Tecnical
Information:
Project: Rural
Sports Center - Sport City Oaxaca, Community Center
Year:
2011 (project) - 2014 (construction)
Area: 5.000 m2
Budget:
€ 92.456
Location: San Pedro Apóstol, Oaxaca de Juarez, Mexico
Architect:
B_Rootstudio (with the colaboration of Blaanc borderless architecture and Casa
Tierra)
The San Pedro Apóstol – Rural Sports Center competed
with over 200 proposals from 61 countries and stood out for its choice of
materials, implementation, sustainability and community involvement. Winning
the 1st place in the Sustainable Building category of the 23th
edition of the CEMEX competition.
The Project was built on a rural
community located in the Municipality of San Pedro Apóstol, in the state of
Oaxaca, Mexico, placed only 120 m from the Primary and Elementary Schools of
the village. This sports facility meets the dreams of this small community,
especially the youths, by creating a Center where several physical activities
may be practiced not only by the locals but also visitors.
A soccer field as well as a
basketball court are foreseen, which will host the important “inter-villa” tournaments
and the local schools. The elderly population is provided with several pathways
and the existing dike will be used for nautical sports, becoming unique
throughout this region.
All interventions intend to be an
example of sustainability, be it the materials used, construction techniques or
taking advantage of the local natural resources.
One of the Project’s strong points is
its the innovative concept of educational philosophy know as “LEARNING BY
BUILDING”. The aim is to be built mainly by local inhabitants using a system of
self-construction, allowing the Center to not only provide a sports facility
but also education during the construction process.
The site program:
Buildings:
1 locker room, bath and
infirmary
1 storage for sport material
kayaks, balls, etc
1 shade structure for community
meetings, social gatherings and respite
Sports Infrastructure:
1 playground with repurposed
materials
1 small football pitch
1 large football pitch
1 football training area
1 basketball court
1 outside gym
1 dock for the kayaks and
water access
Oaxaca de Juarez, located in
the southern Mexico, has an ancestral earth construction tradition that can still
be observed all around the city, in old and new structures. These methods
resulted from the fusion of Pre-Hispanic civilizations with the Spanish
tradition brought by the colonization in the 16th century.
Besides the
crescent deny for the natural techniques and materials, seen as unsecure,
unhealthy and only adequate to the “poor people”, a large part of these methods
have remained due to its vernacular application, mainly in rural areas. In
other hand, its contemporary use is more related with the new “green thinking”,
even more in the new generations, where people try to have more conscious and
sustainable lives. In this case, Sport Center represents a good example of this
kind of change; it belongs to a set of Mexican gymnasium, were the owners
decided to risk a new approach to their line of buildings, approaching more to
modern ecological trends.
The walls of
the main building are constructed in adobe: 33 000 adobes in brown color,
elaborated with earth from the zone, mixed with horse dung, sawdust and black
clay, left maturing for three days to raise the quality of the mixture. The
adobes were done by the handcrafts from local communities and the mortar
mixture was recovered from the oldest habitant who remembered the exact place
where his grandfather used to take out the earth to construct their houses at
that time.
Once more it was noticed the
lack of trust in the materials, as it was necessary to realize laboratory exams
(mechanical ones) to the earth and to the bamboo poles. These analyses assured
the clients and the contractor that the material was safe and capable. In the
earth tests it was proven that the earth Don Julio selected was the best one to
be used.
The load bearing walls have
been erected on a stone foundation and basement that used 750 m3 of
stone, manually carved, and fixed with a traditional mixture of lime and sand
in a 1:3 proportion. The adobe walls were used with all its potential, without
the common vertical concrete reinforcements, to emphasize the enormous
potential of the material when it is used properly, and its qualities and
limits are respected.
In fact, Oaxaca is a high seismic
activity zone, so some measures had to be taken to respect the physical
characteristics of the material towards the movements. Due to the length of the
walls, it was left a joint in every 12 m and the same measures were respected
in the interior steel structure that supports the roof. In fact, these joints
contribute as aesthetic contemporary image solution, that replaces the
traditional buttress, an important element in a high seismic zone like Oaxaca.
