Church Forest Settlement, Amhara Ethiopia

2022 UIA International Student competition, group project

Brief: To design a sustainable dwelling in a settlement for 25 people within a country in the Great Green Wall across the Sahel Desert.

Concept: Over the past century, 90% of Ethiopia’s forests have been lost to agriculture. The majority of remaining forest within the Amhara province is found surrounding Orthodox Tewahedo churches. Known locally as debr or geddam, these church forests appear as islands of greenery amongst vast, dry agricultural land. In a holistic approach, the settlement is a part of a vision to restore native forest corridors, whilst implementing sustainable land management processes.

The dwelling design was drawn from an understanding of local vernacular architecture as well as the proposed adoption of bamboo, a material suited to meet the housing demand of Ethiopia’s growing population. The plan is optimised for cross ventilation

CAD programmes: AutoCAD, Sketchup, Enscape, Adobe Photoshop, Procreate.