^ ^OPJO WYV]PKLZ ]LU[PSH[PVU MVY

landscaping with vegetation 276

improving the existing

SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGIES: RAINFOREST

VECTORWORKS EDUCATIONAL VERSION

planting along bio corridor

artificial forest

uasi chagra

atun chagra

atun chagra

giving room to nature

yachajpa chagra

uasi chagra

artificial forest

small scale, diverse land use

using existing clearings

Living part medicine production

anticipating successional regrowth*

experiencing reforestation

VECTORWORKS EDUCATIONAL VERSION

horizontal and vertical diversity*

solar panels with short-distance distribution

trees

trees

open networks

prevailing wind

local rainwater collection

*POSEY and BALICK (eds.): Human Impacts on Amazonia. Columbia University Press 2006

277

CONSTRUCTIONS

In order to be able to adapt to many uses and evolutions, the proposals of this catalogue are conceived as simple and open structures, designed to be widely appropriable.

These shelters do not predetermine the use, they are the support.

By their dimensions, their relationship to the ground, the shape of their roof, the quality and function of their envelope, they adapt to their environment and their occupants.

They can become classrooms, meeting spaces, a canteen, a cafĂŠ, a storage or archive space, a dormitory, sanitary facilities or showers, and so on.

groupwork

eating

storytelling

eating

presentations

ceremonies

groupwork

presentations

groupwork

storytelling

presentations

sleeping

lectures in small groups

exhibitions

discussions

cooking

lectures

picknicking

eating

lectures

meetings

graduation ceremony

storytelling 281

282

283

284

285

286

287

288

289

290

291

292

293

294

295

296

297

298

299

300

301

302

303

304

305

PART IV: COLLABORATION

ALL PARTICIPANTS INITIATORS

ETH ZURICH

Hernando Chindoy Chindoy,

Anne Lacaton,

leader of the Indigenous Inga People of

Studio Anne Lacaton at ETH Zurich

Colombia

& Jean-Philippe Vassal, permanent partner and support

Ursula Biemann, Devenir Universidad

Studio team: Anne Lacaton, Simon Durand, Ilona

Philip Ursprung,

Schneider, Carina Sacher, Tamino Kuny,

Dean of the Department of Architecture at

Michel Eigensatz

ETH Zurich 2017-2019 Students: Martín Anzellini García-Reyes,

Joël Amstutz, Seren Arber, Céline

Dean of the Department of Architecture at

Berberat, Raphael Blain, Luca Bronca,

PUJ Bogotá

Fabian Brunner, Dimitri Durst, Sara FinziLongo, Shen He, Timmy Huang, Severin Jann, Rémi Jourdan, Philip Kaiser, Sophie Keel, Ludwig Kissling, Tania Perret, Valentin Ribi, Tobias Sandbichler, Annina Schoop, Lan Tu, Yves Waeger, Alex Walter, Qianer Zhu Guest critics: Aristide Antonas, Olivier Dambron, Angelika Fitz, Teresa Galí-Izard, Marta Maccaglia, Jean-Philippe Vassal

308

PUJ BOGOTÁ

INGA

Carlos Hernández Correa,

Hernando Chindoy Chindoy, Maria Belén

Studio New Territories at PUJ Bogotá,

Sáez, Waira Nina Jacanamijoy, Taita Arturo

Director of the International Student

Jaconamijoy, Freider Legarda, Flora

Program

Marcas, Taita Germán Mojomboy, Jhon Ander Mojomboy, Rubiela Mojomboy, Ana

Studio team:

Cristina Rodríguez Muñoz

Carlos Hernández Correa, Santiago Pradilla Hosie, José Luis Bucheli

Students: Lizeth Córdoba Adarme, María Alejandra

Students:

Jacanamejoy, Musu Jacanamijoy, Jhon

Jordi Steve Barrantes Gómez, Diana

Tisoy Jacanamijoy, John Jairo Jansasoy

Catalina Barrera Agudelo, Ana Sofía Calle Santamaría, Juan Sebastián Campuzano Ávila, Yara Valentina Castiblanco Muñoz, Andrea Escobar Parra, Philip Fonseca Trivino, Jenny Lorena González Smith, Carlos Julio Guateme García, Iván Darío Guerrero Pinilla, Diego Alejandro Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Daniel Camilo Montenegro Amaya, Andrés Felipe Pérez Álvarez, Daniel Steven Pinzón Vargas, Lina Marcela Roballo Villamil, Ana Cristina Rodríguez Muñoz, Camilo Rojas Vaughan, Lina María Sanabria Callejas, Laura Sofia Suárez Castellanos

