VERSUS HERITAGE FOR TOMORROW Vernacular Knowledge for Sustainable Architecture
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Fig. 11 Mapungubwe Intepretation Centre while being erected with local craft and materials. Limpopo, South Africa. (photo: J. Bellamy)
Fig. 12 Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre by Peter Rich Architects (2009). Limpopo, South Africa. (photo: P. Rich)
Exceptions to this classification are two buildings extraordinarily sensitive to the material culture and means available in the places where they were designed and built by local architects, which have won many international awards and have not gone unnoticed by many journals. The first of these is the Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre in South Africa (2009) by Peter Rich with the collaboration of Michael Ramage and John Ochsendorf (AA.VV. 2010, pp. 98-197) (fig. 11-12), a fascinating ensemble covered with thin-tile vaults clad with local stone, with pressed soil cement tiles built on site by local workers. The second is Yunnan’s Museum of Handcraft Paper by Hua Li and TAO (Trace Architecture Office) in Xinzhuang, Yunnan, China (2010) (Rossato 2013, pp. 52-59) (fig. 13-14), a contemporary building with an abstract design, with a punth of local volcanic stone, wooden structure and walls, a bamboo roof and paper panels, which retrieves and interprets local materials and constructive traditions, respects scale, takes inspiration freely from traditional forms, and creates patios and spaces for workshops, meetings and the exchange of ideas, as well as lodgings for visitors. The museum not only extols the old Chinese art of paper production, it was also built by local farmers. In Europe the era of mismanagement and the disproportionate generation of waste is giving way little by little to a more and more sustainable attitude in architecture. Many initiatives have been put into practice in this direction. Worth mentioning, among others, are the experimental house in Hrubý Šúr in Slovakia (2010), designed and constructed by Björn Kierulf and the German Gernot Minke, a pioneer with experience in the construction and the promotion of ecological architecture (fig. 15); the new contemporary earthen architecture in Alentejo (Portugal) by the architects João Alberto Correia and Bartolomeu Costa Cabral, among others; the work of Gabi Barbeta
and Lluís Auquer in Catalonia (Spain) (Guillaud et al., 2014, pp. 6265); the farm in Sassenage (2011) by Caracol Écoconstruction or the Interpretation Centre in Dahlingen (2013) by Nunc Architects, both in France; the work of Hermann Kaufmann in Austria; the Parco dei Suoni in Sardinia in Italy (2007) by Pierpaolo Perra and Alberto Antioco Loche; the eco-sustainable rehabilitation work by Christian Kaiser (2012) in the south of Germany, linked to the Institut für Baubiologie in Switzerland; or the Pines Calyx Building in St Margaret’s Bay, Dover in United Kingdom (2006) by Helionix Designs, with the collaboration of Michael Ramage and John Ochsendorf (2012, pp. 309-318), a rammed earth construction with a thin-tile vault and a garden on the roof kept tidy by a flock of sheep, that the client asked the architects to put there when he commissioned a building that could last for the next five hundred years (fig. 16). Regarding the furtherance of the culture of sustainability in architecture it is important to mention the work carried out by the International Award for Sustainable Architecture (Balzani et al., 2010) granted by the Facoltà di Architettura of Ferrara (2003 on) and the Fassa Bartolo Company and the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture (2006 on) granted by the Locus Foundation based in Paris.
• Fig. 13 Layouts of the Yunnan’s Museum of Handcraft Paper in Xinzhuang, China (© Hua Li and TAO. Courtesy of the international prize for sustainable architecture Fassa Bartolo) . Fig. 14 Yunnan’s Museum of Handcraft Paper by Hua Li and TAO (Trace Architecture Office)(2009) Xinzhuang, China (photo: Shu He. Courtesy of the international prize for sustainable architecture Fassa Bartolo). Fig. 15 Experimental house in Hrubý Šúr (Senec, Slovakia), vaulted with curved straw bales and with a gardened roof on top of it (Photo: Daniel Marinica. Courtesy of Zuzana Kierulfova). Fig. 16 Pines Calyx Building in St. Margaret’s Bay, Dover (United Kingdom, 2006), a rammed earth construction with timbrel vault and a gardened roof kept tidy by a flock of sheep, was born when the client commissioned the architect a building that could last for the next five hundred years (Courtesy of M. Ramage).