Open Architecture Network

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

Chocologia -- Connecting farmer, consumer, and the environment

Open Architecture Challenge

I. Introduction
In designing our project, our greatest inspiration came from the members of Kallari themselves. Harnessing the natural environment to develop a symbiotic relationship between cacao farmers and the rainforest, Kallari sets a precedent for how to design sustainably. Taking a holistic approach, our proposal is not simply the design of a single chocolate factory building and rural technology center. Rather, we hope to create a larger system that utilizes these design elements to establish and maintain connections between Kallari farmers, chocolate consumers, and the local environment – a principle we refer to as Chocología.

Our design approach began with considering the concrete problems currently facing Ecuadorian farmers and the chocolate industry as a whole. The uneducated consumer, the unknown farmer, the Kichwa student lacking education funds, the field of pesticide-laden monoculture – these were our inspirations. This competition, coupled with Kallari’s unique cooperative model, offers the potential to create local and global connections never before possible to solve these problems. Our proposal is a comprehensive social, economical, ecological, and technological network inherently designed to foster these connections.

The factory building and technology at the core of this network are by nature fundamentally connected to each other both in principle and in practice.

II. Chocolate Factory

Factory Concept

Kallari’s chocolate factory will be one of the most important and exciting developments in the history of the cooperative and its members. Thus we aimed to design a building that Kallari will be proud of – by blending native Kichwa architecture, sustainable design, and modern architectural knowledge.

Factory Site

Applying our design philosophy to the chocolate factory site allowed us to design not only a building, but a largely self-supporting community. Our search for underlying problems led us to three solutions which define our factory site design: 1) generating food and energy on-site, 2) engaging workers and visitors with the entire site, and 3) rehabilitating the site itself.

Food

Locality of food is a critical component of sustainability – especially for a cooperative that wants to preserve and display its culture but is working within a budget. Using the current menu in the Kallari Café in Quito as a template, we analyzed ingredients used in native cuisine to inspire a site which organically generates enough food for 80 servings of native dishes each day. In this way, workers, visitors, and tourists can enjoy organic, fresh, local food at the factory café every day. In addition to being a food production system, these small farm plots will serve as a valuable educational tool for visitors, along with the extensive greenhouse. Visitors will have the chance to pick their own strawberries, walk through the herb garden where their tea was grown, or smell the orchids which produced the vanilla in their chocolate. This system will not only lower associated fuel use and transportation costs dramatically, but will increase revenues for Kallari farmers by creating new products to market.

Energy & Water

Our site is also largely self-sufficient with respect to energy and water. Three acres of the site will become a renewable, native bamboo forest. Much of this bamboo will be used as biomass to create charcoal on-site, a carbon-neutral process which can be used instead of gas for space heating, cooking, and tempering.? This acreage is more than sufficient to provide fuel for four cooking/tempering stoves to operate 5 hours/day and to heat more than 3000 square feet of space. Five brick kilns (5 square meters each) will provide a constant supply of charcoal throughout the year, with the result of internalizing fuel costs, creating two jobs, and educating visitors on the sustainable practice. The kilns will be built immediately, but will use bamboo from the Amazon communities for the first five years of production as the on-site forest matures.

150 square meters of solar panels on the roof of the east wing will provide electrical energy for the site year-round. The panels will feature simple adjustable mounts to maximize generation throughout the year.

Water will drain inward from both roofs, and then travel down a mixture of buried and exposed drainage pipes to the retention pond in the center of the outdoor marketplace/public area. Overflow from the retention pond will be directed to an underground cistern, from which water will be pumped to both wings of the factory as well as the greenhouse.

Engagement

With such a large and beautiful site, we feel visitors should be encouraged to explore the full area and be educated about Kallari and sustainability in the process. This is also in alignment with Kallari’s long-term goal of having visitors stay overnight at the factory site. To this end, we have created a series of pathways around the site to encourage circulation. A short walk from the factory, visitors will be able to explore the bamboo and native forests, pick fruit from the organic farm plots, visit the river and relax on an observation deck, and learn about the bamboo charcoal production process.