These columns are also separated 0,50 m from the walls to avoid contact during
the movements. Other possible method is the introduction of reinforced concrete
angles in the adobe walls that divide the walls in two parts/two weights and
improve the connection between the angles.
It was made a big effort to
assure the times of construction in a way they could be competitive in the
urban world. Traditionally, the adobe wall assented with earth mixture has to
grow just one meter each time before it dries up, so it can consolidate and
lose the same quantity of water without losing its structural homogeneity. To
solve this issue it was used, once more, a mix of knowledge between the rural
and contemporary techniques. It was used a mixture of sand and lime stabilized
with 5% of cement, so it can dry more quickly and also give more security to
the clients and the contractors.
To close the lateral
triangular openings created by the shed roof, it was taken inspiration from the
rural and sub-urban low cost construction, using a thin metal sheet (coming
from the tin cans in industrial production), commonly used to fence off land or
little constructions. Cutting and painting the sheets was created a geometrical
composition of eleven different colors that gives a contemporary aspect to the
whole complex.
The big exterior bamboo roof
was design between two buildings with different nature, one made of concrete
and one made of adobe, a fact that gives even more emphasis to the possible
aesthetic relation between such different materials. The roof was erected over
concrete columns that connect with the bamboo by metallic connectors, developed
specially to this construction. Between the bamboos, there are 2 kinds of
connections that depend on the stresses that each element in their position
were going to receive. Over the bamboo, it was fixed a plywood with screws that
go through the bamboo trusses, joining everything together so all the elements
work as one. The roof was finished with asphalt cardboard and artisanal tiles,
made by a nearby community, to protect the wood and the bamboo from the water.
All the roof was constructed
with the help of local university students, that have worked with the team
since the beginning of the rural projects, 3 years ago. Besides the lack of
trust by the specialized constructors, this situation had resulted from a
necessity because none of the workers seemed to know how to work with that
material. It was also necessary to search in nearby communities for some self constructors,
some villages where was still common the “tequio system”, to help to finish the
construction. In this way, the “knowledge circle” could really work: the
academics, architects and students shared their knowledge with the local
communities (city – village) and the village share its culture with the
professional (village – city).
It is also important to notice
that all the 140.000 red bricks and 22.000 tiles used in the complex were
manually produced in local communities, and demonstrated to have more quality
than the industrial ones. Each red brick or tile is unique as they have the
fingerprints of the craftsman that makes them unique pieces, giving the
construction humanity and esthetic quality. The revalorization and promotion of
their own materials is also an important issue for the local communities, so
its traditions can endure through time, helping the community development and
giving back money to the rural world.
The whole complex was provided with water and energy feedback systems, using passive strategies as water collection (canalized and stored in underground tanks) and natural ventilation, created through an horizontal opening that runs all along the top of the adobe walls.
Through urban projects can be
revitalized local economies instead of importing materials from other states or
maintain the monopoly of big materials enterprises. This fact works not only
towards social and architectural, but also cultural sustainability. One can see
a change of paradigm, by fashion or not, it can really help the truth goal –
the revitalization of the vernacular techniques in Oaxaca, protecting and
developing an heritage that can be lost forever.
Sports City
represents one of these examples that have been changing the paradigm of
Oaxaca’s contemporary architecture; a building where the nature and the limits
of the materials are respected without denying the possibilities of the
contemporary materials and technologies – a fusion between low and high tech.
Earth, stone, wood, bamboo, tiles, red bricks, lime, concrete, steel and metal
leafs, are combined in an harmonic way that respects the potential, the limits
and quality of each material.
The
construction with earth and bamboo in Oaxaca appears as a pertinent solution,
without denying the industrial materials, the mechanization of some processes
witch create competitive techniques in terms of times and prices, joining knowledge
and urban/rural technologies (academy/empiric truths), using a ecological,
political and social vision.
Sources:
https://berootstudio.wordpress.com/rural-sport-centre/
http://www.e-architect.co.uk/mexico/san-pedro-apostol-sports-center
http://architecturelab.net/sport-city-oaxaca-de-juarez-mexico/
http://openarchitecturenetwork.org/projects/san_pedro_apostol
http://p3.publico.pt/cultura/arquitectura/14681/arquitecto-portugues-premiado-no-mexico-com-ginasio-sustentavel
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