| February 1, 2012 |
February 2012 to February 2014
WHAT: Residency opportunities for learning-by-doing in vernacular African architecture.
WHO CAN PARTICIPATE: Open to all students and recent graduates of Structural Design, Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and others interested in sustainable architecture and rural community development projects in Africa.
DURATION: Program duration is one month and can be extended by mutual agreement between February 2012 and February 2014
WHERE: Sang Arts Village, Sang, Yendi District, Northern Region, Ghana
APPLICATION: To apply, e-mail detail on what your plan to accomplish during the residency, your CV, and examples of your work to info@nkafoundation.org. For details on our projects go to www.nkafoundation.org.
PROPOSED PROJECT:
Sang is a rural township in Northern part of Ghana, 50 kilometers from Tamale. Our plan is to construct the structures that make up the Sang Arts Village by maximum use of local labor, earth and other materials from the environment. Specifically, the construction process and materials is vernacular involving cob, natural plaster, and grass thatching.
It is a site-based opportunity to get hands on construction experience together with design responsibility. A typical responsibility will be to design and build a structure for community arts activities. It may be a small design-and-build task such as a hut for use as a studio/work space or a sleeping unit. You can generate field drawings, fieldnotes,
process photos or video to record thoughts. You have one month to design it, build it and document it!
As an intern practitioner, you will work with local artisans to realize your design project. You will have the opportunity to solve the technical issues that come up as part of building the project. You will gain cross-cultural experience from working with local artisans of varying levels of experience and oral English. The design-and-build programme is conceived to bridge the gap between theory and practical application to make a well-rounded practitioner. For students, it is an opportunity to experience the vernacular construction process first hand and to learn to design what is build-able. For professionals, you will find the residency an inspirational break from your desk job to rediscover the rudiments of architecture and nuances that may refresh your practice.
PROJECT CONTEXT
The challenges of sustainable development continue to exist in the diverse
countries of sub-Saharan Africa. In the rural economic vein, many questions
keep coming to our minds: How can we blend the vernacular and contemporary
traditions to generate choice for the economically underprivileged? What process and structure would work in a sustainable manner? It is in the search of answers to these questions that the arts village initiative evolved. We proceed on the premise that to improve the younger generation’s prospects, it is often necessary to change the rural conditions that perpetuate economic and social marginalization.
Nka Foundation’s arts village project provides opportunities in form of workspaces and incubators for vocational skill development of young adults in
the underserved areas of the sub-Sahara. The long-term goal is to create a
network of arts village sites in some countries in the sub-Sahara, Southeast
Asia, Eastern Europe, and South America to continue to foster cross-cultural
synergy for tapping local resources for sustainable human capital development
through the arts and culture industry. Each arts village will have vocational skills development program for the rural populace and cross-cultural skills enrichment programs for practitioners from around the world. All together, the arts villages form an institution, the Nka Foundation.
SangArtsVillage11 x17 size panels.pdf (420 KB)
This post was submitted by Barthosa Nkurumeh .
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