The [applied] Foreign Affairs lab of the Institute of Architecture, University of Applied Arts Vienna, is investigating the status and potential of Guabuliga, a remote village located in the tree savannah of Northern Ghana. Research started in Vienna in October 2011 with the goals of defining growth parameters and projecting growth patterns for the village. Guabuliga’s chief had invited [a]FA to collaborate and to articulate strategies towards an ecological future for his village.
During a three week fieldwork phase in February, 2012, an interdisciplinary team of 6 students extensively mapped the current physiognomy of the village. Guabuliga’s founding myth – the well by the thorn tree – is the conceptual starting point for coming up with contextual but novel spatial and programmatic scenarios. This environmental and infrastructural approach has been identified as a way to avoid the kind of master planning in a modernistic sense, that is favoured by governmental entities in the region and is generally associated with modernization and development. It has also turned out to be more relevant to generate an open space policy as opposed to a building/housing pattern in a context in which the design and realization of living space naturally lays in the hands of the villagers/users themselves.
together with:
Christian Car, Joseph Hofmarcher,Jürgen Strohmayer, Ionana Petkova, Theresa Theuretzbacher
Head of lab:
Bärbel Müller
die angewandte
applied foreign affairs lab.International Bauhaus.SOLAR AWARD 2012 for young talent (distinction)
“ The Guabuliga project in Ghana is to gain an award for its local research and the handling and solving of a complex question with simple means.”
bauhaus solar award.Nobuke Foundation_Accra, Ghana;
February 2012
.Sliver Gallery_University of Applied Arts Vienna; July 2012
.Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
Exhibition title:We Face Forward (towards the city); June 2012
. The Essence 2012 Künstlerhaus
(Exhibtion of University of Applied Arts Vienna); July 2012
. TU Berlin,
design.build.studio; Dezember 2012
.Prinz Eisenbeton #28
domus web
