ASF Award! Share your initiative to improve the built environment!

Architecture Sans Frontières International (ASF Int) Award was founded in the purpose of sharing the most efficient solutions developed by architects globally to the many social, environmental and economic challenges facing the built environment. The goal of the award is to promote those solutions among the design profession and the general public, which will encourage an exchange of ideas and challenge the profession to develop the construction of social facilities and infrastructure for the benefit of the most vulnerable sectors of the world’s population.

See instructions for submission here: http://www.asfint.org/ASF-Activity/ASF-AWARD-2015
#ASFAW #ASFAW2015

Ps. Thanks for Komitu Architects, Montana Rakz and Kouk Khleang Youth Center for borrowing the image for the Award.

A Guidebook: Transportable Bamboo Roof

A proposal for the 2014 World Bamboo Design Competition of an easy to assemble, transportable bamboo roof. Thanks to Justin Morris and Eero Virtanen for the structural ideas and Elina Tenho, Komitu Architects and photographer Montana Rakz for photos of the Kouk Khleang Youth Center for the proposal!

Siliguri Bamboo Presentation in Paris 12.2.2015

Invitation to the event from Architecture & Developpement below. I'll be presenting in English though. :)

"Bonjour et meilleurs vœux à toutes et tous!
Ça y est nous avons enfin trouver une date pour notre rencontre de début d'année!

Réservez votre soirée, le 12 février 2015 à 18h, au Café Social, 7 rue Pali Kao Paris 20ème.

Car pour bien commencer l'année, nous avons le plaisir de vous convier à
la présentation du workshop bambou à Siliguri (Inde)
par Inari Virkkala, Architecte d'ASF Finlande
qui a rejoint l'équipe d'A&D sur le projet de construction de l'école pour la préservation de la culture Himalayenne. Elle nous présentera ses quelques mois de mission et les premières étapes du chantier!"

Siliguri Bamboo Guard House

Almost finished! But unfortunately already time to leave the building site in Siliguri after three great months of researching the feasibility of using bamboo in the International Himalayan School built by Sherig Phuntsok Ling Bon Society.

Echostream in Gangtok operating on all fronts of Social Impact Design

It has been great to learn to know the inspiring founders of Echostream and Brew in Gangtok, especially Sonam Gyaltsen who's been a great help in collecting all possible info on bamboo in North-East India.

Echostream is a "multi-disciplinary design studio located in Gangtok, Sikkim." www.echostream.wordpress.com/

Brew Gangtok is a "social collaborative space whose mission is to engage young minds in creative and energetic exploration of new ideas for creating a better future." www.facebook.com/brew.gangtok

Bamboo stuff at Kouk Khleang Youth Center

With the the Kouk Khleang Youth Center project together with other Komitu Architects, Noora Aaltonen, Sisko Hovila, Tuuli Kassi, Maiju Suomi and Elina Tenho we kept a blog for almost four years for the duration of the project at www.komituarchitects.org.

Here I've collected the most important posts about bamboo:

Making of Bamboo elements

http://komitu.blogspot.com/2012/11/making-of-bamboo-elements.html

Treatment of the bamboos

http://komitu.blogspot.com/2012/03/bamboo-preparations-continue-with-kevin.html

Sourcing bamboo from the forests:http://komitu.blogspot.com/2012/01/bamboo-species-chinese-bamboo-for.html

http://komitu.blogspot.com/2012/02/khmer-bamboo-in-kroch-chhma.html

http://komitu.blogspot.com/2012/02/chinese-bamboo-in-tmoa-pum-village.html

Visiting other Bamboo projects:

UPDF Community Meeting Bamboo hall

http://komitu.blogspot.com/2013/07/updf-bamboo-meeting-hall.html

Chi Phat Eco tourism center

http://komitu.blogspot.com/2012/01/more-pictures-from-community-based-eco.html

Mouthful of Meetigs podcast out now!

The podcast of "Mouthful of Meetings" in Venice Biennale in September is now available to listen at Soundcloud and www.southofnorth.info. A wonderful discussion with inspiring speakers!

Ecological architecture initiatives in Kathmandu and around

What an inspiring week exploring Kathmandu and visiting various eco-initiatives around the city. The image above is the view to Kathmandu valley from the Triten Norbutse monastery.

