Chamaleonic architecture - African eco-huts proposal

Nicolas Salas Leon

Question to answer 8. Form a question that you would have liked to have been asked, and respond accordingly.

How can you change the world as an architect while most of the architects still refuse to change as well as the client?

“Well, I would say that it is uncertain that it could only go in one direction. I believe that the more the new generation of students, artist, architects, and more important the technologies, move forwards it will allow the mind to work in very different directions and styles. Thankfully, I am living in a transition era in which slowly but strong styles are getting forged with such a succulent talent that cannot be avoid.” – Nicolas Salas

Chameleon architecture – Adaptive, Recycle & Cheap This essay will shortly inform the reader how currently the world we live in needs more “Green clients” and less “Money makers”. It reflects the current situation where green technologies are in its climax but clients refuse to use them as per their elevated production cost, short availability and lack of design. A clear example is an electric car: They cost at most places an average of 15% more than other cars on the same standard levels. The lack of electric re-charge post makes the buyer decline the offer, as they will need to travel more just to recharge the batteries. And lastly, but with same importance, lack of design: this is a personal criteria but it could apply to you as well. If we stop and compare a 1969 Yenko Camaro with an UBER Hybrid, we can clearly state why people still buy the Camaro against the Hybrid. Even though it could cause controversy, most bestseller car has sexy curves and strong lines, sound of the engine that would spike your hair and run through your spine and, of course, engine power. Modern electric cars do not have a single comparable point with the Camaro as an example. They tend to be super sound-proof, curves and lines seems taken from a cereal box and internally they look like a cheap spaceship with a super minimalistic artifact.

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Nicolas Salas Leon

Part 1 – We imagine the future like Star Wars – Super high buildings full of metal bordering the line of being an Egyptian monument. Everything is super efficient in such a way that there is not rubbish, not a single waste. However, we are in the 21st century and we still trapped in the industrialization of architecture where most “eco-friendly” buildings cost fortunes to build and after its use in what we could compare as a “Super-bowl” event, they just become ruins for the time to rust. Here is my proposition to change the world, as we know it.

As an example, as I would take a place in Africa called Ghana where buildings like this [picture 1] are abandoned

Picture 1

and rusted. Those buildings most probably served a noble cause back when they were functioning but now, in its decaying times, it is the moment to renew the landscape and give the locals something to talk about. But the question here is: How much of a budget do we have in a third world poor country, where resources are low but labour is so cheap? Well, let's take a look of what we have right now: we have trees, labour, an abandoned building and guess what, a lot of Sunlight and some wind and rains more often in the winter terms. What is our need? Most poor countries have a lack of water purifiers, electricity, hospitals and even schools. [picture 2] [picture 3] A modern-cosmopolitan architect arrives here but what does he sees? A very difficult place to raise the new superultra-shiny and expensive architectural representation for a bank institution.

However, what I see it is an amazing opportunity to bring down the carbon footprints, expenses and even material use by recycling that scrappy building. Raising the local Picture 2

economy and making the poor place a better place to live.

Picture 3

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The trouble is not the cosmopolitan architect, it is the society. Nowadays we are used to see Green roofs and solar panels on skyscrapers placed in areas where those eco-energies are not on its full potential; architects that quit design just to bring that renewable energy into place and get a L.E.E.D. [1] certificated but at what cost. I believe that what we need to change is maybe not the young architect students that are hungry for taking a place in the architectural world by standing out with their crazy and futuristic proposals, but maybe what we need to do is teach them how to use natural resources as their main artifact and not the cheap Chinese tile that copies one a bit more expensive 20km away from the construction site.

Let’s take a step back and analyze the African proposal. We have the materials or at least most of them, we have the labour, and we have a specific weather conditions.

Here I would like to present you a quick way of maximizing some of these elements to create Ecoarchitecture that is not only greener but also more productive.

As to follow the sketches [picture 2,3,4], scaffolding and long metal bars could be used as the structure

Picture 4

for our “Hospital shed”. Scaffolding or similar are very cheap and easy to use, durable and with minimum maintenance once it is installed. Then we add walls by using their natural and local resource: Bamboo trees. They are the most cheap, fast self-growing and more important durability. Now, lets strip down a bit that abandoned building.

Let’s take down all that corrugated steel sheets. These sheets can last 20 years or more if they are maintained. “Most metal roofing is made of galvanized metal or coated to prevent rust from occurring, but standing water and the heat generated by direct sunlight can wear the roof's protection away. It is best to treat rust before cracks or holes develop, but if you are too late, you can make an effective patch using urethane roofing cement, which stands up well to intense sunlight.”

