Library of Muyinga

LIBRARY OF MUYINGAA PILOT PROJECT

BC architects & studiesin cooperation with

LUCA School of Arts, Sarolta Hüttl, Sebastiaan Debeir and Hanne Eckelmans.

We, the community

The library of Muyinga is our first story, a story of us all. “We” are not only BC architects & studies, “we” are also a director of a high school, a bishop for the Catholic Church, local family men and women, teachers, students and their parents, a nun, a foremen and 40 laborers, an NGO worker, and some hundreds of deaf and blind children. We are a community.

We were leaving to build elsewhere. Over there. Where survival needs and necessities teached us the meaning of architecture. Over there, where we were living within the community: we were searching for our identity in the anonymity and systematics of global development. We were there, very present, leaving our programmed knowledge behind.

We were thinking to build differently. We designed and built with specific local climate and client in mind, letting the characteristics of local materials inspire spaces. We worked together in a setting of trust and respect, where architects were crafting, craftsmen were designing, client was building.

We were desiring to build beautifully. The red earth, the handmade roof tiles, the crafted wood; the library is humble in materials, and bold in its beauty.

This is our story of a search in how to engage meaningfully in contemporary architecture. In trying to redefine architectural practice - learning from the old concept of a master-builder, but now being more of a multiple master-builder: the community. The “we”.

This contemporary master-builder might reach for a new architectural style: the contemporary vernacular.An architecture that is not a style, but the expression of a shared context, momentum, needs and desires.

The master-builder for the 90%

The state of the current economy has left a lot of young architects wondering if what they learned in modern education is relevant and useful in today’s world. In a global perspective, around 90% of the world’s population cannot afford an architect, who is trained to design from behind his computer and prescribe mass-produced materials. The pre-industrialized concept of a master-builder might just come back. It reflects the idea of an integral approach to architecture, embedded in local context, local materials and local craftsmanship. The master-builder conceives the building and its construction at the same time. The master-builder is the person in which social skills, technical knowhow and design vision come together, at once. He practices the contemporary disciplines of architecture, structural engineer, craftsman and contractor, and innovates building typologies only insofar it is needed and logical for the given context. In the past, he has built beauty in the form of Gothic cathedrals, Italian Renaissance villa’s and chapels, Roman Colosseums, North-European farm housing, Arabian fortresses, and so on.

Today, with 90% of the world’s population not being able to afford a modern architect, the master-builder delivers homes and other infrastructure worldwide. We are respectful and intrigued by this integrated approach to the building process, and we believe that contemporary architectural practice can evolve towards a renewed master-builder concept in order to give better service to the 90%.Through contemporary ways of sharing time, knowledge and effort in between cultures, the master-builder becomes a ‘topos’, a common place of designing and building, on site and through internet, in between cultures. The contemporary master-builder is multiple, shared by the community.

An innovative vernacular

When building for the 90%, resource limitations actually open up new possibilities. The economic and ecological cost of cement, steel and fired bricks, makes our attention go towards other solutions. Through a thorough sensitivity for local materials and their potential, the building starts to show the story of the construction process, specific to the people and place involved. The use of the red earth makes that the building blends in nicely with its environment. Finishing layers such as the roof and floor tiles and the internal earth plaster testify of the handlabour involved. Experimental elements such as the sisal net mezzanine integrate and innovate traditional craftsmanship in rope weaving.All of these techniques and materials make an vernacular architecture, though not the one of hundreds of years ago, but an innovative vernacular which is fit to address the needs and the challenges of a globalizing society.

Chapter 1

Nyanza-Lac

RumongeBururi

Mwaro

Gitega

Muramvya

KayanzaNgoziCibitoke

Ruyiga

Cankuzo

Karuzi

Muyinga

Rutana

Makamba

Bujumbura

democratic republic

of the CONGO

unitedrepublic of

TANZANIA

RWANDA

2010 30 km0

Map of the world with Burundi as the red dot.

Map of Burundi with Muyinga as the red dot

Intro

BC stands for Brussels Cooperation and points to how BC grew - embedded within place and people. BC architects & studies is one group trying to conceive, create and practice architecture and urbanism as a potent lever in an ongoing paradigmatic shift in world balances.

