NEW SETTLEMENT FOR HOUSING IN MOSSAKA African Art and Architecture AYS-1406 Celine Lebreton 225586 (Paris-Val de Seine)& Elise Morival 225689 (ISA Saint Luc Tournai)
CONTENTS I / INTRODUCTION AND PRESENTATION OF THE WORK II / CURRENT SITUATION
1) MOSSAKA
- General informations about Mossaka - Mossaka and the water: problems - Mossaka and the water: solutions - Housing in Mossaka
2) LIKUBA PEOPLE
- General informations about Likuba people - A person according to Likuba people - Conception of the Likuba village
III / NEW PROPOSITIONS
1) FIRST PROPOSITION : floating houses
- References : MORPHOSIS, Float House, MOS, Floating House, - Proposition
2) SECOND PROPOSITION : houses on pills
- References : SEED, Containers for emergency housing in Haiti - Proposition
I / INTRODUCTION AND PRESENTATION OF THE WORK
Mossaka, situated in the middle east of Congo, is a little village which has to deal with annual flash floods that causes a lot of damages on houses. The aim of our work is to find out a new sustainable settlement for housing in Mossaka that can be suitable for this kind of area. Our work is thus divided in two parts: - The first part is an analysis about Mossaka and the Likuba people. The aim of this part is to understand what are the problems caused by the flash floods, what measures had already been taken and which ones are actually taken or will be taken ; what kind of houses the people living there build and what materials they use ; and also how they see their home, how they use it and what they really need. This part is really important for us to understand what people want and need according to their culture and to the ÂŤhostileÂť environnement.
- The second part is the designing task in itself: we first looked for some solutions that have already been found for similar areas, and according to these research we decided to work on two differents propositions offering differents possibilities: one deals with floating houses, the other one with houses on pills. Of course we took care of what we found out about the Likuba people to make the two propositions and the idea was to start with an idea that has already been tried and to adapt it for the Likuba people and their way of thinking.
II/ CURRENT SITUATION 1) Mossaka General informations about Mossaka
There are two big metropoles in Congo: Brazzaville and Pointe Noire; then the country has some others centres such as Mossaka, which is the most important fishing area of the country and which is even called the «Fish Capital» by some people. This is allowed by the location itself of Mossaka, near the main navigable ways. But in spite of the obvious appearances, Mossaka is nowadays described by european countries as a dead city because there is no airport, no asphalt roads which means no easy access except from pirogues. Even the river port and the facilities there are quite basics (the port has been built in 1978) : a simple concrete bank, a dilapidated boathouse and repair workshop, altought they all used to be Mossaka’s pride.
Mossaka is a town situated in the east of the Congo in Africa, next to the Congo river, one of the most important in Africa. It belongs to the east area of the «région de la Cuvette». It is 17680 km2 large and there were 20 000 inhabitants listed in 2009.
Mossaka and the water : problems
Situation of the permanent and occasionaly marshy area
Situation of the «région de la Cuvette and Mossaka»
Mossaka and the water : solutions
Mossaka is a really marshy area with a lot of watercourses leading to the Congo river. Some areas are permanently marshy and some are just occasionally from october or november every year because of non stop raining. Out of 110 inhabited hectares, 75 are totally inundated from october to january, and only 5 to 6 hectares are saved from really important and exceptional flash floods. During this time, people have to use pirogues to go from one house to the other and children have to swim to school. It causes of course a lot of damages on housing and people tend to set on the «dry» area. The town grows thus along the river on 2700 meters and the idea would be to gather the town around the facilities, to make the town denser. Besides all that, the housing near the marshs are really dangerous because of the diseases and the insects that it brings. The presence of these marshes also prevent from any agriculture, so people living there can only fish or import vegetables and fruits from big cities around using water ways: the way of life is then quite expensive.
How to deal with the water problem in Mossaka? Some solutions have already been tried and some others still have to be tried. A causeway has already been made in the sixties and it is supposed to keep the «dry» area safe from flash floods. But this one is not enough, so the governement had to find a sustainable solution. An idea have been found and is supposed to be realised soon. It consists of two operations: first a causeway by dragging, and then a bank protection. - Causeway by dragging: the idea is to raise the general level of the «island» to a constant one to prevent the majority of the flash floods. For that, you are supposed to pump up some sand at the bottom of the river to bring it on the «island». This technique can dry up the areas previously marshed. People are supposed to be able to build houses on this areas that are theoricaly safe from any flash floods. - Bank protection: the idea is here to stabilize the banks and to keep the sand brought by dragging. The water flow causes a bank erosion. In order to protect them, a huge dyke will surrounded Mossaka.