[2] [picture 5]

Picture 5

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Now, if we place that metal sheet as a roof and attached to the structure covered with bamboo trunks we have a traditional African hut on the southern coast of Benin in West Africa, for example, there is an entire city built on stilts. From churches to banks to even hospitals, the tradition of building bamboo huts above the ocean dates back hundreds of years. [picture 6]

Picture 6

As these facts comes up, we need to ask ourselves why the modern architect should use their materials and methodology instead of the most current and advance technology to build their houses? Well, very simple: There is no modern technology in Ghana. They do not have huge cranes with laser tagging and self-balance support. They have sticks and mud. So, let's exploit them.

However, there is not only the recycled material what we could explore in to its limits but also their natural resources coming from the sky, underground and in the air. I am talking about renewable energies. According to the SWERA Ghana Project report, [3] Wa, the capital of the Upper West region, has the highest level of solar irradiation (5.524 KWh/m2-day) across the country. May is the month with the highest solar irradiation (5.897 KWh/m2-day), with August recording the lowest measurement (4.937kWh/m2-day) in Wa[4].

Let’s talk in English for a second: all this data is saying that at an average, a UK household uses a 4,000KWh per year. In Ghana, each year it is received an average of 2,100KWh per year within a single square meter. A standard house for a family of four is 80sqm.

Now, lets bring these data into Ghana: what do we find? We find that Ghana has a population of 28 million residents with a population density of 126 per Km2[5] numbers speak by themselves: #Population of Ghana/family of 4=average number of families [7million] #Average families*4,000KWh per year=Average usage of those families [2.810KWh py] #Average of families*80sqm=total area used by those families [560 millions sqm] #Total area used by families*2,1ooKWh py= solar radiation received [1.1712KWh py] #Total solar radiation*%5o SVP efficiency=Total usable electricity [5.8811KWh py] Total usable electricity - Average use of Ghana families = Spare electricity 588,000,000,000 – 28,000,000,000 = 5.6011KWh per year

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Basically, we are saying that Ghana, at an average throughout a year, has 95% EXTRA electricity for free use. But here is my question and we would quickly come back to the main architectural point: Why the modern world does not use Africa as a gigantic solar farm as we used to use Amazonian forest as the lungs of the world? Well, let me tell it to you with a single line: “…if governments were to remove barriers, such as high import duties, that increase the cost of the panels.” [6] Money rules the world even in architecture.

Back to the architectural point, now we know that SVPs are a must to consider in our proposal of what I call “The African Eco-Hut”. We know as

Picture 7

well, without going into much more details that Africa has a potential of using wind power and as the future is calling our door we have now spiral wind turbines that are even 35% more efficient, more silence and 88% less hazard to birds than traditional wind turbines. Therefore, there we have another natural resource in our hand. However, it is not the last one, as rains are more often in Africa than we imagine: 20 days of rain as maximum in September and 5 days in March (average of rain from Mar to Oct is 13.5 days per month). [4] We have a lot for us to use and guess what, for free and harmless to the planet.

We could decrease the water usage by introducing the reuse of rainwater in toilets and farming. If we well place the hut, self-ventilation would minimize the number of hours on fans to cool down the building.

Finally, here I describe what a simple but productive architecture is and that it is real. However, this is not just a “hut”, it is a modular building that can be attached to others and compose different forms to be adapted to different needs. [picture 7,8] Congratulations, now you have a modern-modular-African hut with a minimal cost in materials, constructions and more

Picture 8

important: Carbon footprints as we use local materials and we hire locals for labour

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Nicolas Salas Leon

Part 2 – Africa unfortunately does not move much money and for obvious reasons our “modern” future will be different for them. Let’s move our project to a first country such as Spain, England or Germany.

Seems impossible to see an African hut in the middle of Piccadilly Circus in London, right? That is simply because it just does not belong there neither in style, materials nor in the use of these specific renewable energies.

Modern and civilized cities are in a very different position but still in the same direction. We use too much and instead of fixing we create the same item again to replicate it. That is, unfortunately, the mentality of the cosmopolitan humans. It applies in architecture as easy as a mouse click: if we take into count the beginning of these essay where I explained how a Yenko is more like a sweet for a kid than an Uber car, architecture works exactly the same way. Why? Because at the end of the day, what we as architects do is fulfill the client’s needs, in which most of the cases is to create a saleable product and not so often an actual productive living organism as we sometime intend to sell with a green roof. WeirdHowever, funny enough, technology is moving on giant steps towards future years that can be count with the fingers of a hand. We have right now the ability to produce solar panels that are 95% transparent and be installed within the reinforced glass. We have water turbines that are small as a travel suitcase and still be able to produce over 65% efficiency even in very low water flow speeds as slow as 2mph. [7] [8] So why are we not using them COMPULSORILY in every design we create? We have laws that tell us as architects what are the standards but unfortunately, we still letting the client cut down the project budget by half without thinking on the consequences.

