HARVEST HOME - AQSO arquitectos office - Cauca Valley, Colombia

The self-sufficient housing concept is especially relevant where there is a strong demand and qualified labour and technical resources are scare.

In the last 40 years, approximately 3 million people have been forced to leave their homes in Colombia, quantifying it as the country with the highest number of displaced people in the world.

The project is located in the Cauca valley, between the Occidental and Central mountain chain, where a superb construction material is abundant and growth is natural: bamboo. This versatile, light-weight, biodegradable and sustainable raw material differs from other woods in that it grows again after being cut.

The “Harvest Home” is an experimental house based on a traditional scheme: day and night activities are separated in two floors around a fireplace. Its slender figure becomes an organic element that rises over the landscape’s valley and its bamboo shell creates a hard wearing structure interwoven with a wicker mesh.

Houses in Cauca valley are ready to be harvested. Their occupants will have a handmade and sustainable space to live in, while the bamboo will continually replenish itself in this fertile Colombian region.

www.en.51arch.com

www.aqso.net