Rehabilitation

Agriculture and grazing in the region have led to the degradation of one of Ecuador’s most unique and valuable ecosystems – its tropical highland forests, such as those found near Baeza. In response to this issue, we believe a significant portion of the site should be restored, over time, as native forest. Nearly all remaining site area, after food and bamboo cultivation, will be restored to its natural state over a few decades. The result will take the form of years of visible change and growth on a site previously razed for cattle. The land will be conserved so that visitors and workers may experience the ecosystem firsthand through activities such as botanical site tours, birdwatching, and trail maintenance.

Factory Buildings

Our factory buildings were inspired by 1) indigenous Kichwa architecture, 2) considerations of lighting, ventilation, and water reuse systems, 3) detailed research of the chocolate-making process, and 4) the shape of a cacao pod. They were designed specifically to foster opportunities for connections between visitors, workers, the environment, and cacao/chocolate.

Form

We propose two slightly curved structures, enclosing a public outdoor courtyard and marketplace. The curved walls are representative of a common traditional Kichwa building form found throughout the Amazon. The courtyard will be a point of focus throughout, and will also serve as an outdoor marketplace.

Program

The main access road offers hidden views into the valley as visitors and workers wind down the hill through bamboo forest to approach the factory. The entrance pathway to the factory is enclosed in an extended greenhouse, with vanilla orchids, herbs, flowers, and cacao trees that will begin the visitors’ experience of the chocolate process. The western wing contains the lobby, gallery, community library, computer training room, photo lab, and administrative spaces. Entering the western wing, a warm lobby and gallery area will educate and entertain tourists prior to going on a tour, and will serve as a gathering space for visitors and workers alike. The computer training room has views into the courtyard and a connection to the amphitheatre. The roof is designed to drain into an underground cistern underneath the courtyard, which will supply water to the entire factory. A shaded exterior walkway carries visitors through the spaces and connects to the western wing. In this section, the factory, café, and storage are housed. A visitor’s tour will continue through an interior walkway with views showcasing the entire chocolate-making process, before ending in the café/point of purchase. They can then order food and drink, buy chocolate, relax on the adjoining outdoor deck, or explore the rest of the site. From a worker’s standpoint, there are full views into the courtyard and the walkway from the space, which is naturally lit throughout much of the day. The bamboo and clay tile roof features a sawtooth structure designed to be used for either daylighting/heat gain or ventilation/cooling when and where appropriate.

Materials

The majority of the walls will be constructed from clay bricks produced outside of nearby Papallacta. These are both a local material and less energy intensive to produce than the typical CMU/rebar seen throughout the country and region. The roof will feature clay tile, wood columns and an extensive secondary bamboo structure. Bamboo floors will be used where possible. Tiles will be used on the factory floor.

Community Involvement

We understand that Kallari will have the final word in all design decisions, but we have designated specific portions of the design to directly engage community members. In the Kichwa tradition, communal building projects are seen as a crucial tool for strengthening community. In our proposal, vernacular worker housing structures will be designed and built by community members using local techniques to give them a chance to hold a piece of the design as their own. The structure would likely have a 10-15 year lifespan, after which it would be redesigned and rebuilt from the ground up by the next generation of Kallari. Additionally, we have designed in opportunities for job creation over time (agriculture, charcoal, etc.) so that more people can take part in the factory’s functioning. (This, in turn, requires additional community-built housing.) Due to the wealth of native construction knowledge and simplicity of the design, we also plan to have the factory constructed as much as possible by labor from within Kallari to give farmers an extra opportunity to earn money and contribute to making the building a reality.

Volcanic Resistance

Concern over tectonic activity in the region has mounted since the 2002 eruption of nearby Reventador, when ash fell in Baeza after 26 years of inactivity. Since Kallari envisions their factory lasting for generations, this may be an important consideration. The clay tile roof featured in our design is more resistant to volcanic ash than other local materials such as metal or thatching. Dividing our program into two main parts allowed us to use shorter roof spans, providing stronger support structure in the event of ash fallout. Finally, the fact that food is generated on-site will allow for easy emergency stockpiling in case roads are closed due to lava flows. We envision the factory as being a safe-haven rather than a liability in the event of a volcanic emergency.

