Evolving Symbiosis

Project idea

Our current relationship with the coastal environment involves defining rigid limits, solid barriers
to protect us from natural forces. However, this is not enough, as nature is constantly changing
in a less predictable manner than ever.
Moreover, fast progress in technology has isolated us from our habitat, and in the process, we
have lost our natural adaptations to those changes.
Can architecture be the tool to reestablish that lost connection?

Project description

To answer this question we created a system from specific interests that are analyzed through 3
databases:
1.Understand the context. DATABASE 1 Collect the existing materials, and introduce
compatible ones obtaining all the ingredients we are going to work with
2.Studying local culture and how the community inhabits space. DATABASE 2 Compile
traditional building techniques and testing how high tech retrofeeds low tech.
3.Acknowledge nature. DATABASE 3 Setting up the layers as natural agents or conditions to
adapt to.
While this system is universal (by changing inputs it can be applied anywhere) with these
specific inputs and combinations it leads to just one location: Mc Arthur’s Wharf.
The context layers are all embedded in the floorplan, that will be the testing field of all the
strategies we obtain from the databases.
-Layers: nature inputs, conditions and constraints
-Action verbs: based on already existing initiatives.
-Strategic spots “seeds”: obtained from the superposition of layers to locate where the action takes place.
- Network that relates all processes and defines the possible growth.
Zooming in one of the pixels of the plan we can define the concept of “Species”: the
architectonic device that spatializes existing regeneration initiatives of Guimaras, and is
formalized from the context: it is the natural and social forces which shape the entity.
-RE-SENSITIZE : Environmental data collection agency. Center of awareness and reconnection
with nature.It allows us to anticipate external agents and relearn how to live with them.
-LEARN : A multidisciplinary set of platforms, which, in addition to bringing the slope of the
coast,actively participates in the development and training of the population
-UPCYCLE : Logistic center for distribution and material handling. Space understood as a test
laboratory from which some of the parts of other species are assembled and tested.
-SHELTER : Branched structure of vertical growth that generates housing that protect each
other and themselves from adverse agents
-PRODUCE : Artificial islands that regenerate the ecosystem of the ponds and improve water
quality,thus improving the quality of the fishing sector
-REGENERATE : Seabed regeneration and coral restoration through a combination of high tech
technologies that are being absorbed by marine life.Starting from a concrete barrier to which
local and high tech construction elements are attached.
The species are not isolated objects, but are related in one ecosystem, and connected through
processes. The outputs of one species can be the input of another, and it’s possible to create
hybrids and evolutions that together form genealogies.
By regular observation and collection of the data, changes are being made and systems
updated. During the years, creation of new habitat was made possible. Nature started
regenerating itself, marine life was restored and the creation of a completely new system has
been developed. One coexistence of human and nature.

Technical information

All the construction is made with use of local materials, especially bamboo, also using technics and tools developed by local community.