Usually representing spirits, ancestors or the primordial couple, these figures were placed in shrines and treated with great respect. Through a wide range of style, scale, belief and function the couples depicted share a timeless, serene equality necessary to the continuity of their societies.

Pavilions For Okana / Laura Katharina Strähle & Ellen Rouwendal

Architects: Laura Katharina Strähle Ellen Rouwendal
Location: Okana Village, Kisumu Kenya
Project Team: Chair Graduation Studio Explore Lab | TU Delft Prof Prof. T. Asselbergs | Dr.-Ing. M. Bilow | Ass.-Prof. N. Mota | Prof. T. Avermaete Author Laura Katharina Straehle | E. Rouwendal
Interior Décor: Laura Katharina Strähle & Ellen Rouwendal
Project Year: 2016
Photographer: Laura Katharina Strähle & Ellen Rouwendal
Website: www.laurakatharinastraehle.com

- 02 October 2017
- Edwin Seda
Education Centres , Schools , Sustainability ,

From the Architects:

Pavilions for Okana is a Design & Build Project and an interdisciplinary challenge that seeks to make architecture strudents involved in the daily lives of their clients, predominantly focussing on sustainable architecture and narrowing down on cost.

Pavilions For Okana / Laura Katharina Strähle & Ellen Rouwendal

The combination of design research and architectural composition triggered the project to grow beyond a theoretic level.

Pavilions For Okana / Laura Katharina Strähle & Ellen Rouwendal

Next to the design for a prototypical pavilion structure for the rural communities around Lake Victoria (East-Africa), the project focused on the realization phase following the graduation project.

Pavilions For Okana / Laura Katharina Strähle & Ellen Rouwendal

Hence the co-working students’ responsibility lay within the research of building techniques, cultural and construction patterns resulting in the reinterpretation of traditional patterns of inhabitation and the design for a community centre in Okana (Kenya).

Pavilions For Okana / Laura Katharina Strähle & Ellen Rouwendal

Next to it, managing the follow-up construction phase, acquisition of funding and having the final project leadership on site forms part of the challenge to explore the potential of a Design & Build – approach on academic level initiated by two students.

CLICK TO REVIEW LINKED STORY

Award-winning Japanese Architect, Shigeru Ban, signs deal to design new homes for thousands of refugees in Kenya
Renowned Japanese Architect, Shigeru Ban, winner of the 2014 Pritzker Prize, seen as the “Nobel Prize of Architecture,” has signed an agreement to design up to 20,000 new homes for refugees, in the Kalobeyei Refugee Settlement in Kenya...

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

If you want your own avatar and keep track of your discussions with the community, sign up to archiDATUM >>

SELECTED WORKS

- PORET Permaculture Community Kindergarten / Anna Heringer
- 23 Jan 2017
The permaculture community PORET in Zimbabwe is a client who has inhaled the philosophy of a holistic sustainability. With this project w...
- Oasis Kindergarten Kibera / Maisha Trust
- 08 May 2016
At the heart of Kibera slums located in Nairobi Kenya sits a small beautiful, well laid out kindergarten school. Kibera, the largest slum...
- Making a Case for the Renaissance of Traditional African Architecture
- 08 Mar 2018
Last September, Nigerian Afrobeat musician Wizkid played to a sold-out house at the Royal Albert Hall in London, joining a growing list o...

CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN DIRECTORY

- Westcliff Estate/ Studio Mas
- 02 Apr 2015
Credited with making a significant contribution to the evolution of the modernist house, this building never loses contact with the expan...
- OVD 919/ SAOTA
- 02 Jun 2015
The Brief was to create a spectacular home which encapsulated the expansive 360 degree mountain and sea views. Though views out were par...
- 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair
- 29 Jun 2015
A reference to fifty-four countries that constitute the African continent, the title of 1:54 establishes the parameters of the fair’s eth...