PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
STUDIO CACAO: A cooperative-owned live / work community built around the immersive craft of chocolate and for a rich journey of the senses.
Studio Cacao is not simply a factory. It is a place of creation, a place of living, and a place of empowerment. It is a crucial step in building infrastructure to support an independent and sustainable future in the Ecuadorian art of chocolate-making. Here, incredibly diverse communities of people come together to share and build knowledge around each stage of the chocolate making process. Equally supported by technology, its local community, and its visitors, Studio Cacao is a space that celebrates the advancement of the Kallari families—its experience only further heightened by the intoxicating wonder and sensuality of chocolate.
The studio represents full engagement with the process of making, from raw bean to finished product. For a visitor, the tasting is not limited to a certain space in time; it is a fluid and rich journey of the senses that offers flavor of both chocolate and the Kallari way of life. Similarly, a visitor’s greeting may be to work alongside a farmer out in the field; a goodbye is a homemade meal using chocolate as ingredient in a family’s home. The scheme’s central colonnade, which joins factory and market spaces, becomes the studio’s venue through which visitors and growers foster this dialogue. In the spectrum of spaces in the scheme, the colonnade is the midpoint between the most private areas—the protected factory hall that preserves the mystique of chocolate—and the most public—the main courtyard that acts as fertile ground for gathering and festivities. Staging the most public space at the inside core encourages a sequential discovery of the space, with the finale rooted in a sense of community and empathy.
Design Principles and Concept Summaries:
1. TWO WAY LEARNING
At every touch-point, learning is acknowledged as a mutual exchange with an emphasis on the sharing personal stories and sensory experiences. This exchange happens between not only visitors and Kallari growers, but within Kallari families themselves.
RESIDENCY PROGRAMS
Space devoted to those who have a long term commitment to Kallari: local Kallari members or guests who have chosen to take up residency in order to learn, share best practices, and to develop improvements to the chocolate-making process.
TASTING TABLES
A place for pause, interaction, and discovery that marks each significant step of the chocolate making process. Each table is hosted by either the physical or symbolic presence of the individuals whose expertise lies at that point in the process. The dominant sensory element is elevated, encouraging tangible learning experiences.
TRADE GALLERY
Begin or conclude the experience with a moment of meaningful exchange where visitors exchange a representative craft from their own culture, forming an internationally-minded exhibit of inspirational products and artworks.
SATELLITE STALLS
Enable active links of communication to not only foster close business ties to the main facility, but also to stimulate educational opportunities for local families and their children.
2. ROOTED IN PROCESS
The physical journey through the studio parallels the journey of the cacao bean from rawness to refinement.
SAMPLE FARM
Kick off the experience with a hands-on, visceral walk through a maintained area of cacao growth, where visitors can observe and participate in the harvest.
STORYTELLING FACADE
The external envelope of the building visually unveils each stage of chocolate production by offering select windows into the storage of ingredients and workings of the factory machinery.
MARKET STALLS
Rethink the conventional separation of craft (process) and commerce (retail) by decentralizing the concept of a gift store. Create opportunities to appreciate and purchase different forms of chocolate.
3. A PUBLIC HEARTH
The campus moves through a spectrum of transparency, transitioning from a private perimeter to respect the work and life of the residents, to a public core devoted to embracing visitors.
EMBLEMS OF FAMILY
While showcasing the usage of local materials and construction methods, allow for modular flexibility in market stalls and public grounds, to exhibit the diversity of the individual Kallari families.
CENTRAL COURTYARD
With tribe communities, academic institutions, and the event of ‘Il Palio’ as inspiration, create the heart of the studio which acts as a river-facing destination for visitors and a public gathering space.
CONSTRUCTION METHODS:
- modular construction
- orientation
- air circulation / natural heating and cooling
- use of local materials
- solar abatement and harnessing
- rainwater capture and diversion
CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS:
- local clay tiles
- corrugated metal roofing
- bamboo (lashed or bolted)
- plyboo
- polycarbonate (for glazing)
- grass-crete, gravel