The “library of Muyinga” is a great example of the process BC architects & studies try to apply. The library’s architecture is a result of the integrative approach with local people and place. In-depth research of site-specific circumstances, interdisciplinary cooperations on various scales, a slow growth of ideas which needed time to ripen, and thorough knowledge of the local materials; all these aspects asked for a building process which is constantly shared as common knowledge to all involved.

The library project started four years ago, when ODEDIM, a Burundian NGO, and SATIMO, a Belgian NGO, requested to BC architects & studies to research the feasibility of constructing an inclusive school for deaf children in the north-western border region of Burundi: Muyinga. This request was followed by an on site field mission by BC architects & studies, engaging in organizational, financial, architectural, constructional and social aspects of the community of Muyinga.

A library for Muyinga

Organizational: phasing

In order to facilitate ODEDIM and SATIMO in finding the necessary funding, the construction of the school for deaf children was divided in 3 phases. Phase 1, the pilot project, concerns the building of a library and two adjacent public squares, one bordering the street and one oriented towards the future school. Phase 2 is currently under construction, and consists of two classrooms, a small sanitary block and a playground. Phase 3 will result in four classrooms, a big sanitary block, and a refectory with kitchen. Phase 4 is a student-run workshop and extra classrooms.

The strategy of phasing the construction of the whole school was favorable for several reasons; - The typological construction methods of phase 1, the pilot project, has enabled to transfer knowledge to the foreman and builders to continue phase 2 to 4 without being dependant on external expertise.- It allows for sufficient time to engage with the local community in a social and organic way, building trust and ensuring relevant design input from the local community.- Each finished construction phase can exist as an autonomous building in case of unexpected situations (e.g. no funding for the next phase,...).- Phasing allows for smaller construction sites, which are common in the region: local foremen and builders can handle the scale. With subsequent phases, the scale of the construction gets bigger, and capacity for handling bigger sites is created.

Phasing of the school with phase 1 as the Library of Muyinga.

Financial: local economy cycles

The costs of most of the construction projects now happening in Burundi is often high, due to overhead costs of international team members (e.g. flight tickets, ...), use of imported materials (mainly cement and steel) and the need of high expertise contractors traveling from the capital Bujumbura or even further, to install special techniques. The use of local materials and local expertise diminished the construction costs drastically and made the construction site into an example for the region. Local products and craftsman were favored and employment was given to the local community.

Night view from the street

Social: building for communities

The social aspect of the construction process is impor-tant on all scales. Several practices reinforced the inte-gration between the building site community, the wider regional community, and the international architects and students : - Excavated earth was sold to farmers as this earth is very useful for agriculture.- If not bought from the local shops, all materials were locally sourced and produced on site or in town, giving all possible work to the local community to activate the local economy.- Low-capital, labour-intensive techniques such as compressed Earth Blocks (CEB) and nature stone were used, and in this process knowledge was transferred, and capacity built for the local labourers.- A local foreman (Salvator) follows the on-site work together with a local architect.- Several labourers became mason-helpers or masons during the construction process. These transitions were celebrated according to mason guild traditions.

View from the hallway

Architectural: vernacular inspirations

A thorough study of vernacular architectural practices in Burundi was the basis of the design of the building. Two months of fieldwork in the region and surrounding provinces gave us insight in the local materials, techniques and building typologies. These findings were applied, updated, reinterpreted and framed within the local know-how and traditions of Muyinga.

The library is organized along a longitudinal covered circulation space. This “hallway porch” is a space often encountered within the Burundian traditional housing as it provides a shelter from heavy rains and harsh sun. Life happens mostly in this hallway porch; encounters, resting, conversation, waiting - it is a truly social space, constitutive for community relations.This hallway porch is deliberately oversized to become the extent of the library. Transparent doors between the columns create the interaction between inside space and porch. Fully opened, these doors make the library open up towards the adjacent square with breathtaking views over Burundi’s “milles collines” (1000 hills).

On the longitudinal end, the hallway porch flows onto the street, where blinders control access. These blinders are an important architectural element of the street facade, showing clearly when the library is open or closed. On the other end, the hallway porch will continue as the main circulation and acces space fot the future school. A very important element in Burundian (and, generally, African) architecture is the very present demarcation of property lines. It is a tradition that goes back to tribal practices of compounding family settlements. For the library of Muyinga, the compound wall was considered in a co-design process with the community and the local NGO. The wall facilitates the terracing of the slope as a retaining wall in dry stone technique, low on the squares and playground of the school side, high on the street side. Thus, the view towards the valley is uncompromised, while safety from the street side is guaranteed.

