<
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/feb/21/organizmo-the-colombian-architects-overturning-colonialist-sustainability-ideas>
"A curious doughnut-shaped structure rises from an overgrown field on the
outskirts of Tenjo, a rural town in central Colombia. It looks like a thatched
UFO. Bamboo lattice walls curve up from the ground to form its bulging shell,
tapering to a central chimney where wisps of smoke waft into the sky. Through
the mesh walls, it is possible to make out bodies dancing in a circle around a
fire, to the sound of drumming and chanting.
“As architects, we need to unlearn everything we have been taught,” says Ana
María Gutiérrez, standing outside this momentous structure in muddy overalls,
boots and a broad-brimmed black hat. “Our idea of progress is completely based
on colonialist, extractivist practices. People talk about sustainability, but
what exactly are we sustaining?”
The woven doughnut, Gutiérrez explains, is The House of Thought – an
“intercultural temple” at the heart of her Centre for Regeneration. This is a
30-acre outdoor laboratory for indigenous construction techniques that she’s
been building for 16 years. It is a place scattered with experiments, from
structures that look like coil pots, to little domed houses built from
sandbags. Some of the cavorting bodies inside the thatched temple belong to
architects, who have come here for the day to cleanse themselves of their desk
jobs, and get their hands dirty in workshops focusing on earth construction,
ecological restoration, biodynamic agriculture and the healing properties of
medicinal plants. Some are busy making bricks from troughs of mud.
Like many of the day’s participants, Gutiérrez used to work in a corporate
architecture practice, in her case in New York. One day, while on holiday back
home in Colombia, she travelled to Barichara, in the north, to take part in a
workshop on rammed earth. “The moment I was barefoot,” she says, “working with
the earth, I was like, ‘What am I doing sitting at a desk, working on a
computer all day, every day?’”
She returned to Colombia in 2008, after inheriting land in Tenjo. Here, she
resolved to create a centre for ecologically minded construction and “learning
through sensorial experiences”. She established Fundación Organizmo, which
helps remote tribal communities preserve and enhance their ancient skills.
“What if we saw ancestral knowledge not as a romantic past,” she asks, “but as
a vivid present that could teach us resilience?”"
Via
Reasons to be Cheerful:
<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/what-were-reading-uk-teens-study-nature/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
