At Home, Together
Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
Carbon Sink Studio l Studio David Benjamin
Program: Agribusiness Pilot Community
Project Partner: Wo Hong Wu
Project Year: Spring 2019
Location: State of Sergipe, Brazil
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Brejo Grande, as a proposed pilot community, will explore sugarcane and bamboo production and their use for sustainable local construction. The mission is to promote its economic growth and community fabric in carbon-free way through agro-ecological approach. The pilot community becomes a seed for new rural agribusiness town to be rolled out to wider Northeast region. We seek this new form of sustainable living to empower rural farmers in reaction to massive industrial agriculture operations.
We propose our project as a part of the IFAD initiatives. The mission is to develop local agribusiness and improve local construction knowledge through hands-on training. This pilot project starts by a piece of abandoned dry land being given to the residents, funded by IFAD. 8 years of sugarcane and bamboo cultivation in this land will sufficiently source the material to build the prototypical house on this land, therefore not just growing the crops, but growing their own house. 5 years of sugarcane and 3 years of bamboo cultivation will sequester approximately 92 tonnes of CO2 while yielding the building material for the house construction. This system provides the foundation for families to stay together, not moving to cities in search for works, and continue the family farming, mainly focusing on sugarcane and bamboo. As a sustainable community, carbon benefit is not restricted to the built area of the community, but will contribute to larger area by exporting sustainable building materials.
Using the 20 ft restriction of bamboo that human labor can handle, we explored different ways to create living and working space. The concept of solar wall is incorporated in designing these spaces. Walls slant outward to shield sunlight in spaces like living room and bedroom. Walls slant inward to harvest sunlight to dry bamboo in the ground level work space.