Hub Connection

The connection to and integration with the technology hub are key elements of our factory design, and the hub’s potential uses on the factory site have been factored in accordingly. When the hub makes a visit to Baeza for cacao transportation or otherwise, it is deployed as an educational and presentation unit at the point where the two structures approach each other on the south side of the factory site. A small outdoor amphitheatre will surround this connection point, and may house audiences for movie showings or outdoor presentations.

III. Satellite Technology Hubs

Hub Concept

(We understand that the main priority for the members of Kallari is to have their own chocolate factory to increase their membership and revenues and to serve as a testament to their commitment to the environment. Thus, we have ensured that the technology hubs featured in this competition do more than provide internet access to rural areas, a secondary goal for the cooperative. Instead, the hubs use technology to create connections both within Kallari and between Kallari and the rest of the world.)

Our hub proposal is designed to fit in seamlessly with Kallari’s current system of cacao production and distribution. Currently, Kallari has multiple purposes for visiting its member communities – namely 1) to give agrotechnical educational presentations and 2) to pick up cacao after harvest and fermentation. Our design transforms the trucks currently used in these visits into technology centers capable of transporting computers and cacao together. This system accomplishes many important goals for the cooperative. It provides mobility and accessibility without increasing fuel use. It ensures that all Kallari communities, regardless of size or location, have equal but frequent access to the new resources being brought into their native lifestyles. Finally, it allows each community to literally connect itself to the world.

Hub Design

When transporting cacao and agrotechnicians, the truck functions as it does conventionally. On a community or factory visit, the truck opens up into a structure usable as a community internet café and educational presentation center.

Structure & Materials

The metal walls of the truck’s cargo area fold down to become 1) ramps for loading/unloading cacao and 2) supported platforms to effectively triple the usable space for education and computer use. This is an important feature considering the mobile hub will often be used for presentations to many community members at a time. For shading and rain protection, two impermeable bamboo structures slide out from inside the roof to cover the newly created spaces. A steel box inside the truck serves as both 1) secure storage space for equipment and folding tables and 2) seating when computers are being used. Local metalworkers and carpenters in Tena have the equipment and experience to build such a structure.

Hub Network

Access One principle that is integral to the people of Kallari is equality across communities, embodied by their democratic system of leadership. Therefore, equality of access to each community, regardless of size, is of crucial importance. The hub will visit each community once roughly every 10-14 days to make agrotechnical presentations and give the community the opportunity to use the Internet without leaving their village. Additionally, integrating the hub system with current cacao collection ensures that every community will be visited during that collection period.

KallariWeb

As part of our proposal, we have also designed KallariWeb, a new website designed to create connections between and outside of the Kallari communities. Using the access provided by the hub, each community will be able to upload information into its own website within KallariWeb. By visiting the website, consumers will recognize that Kallari is not just a cooperative, but a collection of individual communities who have identities and histories of their own. Furthermore, within each community website each family will be able to upload information onto their own page within KallariWeb. Finally, we have created a Google Earth file which links each community website to its respective location in Ecuador, giving consumers and other interested people another connection to Kallari – this time from a spatial reference perspective. The end result is a navigable mosaic of stories available to the world, connecting the faces of farmers and their families to the chocolate they produce. KallariWeb will also house a message board that will serve as an intercommunity communication and cooperation tool. If our design is chosen, we will be dedicated to following through with the creation and initial maintenance of this web site, which has the potential to change the way the world experiences chocolate.

Farmer- Generated Content

One XO, or “$100 Laptop,” will be donated to each community as part of our proposal, and will be shared by the members of that community during times when the hub is not in their village. This will allow residents to write emails and blog entries, take photographs and videos, and attend to business matters without leaving their community. When the hub arrives, all the material produced can be uploaded to that community’s website on KallariWeb. The first few hub visits will include training on all of this new technology.

IV. Conclusion

We envision a future where Kallari is internationally known for the quality and sustainability of its chocolate, as well as its unique approach to using technology to introduce the invaluable contributions of individual Ecuadorian farmers to the world. Under our proposal, technology will be utilized not only as a tool to enhance global connectivity and economic development, but to foster cultural preservation for the Kichwa people.

We feel strongly that this competition is not only one of building design, but of holistic thinking in crafting solutions to difficult challenges. Our design process embodied this sentiment throughout, and the end result is an interconnected system with culture, environment, and technology at its heart – Chocología.