309

AUTHORS

the Wuasikamas-Guardians of the Earth initiative, which was awarded the Equator

URSULA BIEMANN

Prize by the United Nations Development

is a video essayist who practices an

Programme in 2015 for its contribution

expanded notion of art which includes

to the social, cultural, economic and

publications, collaborative projects,

environmental advancement of the Inga in

research cooperations, and curatorial

Aponte-NariĂąo.

endeavors. For twenty years, she has been exploring the potentials of videographic

OLIVIER DAMBRON

forms of territorial research. These fields

is a French and Indonesian environmental

of investigation range from migration and

specialist. He is a graduate of building

borders in a rapidly globalizing world, in

engineering from HEI in France and

her earlier projects (for example Sahara

holds a postgraduate in Sustainable

Chronicle, Black Sea Files), to the political

& Environmental Design from the

ecologies of resource extraction and

Architectural Association in London

climate change in a series of more recent

where he researched the potential

works (Forest Law, World of Matter).

of environmental design for bamboo

Conducting intense field research in

architecture in the tropics. Olivier co-

remote locations, she then works the

founded Atmos Lab, an environmental

findings into multi-layered video works,

design consultancy based in London that

web platforms and spatial installations.

helps architects resolve environmental

The projects generally take a systemic

issues through design with a climate-

approach to terrestrial conditions by

specific, occupant centred and scientific

connecting the micropolitics on the

approach. He is also head of technical

ground with a theoretical and planetary

staff for MA Environmental Architecture at

macro level. The main protagonist in

the Royal College of Art.

these recent narratives is the figure of the indigenous scientist who emerges from

ANGELIKA FITZ

a shared history of colonialism and the

has been Director of the Architektur-

appearance of modern science.

zentrum Wien since 2017. Prior to this, she had already been working internationally

310

HERNANDO CHINDOY CHINDOY

as a curator and author in the field of

is the Legal Representative of the

architecture and urbanism. She focuses

Indigenous Territorial Entity Atun Wasi

on the societal contextualization of

Iuiai – AWAI of the Inga People of

architecture, the use of resources and a

Colombia. Chindoy is a University Expert

planetary perspective. In 2003 and 2005

in Indigenous Peoples, Human Rights

she curated the Austrian contribution to

and International Cooperation at the

the Architecture Biennale in Sao Paulo.

Universidad Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.

She is active internationally as a lecturer

His work is recognized at both national

as well as on advisory boards and juries,

and international levels for developing

among others she is a member of the IBA

Expert Council of the Federal Government

the Javeriana University of Bogotá within

in Berlin. Her exhibitions and publications

the framework of the Programme of

include Capital & Karma (2002), Reserve of

International Studies, a visiting professor at

Form (2003), Linz Texas (2008), Realstadt

the RISD (Rhode Island School of Design),

(2010), We-Traders. Swapping Crisis for

and advisor at the Planning Department of

City (2013-15), Weltstadt. Who creates the

Bogotá. He is the cofounder and project

city? (2014-16), Actopolis (2015-17) and with

coordinator of AGRA (Anzellini Garcia-

the Architekturzentrum Wien Assemble.

Reyes Arquitectos) and was awarded the

How we build (2017) and Downtown Denise

first place for the category of architecture

Scott Brown (2018). In 2019, she and Elke

at the Solar Decathlon 2015, the Premio

Krasny curated the exhibition Critical Care.

Lápiz de Acero 2015, honourable mention

Architecture for a Broken Planet, with the

at the Bienal Colombiana de Arquitectura

book published by MIT Press.

2016, and the New York PAD price.

TERESA GALÍ-IZARD

ANNE LACATON

is a Spanish agronomist and landscaper.

& JEAN-PHILIPPE VASSAL

She is a graduate in Agricultural

manage the international architecture

Engineering and Postgraduate in

practice Lacaton & Vassal based in Paris.

Landscape Architecture from the Escuela

Their work spans from public buildings

Superior de Agricultura of Barcelona. She

and housing to urban planning. Main

created Arquitectura Agronomia in 2007

projects completed by the office include

with Jordi Nebot. After having taught in

the renovation of the contemporary

various universities (Harvard University

art centre Palais de Tokyo in Paris,

Graduate School of Design, University

the regional contemporary art center

of Virginia, Escuela Técnica Superior in

FRAC in Dunkerque, the Architecture

Madrid), she was appointed full professor

School in Nantes, the Viennese Café

at ETH Zurich in 2019 initiating the masters

at Museumsquartier, transformations

program in landscape architecture.