Plan of the library

Section of the library

The general form of the library is the result of a structural logic, derived from the material choice (Compressed Earth Blocks masonry and baked clay roof tiles). The locally produced roof tiles were considerably more heavy than imported currogated iron sheets. This inspired the structural system of closely spaced columns at 1m30 intervals, which also act as buttresses for the high walls of the library. This rhytmic repetition of columns is a recognizable feature of the building, on the outside as well as on the inside.The roof has a slope of 35% with an overhang to protect the unbaked CEB blocks, and contributes to the architecture of the library.

Climatic considerations inspired the volume and facade: a high interior with continuous cross-ventilation helps to guide the humid and hot air away. Hence, the façade is perforated according to the rhythm of the Compressed Earth Blocks (CEB) masonry, giving the library its luminous sight in the evening.

The double room height at the street side gave the possibility to create a special space for the smallest of the library readers. This children’s space consists of a wooden sitting corner on the ground floor, which might facilitate cosy class readings. It is topped by an enor-mous hammock of sisal rope as a mezzanine, in which the children can dream away with the books that they are reading.

The future school will continue to swing intelligently through the landscape of the site, creating playgrounds and courtyards to accomodate existing slopes and trees. In the meanwhile, the library will work as an au-tonomous building with a finished design.

Inside view of the library: the hammock creating the children’s space

The building and the adjacent front square at night

Inside view of the library

View on the 1000 hills of Burundi

View from the hallway to the inside of the library

Constructional; local materials and solutions

Local materials and solutions were used as much as possible, for economical and ecological benefits, and to generate beauty and pride within the community:

- Dry stone walling: systematical stacking of nature stone without the use of mortar for the retaining walls, to enable the water to pass through and lessen the lat-eral earth pressure on the walls, while cutting down costs by not using cement.

- Compressed Earth Blocks (CEB) masonry: made from a mix of sand and earth from the site, these unbaked bricks provide beautiful and easy masonry with earth mortar jointing.

- Baked clay roof and floor tiles: the roof and floor tiles are fired from locally sourced valley clay.

- Sisal hammock: a hammock woven from the sisal plant found on the construction site, with local weav-ers extending their knowledge into innovative weaving techniques.

- Earth plaster: the interior is plastered until the ring beam with an earth plaster with unbaked clay from the valley, and sand.

- Eucalyptus wooden beams: the roof structure is made from Eucalyptus beams, processed in cooperation with a local forest manager, which grows and harvests Eu-calyptus trees in managed cycles.

A closed library in the morning

An open library in the evening

Social reintegration: reconnecting the deaf and blind community to broader society.

In a very informal and oral Burundian culture, deaf children are excluded from stories, information, exchange, education. Often, deaf children are isolated, or even expelled from a certain group of people. The library of Muyinga, linked to an inclusive boarding school for deaf children, creates the possibility to belong to a group, to belong to the wider community of Muyinga through public infrastructure as the first of its kind in Muyinga.In a later stage, the school will further integrate its deaf students into broader society by a future school-based wood workshop, and a future polyvalent hall, both serving the wider community of Muyinga.

Intercultural Dialogue and participatory processes

Since several years or even decades, participatory design has taken a more prominent role in modern architecture. Some of these initiatives are very innovative but often fail to translate well-intended theory to real-life practice. BC architects & studies has focused from the beginning on the implementation of participatory processes in constructional practice. We do this not only by cooperating with local workforces, but also by involving students, interns and young architects. This way, a project not only becomes a one-sided implementation from the top (or “north”) down, but shows a learning process that involves local workers and architects with northern architects, students and interns. The knowledge that has been built up through this project, empowers the local community in economical and ecological issues, while creating an effective educational setting for intercultural dialogue and architecture for northern students.The board of the library includes all directors of neighboring primary and secondary schools, facilitating contact and cooperation between the future deaf students and the hearing students. The library will also host cinema-nights for the whole community of Muyinga.

Pierre, a deaf child.

Meeting the deaf community of Gitega, Burundi.