For me this is sad. To be honest I could compare these “lack” of laws in civilized countries the same as third countries, even prehistoric! We argue that we must produce less carbon but we still buy a Lamborghini just to show off and go to buy bread with it.

I had a client for one of my projects while working for RMA. This particular client called Mr. Cheap wanted to build a house extension and a huge swimming pool at the basement. He did not care of how much would cost not only to build but to maintain the pool is require: Air filters, plant room, water usage…etc. but amazingly, when we proposed to include solar panels in some areas or even 6

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the idea of reusing the water from the pool through the house as thermic energy could warm the water and still be use for under floor heating purposes: he said no. He argued that it was too expensive but guess what! It was only 25% of the total cost of the pool. Consumerism ladies and gentleman! Consumerism and hypocrisy.

Therefore, the way to change the world is to change the way people think and that is the reason we are still like 50 years ago, by just little changes. There is a phrase in Spain that is becoming more and more popular “Teach the kids so we don’t have to punish adults.”

Most people think that to change the world you need an army and well-done propaganda than even the most stupid people would understand and therefore, buy the ideology. That is how government elections work. However, as an architect, I believe this is not the right move for us to do, yet propaganda of Eco-Architecture works better from time to time; but frankly, most universities has zero programs of renewable energies and if they do, they teach you how they work and the principle. However, reality is not the same thing: solar panels maintenance, efficiency percentage, types…etc.

If we teach students how to be involucrate by those technologies, they would acquire rich knowledge that could be explained in detail to clients and would not step back with a resulting rejected proposal. Also, the more often architect uses those technologies the cheaper it would become to manufacture.

Modern buildings in cities should really aim for those one shown in futuristic movies.

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Nicolas Salas Leon

Part 3 – To conclude I would like to quickly refresh your brain with what we have tackle in this essay.

Eco Architecture can happen, as an example, if we reduce Carbon footprints by buying local materials and hiring local people for labour; which would result in an increase of the local economy; which leads towards a decline of prices as demand goes up by losing the intermediary dealers that always raise the price of the product.

We need to change laws. Thanks to Donald Trump, America would be great again by eliminating the Climate Change Controls, Obama’s landmark policy to set limits on the amount of greenhouse gases that power plants emit. [9] I mean, what kind of madness is going on here?

Governments should stop penalizing people for using natural resources as it is happening in Spain, which is proposing solar taxes. SOLAR – TAXES… Ladies and gentlemen be careful, as the next step could be that government charge us for breathing. Maybe if governments give incentives to those who are willing to change, the world would change.

Client declining – We all know that the client is the actual owner of the project and the only one who unfortunately, decides how is the project going to work. We all know that. However, we do have the responsibility for trying to teach clients that Green architecture is the future. If we make the right design and clients are willing to go forwards, it could be the new fashion and stop creating “glass boxes”. As architects, we need to stop making standard buildings and creating more functional building that looks like Avant gardens and unique. It is true that some of these technologies do not look good at all, but we are designers, right? So why don’t we try to implement them into designs that fit the era we are living in?

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Nicolas Salas Leon

BIBLIOGRAPHY – 1. - L.E.E.D. – http://inhabitat.com/demystifying-eco-labels/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXSSUzo5bNs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAiaAjbcSL8 2. - Repair a RMF – http://homeguides.sfgate.com/repair-rusted-metal-roof-102332.html 3. - SWERA Ghana Project report -http://www.myjoyonline.com/opinion/2015/July1st/ghanas-solar-potential-only-2-of-land-can-provide-924gwh-of-powerannually.php 4. – Ghana weather – https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-Rainfall-TemperatureSunshine,Tamale,Ghana 5. - population density – http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ghana-population/

6. – Ghana barriers of SVP – http://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/october-2006/solar-power-cheapenergy-source-africa 7. – Water spiral turbine – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXXmzQQ0MeI 8. – Watermotor – http://waterotor.com/

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9. – Donald Trump climate change – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/28/climate-change-euleader-trump-executive-order http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/danielsimmons-fossil-fuels-donald-trump-office-energy-efficiency-renewable-energyclimate-change-a7715036.html https://thinkprogress.org/trump-proposes-major-clean-energy-cuts6556a4848ab9 10. – Spain’s sunshine toll – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24272061 PICTURES 1,5 – Are taken from Google images.

2,3,4,6,7,8 – sketches and modeling from Nicolas Salas.

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