One of the most inspiring visits was to Adobe and Bamboo Research Institute ABARI's upcoming Learning Center in Dhulikhel. One of Abari's founders, Nripal Adhikary is leading the construction of the center surrounded by the most amazing landscapes in Dhulikhel. The bearing walls are made of rammed earth with concrete ring beams and the roof structure is of bamboo. As much materials as possible, even the earth plaster, are recycled from the previous building located on the site.

www.abari.org

Anne Feenstra is a Dutch architect, now based in Kathmandu, who’s work with sustainable mountain architecture presents a great example of climatically and culturally sensible design in environmentally vulnerable environments. Feenstra is also one of the organisers of the Sustainable Mountain Architecture project and exhibition.

www.sustainablemountainarchitecture.tumblr.com

arch i-Platform For Design
www.archforhumanity.blogspot.in

Narayan Acharya and Naomi Saville were extremely kind in taking the time to present their lovely house in Godawari, near Kathmandu. The ground floor is made of rammed earth stabilized with 5% of cement and the first floor with timber stuctures and saw dust insulation. Abari was involved in the construction of the house and architecture magazine Praxis has wrote a story of the construction.

www.karnaliorganic.com

Hemendra Bohra's house in Budhanilkantha, above Kathmandu is very beautiful in it’s architecture, but also extremely inspiring with being completely "off the grid". All energy of the house comes from the solar panels and water heaters, wastewater is treated naturally and the house is warmed and cooled passively trough it’s solar-conscious design. Here's a link to an article of the house in the Praxis architecture magazine and images of the construction on Abari's website.

Pawan Shrestha and Ujjwol Shrestha, together with Prabita Shrestha are the founders of GREEN TREE Developers Pvt. Ltd. but also the founding members of Engineers Without Borders Nepal, a member of Architecture Sans Frontières International.

www.igreenarchitects.com

Green Valley getaway is a restaurant with bamboo structures situated in the far end of the Shivapuri Natural Park, up from the district of Budhanilkantha in Kathmandu. A map link to the Resort in Bing maps.

www.greenvalley.com.np

Jiten Shrestha together with his company Cosy Nepal has renovated amazingly beautiful apartments to the old buldings in Patan and Kathmandu, especially respecting the beautiful craftmanship and traditions of the Newari architecture.

www.cosynepal.com

Uday Shestra is the editor of Praxis Magazine. He is also one of the main forces behind the Blue Coffee Company, behind many of the architecture and design talks and events organized in the city.

www.praxis.bluecoffeenepal.com

Blue Coffee Nepal in facebook

And the warmest thanks to the members of Society of Nepalese Architects SONA’s ecological committee, especially Salena Sangachhe and Sakar Shrestha for taking the time for a meeting as well as to Architecture & Developpement, Anish Joshi,  Tuija Suihkonen, Jussi Kanner, Sampo Villanen, Laura Rovamaa, Niraj Pradhan and the Triten Norbutse foundation for making all these meetings possible!

Ps. something to visit for the future? Kevin Rohan Memorial Eco Foundation www.krmef.org/contact, a former factory for bamboo products initiated by INBAR: www.himbamboo.com and the Amankora resort in Bhutan: www.amanresorts.com/amankora/home.aspx

Kaupunki uusiksi -starts!

A six episode tv-series documenting the work of our Uusi Kaupunki -collective starts on YLE Teema channel on Monday 20.10. at 21.00! Tune in to see our solutions for the old railroad area of Oulu! For October-November Uusi Kaupunki will also be hosting the yle.fi/arkkitehtuuri -page, check out our stories and instagram notes there too!

YLE's article of the series: http://yle.fi/aihe/artikkeli/2014/10/08/kaupunki-uusiksi-eli-miten-suunnitella-suomesta-parempi-paikka

Predicting the future for Impact Design Hub

Few weeks ago I was very honored to be asked to try to tell the future of social impact design for the Impact Design Hub. Here's my prediction:

In ten years, social impact designers have found a way to prove the the positive impacts of design and it has become a norm to design (at least in the western cities) in a positive social way: to create spaces that increase cohesion and social interaction.

Considering social issues, social impact has become an issue for the majority of designers instead of a specialized minority. Of course, currently most designers try to create best possible social environments, but in ten years this aim has become genuine and also fact-based, instead of being merely intuitive.

Designers have also been able to develop (for example software) tools to facilitate more data in the building and planning processes, including most importantly citizen participation and consideration of aspects of environmental psychology.

Public interest design is not something that you specifically do, but an aspect that all designers consider in their daily work, just as environmental aspects have become a norm.

Read all the predictions of the other 17 inspiring designers at http://www.impactdesignhub.org/2014/08/27/feature-how-will-public-interest-design-look-in-2024-18-practitioners-weigh-in/

South of North EXHIBITION in Helsinki Design Week 6.-14.9.

Warm welcome to the opening on 5.9. and South of North Designers on Site -event on Saturday 6.9.!

More info about the events in the Facebook event and South of North -webpage!

Starting the work with the Osthang project

Interesting monhts ahead! For May-July I'll be working with raumlaborberlin on the Osthang project, a festival and a summer school for experimental building, organized in Darmstadt between 7th to 27th to July.

Read more of the project at:
www.osthang-project.org/summer-school/english
www.raumlabor.net/osthang-project

Picture by Anja Fritz, raumlaborberlin.