The Roof (in Mexico) 96°13’W 16°33’N

Seven students of Studio a3, Prof. Wolf D. Prix, Institut für Architektur, University of Applied Arts Vienna, build a community centre in Oaxaca, Mexico.

During the exhibition ‘Just Build it. The Buildings of the Rural Studio’, the Architekturzentrum Wien invited the architecture faculties in Vienna to engage with the theme of the exhibition and to embark on their own initiatives. The Az W served as a communication platform and an interface for organisational networking, while social responsibility, sustainability and recycling, plus the idea of ‘Students Build’ provided the focus for the realisation.

In accordance with these aims, seven students designed and completed a community centre for the Instituto Tonantzin Tlalli in Ejutla, Oaxaca Province, Mexico. As well as fulfilling practical functions, the aim was to provide an impulse for new developments with the building, and to try out new building techniques.

In a first stage conducted in Vienna during the summer semester 2003, seven individual projects were developed. The following questions were addressed: How can architecture promote community with rituals and signs? What is and was the significance of architypical building elements like roof, tower, earth banks etc.? Are there other languages for sustainable architecture alongside regionalism and environmentalist clichés. How can imported high-tech be combined with regional low-tech?

During the summer a collaborative project was generated and developed from the seven approaches. The design needed to be sufficiently precise to focus the building process but also flexible enough to allow for unexpected decisions to be made. Over six months (winter semester 03/04) seven students and an assistant lecturer then undertook the building of the communal building of the research centre for eco-farming in the province of Oaxaca themselves, with the help of local labour.

The result is a successful experiment with bamboo as the raw material in a geometry that has to date only been familiar from digital simulations. A sculpture that collects the rainwater from the knoll and serves to control the irrigation of the plants of the Instituto Tonanzin Tlalli.
The impressive model on a scale of 1:10 completed on the building site parallel to the building work, video clips and sequences of photographs provide an insight into the exciting construction process on location in Mexico.

Introduction

Dietmar Steiner, Director of the Architekturzentrum Wien
Gerald Bast, principal at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna

Comments on the project

Wolf D. Prix, Institut für Architektur, University of Applied Arts Vienna

In situ report

Bärbel Müller, Lecturer Studio a3

Followed by the presentation of the book on the project