Situation of the causeway already done
Housing in Mossaka
Here are the typical houses that can be find in Mossaka during the «dry season»: some wooden structure with pills every 20cm and horizontally linked by bamboo stalk; a wooden framework and a vegetal-tile cover; filled with a mix of clay and sand and covered with a plaster. The filling is interrupted 70cm before the roof to allow ventilation through the roof.
Building work in Mossaka appears to be really difficult to do because of the location itself of it: «To build a house here, you need to have bravery, patience and to recruit a lot of working force. Iron, stones, cement: everything comes from Brazzaville. There are some seasons where the river is no more easily navigable. That’s the reason why the building work is really long» explains a former site foreman.
A «plan d’amenagement d’urbanisme» has been made with some specific areas dedicated to build housing because these are aeras that can’t be inundated.
Finally for our design, we have to take care not only of the water problems but also of the materials and the work construction. We have to think about something that should be easily build in terms of how to get the materials and the construction work itself.
Plan d’amenagament d’urbanisme
2) Likuba people General informations about Likuba people The Likuba village is a bantu-speaking tribe in the Congo Republic and is located specially in Mossaka. Their main activity is fishing thanks to their implantation near the river Congo. This tribe has a particular way of thinking and this point has an impact in their organisation (urban planning), their settlements and the housing. The Likuba’s concept of life give importance to time, space and human being. Likuba people considers man as the centre of their anthology. We can find it in their language, the way they called some things and in their architectures.
A person according to Likuba people
For Likuba people, a person is made of four differents parts:
- The Masotu (=the body) is something perishable and is related to the earth. - The molimo (=the place behind the neck) gives the life and breath and is related to the water - The dimo (= the invisible spirit) is something immaterial as the soul and is related to the air. - The ilili is the shadow of the body and is related to the fire
So for the Likuba people there is an important difference between the spirit and the body. A house is for them something as perishable as the body, just a skin around something more important for them, the life in itself. That explains why they tend to let a damaged house like that and build another new one next to it. According to this we thought it could be great for our design to think about something that can be easily built and that can be changed with the time, something short lived that can reflects their way of thinking.
Likuba village
Likuba architecture
Conception of the Likuba village
Typical Likuba village plan
The Likuba village is organised according to the watercourses. Because most of the commercial activiy is made threw rivers, it is logical to set the village near to the water, and even more logical to set the market directly in front of it. From the market there is a main street around which the village is organised. This main street is a really important and living space for the Likuba people. They can indeed meet and sit there and have a coffee with their friends and their family. Each plot represents a house and it is composed of a really large and important outdoor space and of several little volumes.
III/ NEW PROPOSITIONS First sketches
1) First proposition : floating houses
Introduction
References : MORPHOSIS, Float House
According to the first analysis part and to some personnal research, we decided to make two very differents designing proposition :
- The first one is a floating house and the idea comes more from something we really want to do and try because of all the previous designs that have already been made.
- The second one is a house on pills with the idea of flexibility and modularity that totally fit to the likuba anthology and way of life. The second one appears to be the most suitable one then, but we will still do both of them cause we think it does worth it anyway.
The project of the «Float House» was made by the «Make it Right Foundation» which was created in 2006. The architects of Morphosis work on this project in New Orleans after the hurricane Katrina. They want to keep the typology of the houses of this part of United States : raised on four feet and provided with a porch. The house is abouit 90 square meters and can be autonomous in energy. Moreover, the Float House optimizes the efficiency of mass production with pre-fabricated elements which can be directly combine in the site. The base of the house is a single unit of expanded polystyrene with glass fiber and reinforced concrete. This part of the house permit it to float on the water. It integrates all mechanical, electrical, pumbling and sustainable system.
References : MOS, Floating House
The Floating House is a vernecular house located near an island on the lake Huron. This project was very difficult to create because of the complexity of the house’s fabrication and because of the relationship to the site too. Indeed, the water level of this lake vary drastically mounth to mounth. So the architects found an architectural solution for this project. They created a structure with steel pontoons. All the materials are prefabricated and the plateform was built first. This house project includes interior and exterior spaces which are directly in relation with the lake. The envelope is made by cedar strips which filter natural light and enclose private spaces. All these points participate of the singular character of the house.