Chapter 2

A community project

Educational processes during construction

The construction process is facilitated by different edu-cational processes:

Summer school with LUCA architecture university Brussels: Every year 3-6 students join us to work on the field in Burundi for at least 6 weeks, supported by a scholarship of VLIR-UOS. These students report on their summer school during an elective in their 1st or 2nd master year in Architecture.

Experience trip for Zevenkerken High School: Every year, around 20-30 high school students come and denlarge their perspective during a 2 week stay in Bu-rundi. These students help with easy tasks such as painting, earthworks, and even one time Compressed Earth Block construction.

Architecture internships: every year 1-2 people join us for their architectural internship during at least 1 month. Here they help with tasks such as CAD draw-ings, site supervision assistance, and so on.

Whatever the group, everyone joins in small on-site prototyping workshops on diverse topics such as CEB production, adobe production, earth analysis, bamboo weaving, sisal weaving, foundation solutions, furniture design, and so on.

These explorations are always done in an atmosphere of mutual contact and respect with local craftsmen, whereby knowledge of all involved is shared. They bring an understanding of the direct social, cultural, ecolog-ical and economical effects of certain actions in a glo-balizing world: small scale actions do matter.

Together, we search towards a more sensible understanding of the abstract term sustainability: it is not about the definitions, but about the way how one makes the definition. We believe that these experiences create a framework of critical reflection and action in a globalizing world.

Students of Zevenkerken walk 5km for the water supply.

Workshop on earth-techniques for architecture students of LUCA

Testing the CEB bricks on flexion (bending) force.

Short-chain economy, knowledge transfer, capacity building

All material research, design decisions and construc-tion site organisation aims at keeping a short supply chain of expertise, labour, and materials. We try to re-inforce the local economy by means of this short sup-ply chain. We chose hand labour over machine labour when organizing earthworks; we hire only local labour-ers, a local foreman and local architect, to avoid the in-terference of a contractor from Bujumbura or Rwanda; we focus on the use of local materials such as earth for the masonry and finishing, clay for the roof and floor tiles, sisal for the hammock, Eucalyptus for the roof structure, and if we have to use cement, we try to do it as minimal as possible, wile buying it in the local shop.Throughout the process of the construction, we try to create good conditions for knowledge transfer. The builders have mastered CEB production and construc-tion, earth plaster through our input. We have mastered the sisal hammock weaving and the floor and roof tiles detailing through the input of the local builders, and so on. The knowledge transfer goes in all directions.In the end, the construction process of the library will have built capacity. The foreman is talking about mounting a CEB production facility to sell CEB blocks to Muyinga residents; 12 labourers have made it to ma-son-helpers or even masons during the process, which was celebrated according to the masons’ guild tradi-tions; we have learned (and continue learning) how to act as architects in a globalizing world; the architecture students and interns have learned design with short-chain materials, to be applied in a Western construc-tion context also. The capacity building process is end-less and ongoing.

International collaborations

For this project, the architects of BC-AS worked in association with the NGO of the diocese of Muyinga Odedim (Organisation Diocésaine pour l’Entraide et le Développement Intégral de Muyinga). Together they promote a holistic approach in the construction process in Burundi, with a specific focus on the development of educational structures (schools). Satimo, a small Belgian non-profit, gives financial support. Besides that, the project is closely connected to SHC, an NGO for helping sensorial handicaped people in Africa.Also Rotary Aalst, Zonta Brugge, Province of West-Flanders, Abdijschool Zevenkerke and VOCATIO are given a worthy mention for their financial support. Finally VLIR-UOS in combination with the faculty of architecture of KU Leuven, campus Sint-Lucas Brussels/Ghent, and the Hogeschool Ghent are the academic partner of this project.

Working on the facade

An old craftsman teaching a labourer how to weave the hammock

Workshop with students of Muyinga to build bamboo lamp fixtures

The library construction and organization team

CEB: “from mother nature”

After an extensive material research in relation with the context, it was decided to use compressed earth bricks (CEB) as the main material for the construction of the building. The CEB building technique was often used during the nineties but lost its glamour during the years, until architect Francis Kéré made use of it again in noticeable projects in Africa. BC studies always had an interest in earth as a raw material and believed in the potential of it. The library project in Burundi, gave the opportunity to fully explore earth architecture.

