URBAN AND ARCHITECTURAL RESEARCH FOR AN ECOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECT | DIRECT CONSULTANCY ASSIGNMENT BY THE CLIENT
IBI-village is a large ecological project of 22 000 hectares on the highland of Bateke (Democratic Republic of Congo, about 200 kms east of Kinshasa). The project has the following goals:
– the planting of forests which will provide both a long-term storage of CO2 and will allow to sell CO2-certificates
– the support and redevelopment of local small-scale economy based on crops like maniok, through the combination of farming and forestry
– stimulation of socio-cultural development by means of building villages, schools and medical centers
– reinforcement of the biodiversity, protection and expansion of the remaining fragments of the rainforest
– on the long run, development of an ecological forestry and the production of FSC-labelled wood.
The project is supported by the World Bank, the World Bio Carbon Fund, Umicore, Suez Tractebel and several non-governmental organisations.
BOGDAN & VAN BROECK act as a consultant for all urban-design and architectural aspects that rise in the development of the site: local treatment and recuperation of waste water, sustainable energy, spatial development and planning. The design for the Ibi-lodge, which is to be a guests house for trainees, international exchange and visitors, is composed of a sustainable high-quality architecture through the use of local cultural building traditions, very simple technology and limited resources.
At the early stage the client wanted to save a ruin and extend it, so that’s why our first proposal is a very rational, simple volume with an additional outstanding element the dining and meeting place. Later on, we managed to convince the client that it would be more efficient to demolish the existing ruin and build a new volume with more rooms yet keeping it as simple as possible. The second stage of design thus could develop in a new rational, systematic way providing more rooms, more services within a nice, elegant stripe stretching in the landscape.
More info here.