References : Amphibious platform by Batiflo Batiflo Entreprise is one among others creating this special slab that makes houses float in inundated areas. The principle is to have some floated elements made of a really thick thermoplastic, that is used as a box for the concrete slab. This slab can then accomodate houses, parking spaces .....
Proposition 1 : floating house
The idea was to keep the master plan as it already exists now because we see no reason to change it: there was a reason for them to do it this way, and we don’t think that changing the master plan will improve the water problem in any way. So the first solution is to put all houses on a floating slab, so that each slab represents a house. In case of flash floods, all the platforms, which means all the houses just float and rise up to the water level, just like seen in the examples before.
Master plan
For the house itself we also want to keep it the way it already exists as it reflects their way of living and that it already correspond to their life style. So a house is still composed of several volumes that are set on the floating platform.
The slabs represents the plots of every houses, and it creates thus a kind of border for the house. When you are on your platform, you can feel like you are at home and that over the platfrom it is a public sapce even if there is no real barriers between private and public spaces even vegetal ones. In this slab you could imagine having vegetation or children playing, or just some grandma’ sitted looking at what is happening on the streets. We created some connections between the platform as well that will be useful during flash floods.
Longitudinal section
Plan
Floating slabs separated from each others Connections between the slabs
During inundations all the platforms are floating but you can still go from one to another thanks to the connections. It allows people not to go in the water or to use pirogues any more. In addition to the
Longitudinal section during the ÂŤdry periodÂť
Longitudinal section during inundations
Plan
platform accomodating the houses, there could be some free platforms for public spaces that would act as meeting places for the communal and social life.
3D model
2) Second proposition : houses on pills References : SEED, Containers for emergency housing in Haiti
This project was made by SEED and a group of architecture professors in Carribean region. SEED is a company which use surplus of containers to find solutions for emergency housing all over the world. This kind of project is a sunstainable one and guarantee robust instant homes and some degree of safety. The tranformation of a container costs 5 000 dollars and lasts just six mounths.
References : Hotel in Tahiti and houses in Visoterra
Buildings can even be built on water thanks to a pills system. It doesn’t only create the buildings but also some pedestrians ways going from one building to the others.
Proposition 2 : houses on pills The idea here was also to keep the existing master plan and to work not with the plots of houses but with the houses themselves by putting them on pills. The principles is to work with some modules of habitations that can be combined one with each others and that are pieced together with some footbridges. The main quality of this solution is the flexibility offered by it. The same module can be used for every functions (kitchen, bedrooms, animal places...) and they can be built repitidly with no care of the context and then they are combined according to the way people wants to do it. This system has to be the simpler as possible and must used really accessible materials such as wood or bamboo that doesn’t need to be import from Brazzaville or somewhere else.
Master plan
Plan of the 3 different modules: each module comes with a terrace
5*5 meters indoor space + 5*2,5m outdoor space
5*5 meters indoor space +2times 5*2,5m outdoor space
2 times 5*5 meters indoor space + 2 times 5*2,5m outdoor space
The plot of each house doesn’t materialy exist anymore but each house is still separated from another by a larger platform wich is used as a public space and can be reached by a ladder or a staircase attached to the public volumes. This public platform is in fact the roof of a public building that can be access directly from the ground floor. The aim is to create social life on the ground floor when there is no water. All the space on the ground floor is free (apart from these public facilities) and can easily accomodate social life especially with the covered spaces offered by the houses on pills.
Longitudinal section
Plan
Private terrasses Connections between the modules Public spaces : indoor spaces dowstairs and outdoor spaces upstairs
This solution offers different and interesting alternatives during the dry period and the inundations. Durind the dry period, the private spaces are separated from the really public and active ground floor: you can easily imagine people sitted around a table just next to the main street or even under the houses to have some shadows. During
Longitudinal section during the ÂŤdry periodÂť
Longitudinal section during inundations
Plan
the inundations, the houses and private spaces are safe from the water damages, and there is still some public platforms so that people can still enjoy the community life
3D model
During the ÂŤdry periodÂť
During inundations