Let's continue the woven architecture thread that started yesterday with a brief focus on another project on display in the Arsenale spaces at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. The project in question consists in a natural woven wicker structure by Andramatin, a practice founded by Isandra Matin Ahmad, inspired by traditional building forms employed in Indonesia.
Visitors can actually enter the structure and wander around it: a staircase leads to the top of the small tower-like construction and, as they climb it, they will discover models of traditional houses in Indonesia that show imagination and invention.
In the Biennale installation Andramatin explores indeed a section of the Indonesian archipelago, from Sabang to Merauke: thousands of islands rise up out of the sea along these places positioned 6 degrees and 8 degrees below the Equator. These places also imply diverse ethnicities, natural treasures, histories, cultures and religious beliefs, but one shared commong design intention - surviving tropical climate.
Though the models showcase different types of houses designed and built following various architectural languages, elevation remains a constant feature.
Some houses are built on top of the ground, with dried grass as flooring; others are raised a few steps above the ground. In many regions houses are raised and supported by pilotis, a practice inspired by the spiritual beliefs of the locals that also offers a solution to floods and to the attacks of wild animals. The spaces below the houses (that can rise as high as 10 metres above the ground) can be used to house livestock or store foods.
Over 55% of the local population in Indonesia live in urban areas, but traditional constructions built with available materials and employing local techniques have so far offered interesting building methods and the temporary structure in the Arsenale is inspired by such techniques.
The structure offers an interaction with nature as the material employed to make it is natural wicker, woven in a very special way so that the surface of the building seems to create three-dimensional squarish motifs.
While the outer surface is fascinating, the most interesting thing remains the fact that you can climb inside it and discover in this tower-like configuration other buildings that show strong links between architecture and natural elements such as the ground, the sky and the breeze. The models of houses featured in the building seem to have grown almost naturally, they look as if they had developed with the people who inhabit them.
The house that Andramatin built becomes therefore a platform combining contemporary crafts and modernity, versatility and traditions, material and technical skills with nature.
Last but not least, the project - that got a special mention at this year's biennale with the motivation "for a sensitive installation that provides a framework to reflect on the material and form of traditional vernacular structures" - invites visitors to consider how local traditions can become global and wonder if it is possible to apply the architectural language of a region to another country, using materials that are readily available in one place and making nature respond to and interact with them. The theme of elevation offers a different perspective and spatial experience to visitors, using the Indonesian architectural vernacular to represent a path to global freespace.
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