of modern social housing such as the Tour Bois-le-Prêtre in Paris and the

MARTÍN ANZELLINI GARCÍA-REYES

Cité du Grand Parc in Bordeaux, as well

is an architect from Colombia and

as numerous collective and individual

currently Director of the Departamento

housing projects including the house

de Arquitectura Facultad de Arquitectura

Latapie in Bordeaux, the house in the

y Diseño of the Javeriana University

trees in the bay of Arcachon, the Cité

in Bogotá. He completed his studies

Manifeste in Mulhouse, a social and

in architecture in Switzerland with a

student housing in Paris and recently a

Master Degree from the Accademia

housing tower in Geneva. All projects are

di Architettura of Mendrisio. Martin

based on a principle of generosity and

Anzellini has professional and academic

economy, serving the life, the uses and

experience from Colombia, India, USA,

the appropriation, working carefully with

and Switzerland. He was a professor at

climate and the already there. Reuse, 311

transformation, never demolish, are also

of Allan Kaprow, Robert Smithson, and the

a principle of the office‘s attitude. Anne is

Limits to Art (Berkeley, 2013). Brechas y

professor of Architecture and Design at

conexiones: Ensayos sobre arquitectura,

ETH Zürich. Jean Philippe is professor at

arte y economia (Barcelona, 2016), Der

UDK Berlin. Both were guest professors

Wert der Oberfläche (Zurich, 2017) and

at various universities, Anne at Madrid,

Representation of Labor / Performative

Oslo, Harvard GSD, TU Delft, Jean Philippe

Historiography (Santiago de Chile, 2018).

at Düsseldorf, Versailles, TU Berlin and together at EPF Lausanne.

SANTIAGO PRADILLA HOSIE studied architecture at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, and undertook a Master’s degree in Habitat and Housing at the National University of Colombia.

Passionate about traveling and touring the country, he began his informal training in the Tierradentro mountains with the guanacas indigenous community, and later in the Palafítico town of Cupica in the Colombian Pacific. He also lived in Bojayá before the resettlement, worked with 14 Emberas communities in the jungles of the Middle Atrato, and has worked with the communities of Palomino, Tamalameque, Antequera, Puerto Boca, El Pedral, Puente Sogamoso, Kilometro 8, María la baja, San Pablo and Florido, among other authentic settlements in Colombia.

PHILIP URSPRUNG is Professor of the History of Art and Architecture at ETH Zurich. He served as Dean of the Department of Architecture from 2017 to 2019. He taught at Universität der Künste Berlin, Columbia University New York, Cornell University and the University of Zurich. He is editor of Herzog & de Meuron: Natural History (Montréal, 2002), Caruso St John: Almost Everything (Barcelona, 2009) and author 312

DEVENIR UNIVERSIDAD Ursula Biemann In 2018, the Museum of Art on the campus of the National University of Colombia in Bogotá commissioned Biemann to create a new work, including a one-month field trip to the Colombian Amazon. Besides a film, the outcome of this research trip turned out to be a proposal for co-creating an Indigenous University in the South, upon request by, and in close collaboration with, the Inga people. The research objective is to better understand the territorial embeddedness of indigenous knowledge, and to link it to other, more globally operating epistemic systems, in an effort to generate a new understanding and epistemic justice for a historically marginalized culture. Ursula Biemann accompanies this process with aesthetic productions including Devenir Universidad – an audiovisual online platform, an exhibition at the Museum of Art at UNAL, and a publication.

Parallel to the institution-building project of forging partnerships between different epistemic communities, the artist is developing a new sonic video work joining shamanic and scientific perspectives on the questions of plant intelligence, planthuman relationships, and the coding of life with its forms of storing and releasing information.

After the Mocoa meetings in fall 2019, Ursula Biemann is now helping the Inga Education Team to organize in 2021 eight workshops in different locations of their territory and two cities with a strong Inga population. The purpose of the campaign is: • to give the process of creating the Indigenous University a boost; • to help advance the project in a collective manner proper to indigenous customs; • to make sure the young indigenous generation doesn‘t have to leave their territory; • to guarantee that their forests can be maintained according to their millenary wisdom; • to gather support and spread the purpose and value of this visionary education project.