Tiles: “local quality product”

The roof tiles are made in a local atelier in the surroundings of Muyinga. The tiles are made of baked valley clay.After baking, their color renders beautifully vague pink, in the same range of colors as the bricks. Each roof surface in the library design consists of around 1400 tiles.This roof replaces imported currogated iron sheets, and revalues local materials as a key design element for public roof infrastructure.

Sisal rope: “from plant to hammock”

Net-making from Sisal plant fibres is one of the small micro-economies that bloomed in this project. It took a lot of effort to find the only elder around Muyinga that masters the Sisal rope weaving technique. He harvested the local sisal plant on site, and started weaving. In the pilote project, he educated 4 other workers, who now also master this technique, and use it as a skill to gain their livelihood. The resulting hammock serves as a children’s space to play, relax and read, on a mezzanine level above the library space.

Local materials and techniques

The challenge of limited resources for this project became an opportunity. We managed to respect a short supply-chain of building materials and labor force, supporting local economy, and installing pride in the construction of a library with the poor people’s material: earth.

Chapter 3

Local materials consultancy

Eucalyptus “wood; the strongest, the reddest”

The load bearing beams, which are supporting the roof, are made of eucalyptus wood, sustainably harvested in Muramba. Eucalyptus wood renders soil acid and therefor blocks other vegetation to grow. Thus, a clear forest management vision is needed to control its use in the Burundian hills. When rightly managed, Eucalyptus is the best solution to span spaces and to use as construction wood, due to its high strength and fast growth.

Concrete “when it’s the only way out”

For this pilot project, we didn’t want to take any risks for structural issues. A lightweight concrete skeleton structure is inside the CEB columns, in a way that both materials (CEB and concrete) are mechanichally seperated. The CEB hollow columns were used as a “lost” formwork for the concrete works. It is our aim, given our experience with Phase 1, to eliminiate the structural use of concrete for future buildings.

Terstaram: “made in Belgium”

These 2 machines were probably the most advanced tools on the site. Dating back to the eighties, they were spread all over Burundi. We were lucky enough to find some of these intactly under 15 years of dust. The Terstaram machines produce earth blocks of 29x14x9cm that are very similar to the bricks we know in the West, apart from the fact that they are not baked. The basic principle is the following; make a good earth mix, put the earth in the mould of the machine and press it together. This delivers a finished stone.Four people are constantly producing stones, up to 1100 stones/day.

Bamboo: “Weaving lamp fixtures”

Local bamboo is not of construction quality, but can nicely be used for special interior design functions, or light filters. In a joint workshop with Burundians and Belgians, some weaving techniques were explored, and in the end, used for the lamp fixtures inside the library.

Shovel “oldschool, but so reliable”

A big amount of earth needed to move. As the site is situated on a rather steep hill, big parts needed to get flattened.Because moving earth by hand is very labour intensive, we prefer to use the good old reliable shovel above a bulldozer. The work takes longer by shovel, but more people benefit financially.

Earth analysis: “field tests and laboratory tests”

Raw earth as a building material is more fragile than other conventional building materials. Analysis needs to be done. Some easy tests can be made on field to have a first idea of the earth’s quality. Some other tests have to be made in the laboratory to have a beter understanding of the material and improve its performance.

Internal Earth plaster: “simple but sensitive”

Clay from the valley of Nyamaso, 3 km from the construction site, was used for its pure and non-expansive qualities. After some minimal testing with bricks, a mix was chosen and applied on the interior of the library. The earth plaster is resistent to indoor normal use for a public function, and has turned out nicely.

Sieve: “selfmade improvisation”

This set-up for a sieving system was necessary to produce earth with a certain particle size. The total earth mix contains a specific ratio of particle sizes in order to work together as one solid brick.The sieving grid was brought from Belgium and the system was put together with some trial and error. The final outcome turned out to be the most practical solution for the workmen.

Field test to observe the earth shrinkage and...

Field test to get an impression of the grain size

CEB test production on site to compare different mixes of earth and sand.

Laboratory test at CRAterre called “ grain size distribution”

...to get an impression of the cohesion

BC architects & studiesin cooperation with

LUCA School of Arts, Sarolta Hüttl, Sebastiaan Debeir and Hanne Eckelmans.

Website: www.bc-as.orgEmail: [email protected]

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