314

ETH ZURICH AND PUJ BOGOTÁ Martín Anzellini García-Reyes

ETH and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (PUJ) have joined forces to put themselves at the service of the Inga community of Colombia and to undertake the conceptualization of an Indigenous University in the south of the country. The collaboration agreement between the two universities and the agreement with the community were reached at an embryonic moment. Initially, the representatives of the indigenous community raised the idea of developing a space for studies that would offer technical and university careers for indigenous and peasant people living in the area of influence of the departments of Putumayo, Cauca, Caquetá and Nariño, covering an area larger than Switzerland. This invitation issued at the outset posed an especially interesting challenge for the Projects by Anne Lacaton (ETH) and Nuevos Territorios (PUJ). Their function as architects was not predicated on the development of a basic architectural plan or preliminary project but on the very understanding of what is entailed in an Indigenous University. This raises questions such as: Is a physical campus actually needed? If so, should this campus be located in one single place or perhaps would it be better for it to be atomized in the territory? What are the specifications for an architectural program for a rural and indigenous university? What will be taught there? For what purpose? How can we recover vernacular techniques and forms for the development of the project?

Following a field trip, the students and teachers of the two universities developed, over the course of two academic semesters, a series of exercises in analysis, synthesis, conceptualization and design that engaged with these questions and led to reflections and proposals now being expounded in this document.

And while the academic exercises on view here represent a major boost for the definition of the key features of the Inga University, there is still a long way to go.

The work presented in this book and the institutional support of the two universities set the conceptual groundwork and present creative and pertinent architectures to continue developing the project. With this boost and based on this foundation, we now have to move forward on other tasks, including: 1. The construction of an academic curriculum; 2. Fundraising; 3. Strengthening the commitment of local and national governments with the project; 4. Founding organisations to promote and run the university; and 5. Development of technical, environmental and architectural studies, among many others. The road is long, but solid foundations have already been laid in this document that will help this embryo to germinate and for the idea of the Inga University to become a reality.

315

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PHOTO CREDITS Joël Amstutz → 60, 65, 74, 108, 110 Seren Arber → 48, 106, 107 Ursula Biemann (courtesy of the artist) → 6, 8, 20, 232-233 Luca Bronca → 54, 56, 57, 92, 97 Hernando Chindoy Chindoy (courtesy of Wuasikamas) → 19 Simon Durand → 49, 58, 86, 93, 94, 95, 109 Dimitri Durst → 75 Sara Finzi-Longo → 89 Shen He → 50, 51, 100, 101 Timmy Huang → 104 Severin Jann → 43, 45, 55, 68, 76, 77, 88, 96, 102, 103 Sophie Keel → 42, 44, 46, 47, 52, 53, 61, 62, 63, 64, 90, 91 Tania Perret → 70, 71, 99 Valentin Ribi → 12, 13, 59, 66, 67, 69, 80, 81, 84, 85, 87, 98, 111, 120, 121, 210, 211, 304, 305 Annina Schoop → 78, 79, 82, 83 Qianer Zhu → 14, 72, 73, 122, 212, 306

IMPRINT © 2020 ETH Zurich, D-ARCH Anne Lacaton, Lacaton & Vassal Chair of Architecture and Design

Editor: Anne Lacaton Project team: Anne Lacaton, Simon Durand, Tamino Kuny Concept and editing: Anne Lacaton, Simon Durand, Tamino Kuny; with the participation of the students of the studio Graphic design, layout: Tamino Kuny Diagrams, maps, plans, photo editing: Simon Durand, students of the studio Studio teaching team: Anne Lacaton, Simon Durand, Ilona Schneider, Michel Eigensatz Studio administration: Claudia Janz Contact: studio-lacaton@arch.ethz.ch © All media: Studio Anne Lacaton © Texts: authors Proofreading English: Natasha Bird Translation English-Spanish: Lambe & Nieto, Traducciones, Valencia Translation French-English: Fui Lee Luk Translation French-Spanish: Marcos García Rojo Printing and binding: DZA Druckerei zu Altenburg GmbH Paper: PlanoScript SC 120 g/m2 Font: Suisse International Print run: 250 English, 250 Spanish ISBN 978-3-033-08251-9 Financial support by D-ARCH and the Erich Degen-Stiftung

My interpretation of the Indigenous University is represented by the black jaguar that inhabits the space of the sacred points between the Andes and the Amazon. It is the protective spirit that day by day safeguards this region in the thoughts of our elders, the guardians of the ancestral knowledge of the Inga People. Seen from space, the University has the form of a jaguar in the state of “samai,� at rest. In Inga cosmology, the black jaguar is an important symbol of knowledge, of harmony, of infinity and is the color of the Earth who embraces us and gives us life. That is why it is so important that the house of knowledge and wisdom in our territory is embraced by the spirituality of our jaguar as the guardian of such sacred, strategic and emblematic territories in terms of biocultural wealth and a political ecology of peace.

Hernando Chindoy Chindoy, leader of the Indigenous Inga People of Colombia

ISBN 978-3-033-08251-9

9 783033 082519